Does Gizmondo Have a Chance?

[adolescent]

First off, show of hands...  Who has heard of Gizmondo?

www.gizmondo.com



Gizmondo is a new handheld game (and email/camera/gps/mp3 & video player/etc.) system from Tiger Telematics.  The system does just about everything, and the specs look very promising (400MHz ARM9 CPU, Nvidia GoForce 3D 4500 GPU, 2.8" 240x320 TFT, etc.).  Even the game lineup isn't bad.  Heck, they have Carmaggedon. :-D

But who will buy it?  

(I'm going to make a point to check one out tomorrow on it's release date...  but, I just bought a Gameboy Micro so I'll have to really be impressed to spend more $$$ this month...)

[adolescent]

BTW, the price looks decent for what you get (provided it all works, and works well).

$229 for base unit with Smart Adds*
$499 for base unit with GPS Navigation package and Smart Adds*

The catch:

Smart Adds are directed video advertisements sent out via GPRS.  So, owners will have to sit through commercials.  :-D  Although, they are limiting the number of adds to 3 a day.

[adolescent]

@Cyberus

That's what I was thinking.  I'm trying to figure out if they're trying to market this as a game system (where it will be killed), or as an electronic swiss army knife (where there might not be much of a market).

At the very least it's much more promising than the Nokia N-Gage.

[adolescent]

@Dan

I assume by 3rd party you mean homebrew (there are licensed 3rd parties, EA, SCI, etc.).  But yes, I expect it to be.

The GPX2 looks really good.  But, are they going to market it outside of Asia?  That's the problem I had with the GP32.  That and all of the 3rd parties dropped off really early.  Although, the homebrew market picked up the slack.