Have you seen any scrypt asics that have been worthwhile investments? Why not?
Asics for bitcoins came onto the scene and established the rules.. The rules are.. the market is dumb. And you don't need to price your hardware competitively as long as you can own the market.
You price your asic at a projected break-even point of a 3-6 months of mining, depending on how many suckers you can get to buy it.
What's the benefit of building asics for yourself? You own a % of the market and take on all the risk of making, maintaining hw.
What's the benefit of selling asics? You own 100% of the market, because you can price it so high that people will pay you 3-6 months worth of mining up front.. And then you sell them 1st gen stuff which will be obsolete when 2nd gen comes out in 3-6 months. Miners are doing calculations to see if it's profitable to buy the next gen.. Meanwhile, the hw you sell is ALL profit. Small base manufacturing price, 90%+ "R&D" margin.
Would it really? Every ASIC manufacturer does that, there is no point in being the first on the market by months if your pre-order is already sold out. You just 'delay the launch' and mine for your own gains with the hardware paid for by customers. Then, when your current ASIC material has lost it's profitability because you have a new generation ready, you release the old generation and start the circle all over again.
So this plays to my point. Why would an asic manufacturer not announce as soon as they have one developed? What can they hope to gain by keeping it secret? Pennies compared what they can make if they announce.