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Revision as of 20:14, 27 May 2005
The Gizmondo is a handheld gaming console with GPRS and GPS technology, produced by Tiger Telematics. The unit itself is expensive in comparison to the established Nintendo handheld lines, although it has a wider variety of functions. As such analysts are dubious about its ability to compete in the crowded portable videogames market.
Releases
Gizmondo was released in the United Kingdom on March 19, 2005, initially priced at £229. However, the price of the unit has since fallen to £129, if the user agrees to be sent three adverts per day through the Gizmondo Smart Ads service. These adverts will often include offers at the end of them, for example coupons, or free music downloads. The device is due to be released in mainland Europe on May 19 2005, and North America on 11 August 2005. A catalogue of about 20 games is being prepared for the Gizmondo, including The Great Escape and Conflict Vietnam. The games portfolio is being increased through Tiger's recent purchase of Warthog and a deal made with SCi.
The Gizmondo is currently available from the Gizmondo store on London's Regent Street, the Gizmondo webshop and other retail partners.
Functionality and specifications
The Gizmondo can play games, music tracks and movies, take and store digital photos and be used like a mobile phone to send text, multimedia and e-mail messages, but not voice messages.
In the UK, the phone service to enable people to send messages is being provided by pre-pay Vodafone accounts bundled in with the device. It can also access the Global Positioning System for use as a navigation aid. There are also plans to support a variety of location-based services, for example. GPRS and Bluetooth wireless connections are intended to provide multiplayer gaming.
The Gizmondo is powered by a 400 MHz ARM9 processor and has a 2.8 inch 240x320 pixels TFT screen and an NVIDIA GoForce 3D 4500 GPU featuring a programmable pixel shader, hardware transform engine and 1280KB of embedded memory. The GPU was added relatively late in the system's design, causing some delays for launch titles and the system as they were redesigned.
The system's appearance and ergonomics were created by industrial designer Rick Dickinson, who worked in a similar role on various Sinclair products such as the ZX Spectrum.
Competition
The Gizmondo is currently competing for marketshare with handheld consoles by Nintendo (the DS and Game Boy Advance) and Sony (the PlayStation Portable, as well as the similar Tapwave Zodiac.
See also
External links
- Gizmondo home page
- GamingMoz - Gizmondo games documentation.
- Gizmondo Gadget hits the shelves - BBC.co.uk on Gizmondo release
- Tiger Telematics
- Gizmondo Forums - Fansite
- GiZone - Fansite
- Gizmondo Central - fansite