Product Launch & Business Plan
How the console goes from a working prototype to a product sold in Italy and the EU: the legal form and taxes, the certification and registration a battery-powered radio device needs, and a forecast built from our own cost figures.
Not professional advice
The tax and compliance pages size the choices and list what to ask. They do
not replace a commercialista (tax and legal form) or a notified test lab
(CE/RED). Tax parameters are re-checked against the sources by the
/fiscal-italy skill, each with the date it was last checked.
Where we are (2026-10-15)
| Topic | State |
|---|---|
| Prototype | v4.9.0 boards pass all bring-up stages; 13+ systems run at full speed (Next Steps) |
| Cost inputs | board quoted: JLCPCB PCB + PCBA for 5 (order) and 50 (cart, 2026-10-16); display, battery, case, SD, screws from the user; packaging, shipping from the other suppliers, certification, fixed costs and price still placeholders |
| Legal form and taxes | three forms compared by the model; parameters for 2026 written, not yet verified (Taxes in Italy) |
| Software licences | firmware cannot be sold as it is: SNES, CPS1, Neo Geo, MSX cores forbid commercial use; SNES replacement (SNESticle, MIT) in progress (Software licences) |
| Compliance | obligations listed with estimated costs (~10 300 EUR), none started (Launch compliance) |
| Forecast | board cost real (PCBA, 50 per order, ~75 EUR per console landed); price and volumes not decided (Business plan) |
Launch plan
| Phase | Goal | Leaves with |
|---|---|---|
| 0. Numbers | real quotes for parts, PCBA at volume, display, battery, enclosure, packaging, freight | costs.yaml with no placeholders; first forecast |
| 1. Legal form | choose sole trader (forfettario or ordinary) or SRL/SRLS from the forecast, with a commercialista | P.IVA / company, ATECO code |
| 2. Product decisions | what ships in the box (no ROMs, no BIOS, only commercially licensed cores), name and trademark, enclosure process (3D print or mould), battery replaceability | a frozen product definition |
| 3. Compliance | CE under RED (radio, EMC, safety, RF exposure, EN 18031 cybersecurity), RoHS, battery transport tests, WEEE/battery/packaging registrations, GPSR file | test reports, Declaration of Conformity, registrations |
| 4. Pilot batch | a small production run (e.g. 50-200 units), sold to early buyers | real returns and warranty rates; corrected costs |
| 5. Scale | channels (own shop, marketplaces), larger batches, EU sales via OSS | the next forecast replaces the guesses |
The biggest risks, before any number
- Software licences. The GPL cores (NES, GB, SMS, PCE, Mega Drive, GBA, Atari, C64, Virtual Boy...) can be sold for free if the source ships with them. Snes9x, MAME 0.37 (CPS1, Neo Geo), Musashi 3, fMSX, Wolf3D and the N64 ports forbid commercial use and must be replaced or dropped first. See Software licences.
- Games. The console can only ship and be sold with no copyrighted ROMs or BIOS images, and marketing cannot use console makers' trademarks or game art. Freeware/homebrew titles (Freedoom, OpenTyrian) can be bundled under their own licences.
- Radio. The ESP32-S3 module has WiFi/Bluetooth, so the product falls under the Radio Equipment Directive, including its cybersecurity part (EN 18031) in force since 1 August 2025. Disabling the radio in firmware does not remove the obligation while the hardware is there.
- Battery. EU Battery Regulation 2023/1542: portable batteries must be removable and replaceable by the end user from February 2027. The enclosure has to allow it.
- Margins. A hardware product has high costs per unit, so a regime that taxes revenue × a fixed coefficient can tax profit that does not exist. See Taxes in Italy.
Tools
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
scripts/business/costs.yaml | our numbers, each tagged real, prototype or placeholder |
scripts/business/tax_it.yaml | Italian tax parameters, each with its law and the date checked |
scripts/business/bp_model.py | unit economics, break-even, 3-year forecast per scenario and form, cash low point; --update-doc regenerates the Business plan page |
/business-plan skill | collects costs, runs the model, explains the result |
/fiscal-italy skill | verifies the tax parameters and compares the legal forms |
/launch-compliance skill | the certification and registration checklist with costs and lead times |
business-planner agent | owns the three skills |