The Gizmondo handheld video game unit. United States and British coins included for scale.
For the technology blog, see
Gizmodo.
The Gizmondo was a handheld gaming console with GPRS and
GPS technology, which was manufactured by Tiger Telematics. Launched in
2005,[1] the Gizmondo sold poorly, and by
February of 2006 the company discontinued the Gizmondo and was forced into bankruptcy.
Gizmondo was overshadowed by Stefan Eriksson's involvement in organized crime.
Functionality and specifications
The Gizmondo includes a GPS module for in-car navigation which could
also be used to track player movement in real-time for multiplayer games. It also
contains a 0.3 Megapixel VGA camera mounted on the rear of the device. The Gizmondo can play MP3/WAV/MIDI music,
WMV/MPEG4 videos and a variety of 2D/3D games. It can send email and even
SMS/MMS messages, although
it lacks the ability to send or receive voice calls.
The phone service to enable users to send messages was provided by pre-pay Vodafone accounts
bundled with the device. It can also access the Global Positioning System for
use as a navigation aid. There were plans to support a variety of location-based services, for example. GPRS and Bluetooth wireless connections were intended to
provide multiplayer gaming.
The Gizmondo also had a feature called "Smart Ads." In exchange for a discount on the Gizmondo (of $170 in the US, £100 in the
UK), up to three advertisements per day would be displayed on the handheld’s screen. Although the ads would not interrupt game
play or other functions of the unit, the user would be forced to watch them before going on to the next function or shutting down
the device. However because of the closure of the company, "Smart Ads" currently do not run on the 'Smart Ads' enabled
devices.
Gizmondo is powered by a 400 MHz ARM9 processor and has a 2.8 inch 320x240 pixels
TFT screen and an NVIDIA 128 bit GoForce 3D 4500
GPU featuring fixed-pipeline shading, hardware transform engine and 1280KB of
embedded memory (only 830KB are left when memory is allocated for the double buffers and the z-buffer).
GE (Gametrac Europe), before changing its name to Gizmondo, said it will offer mobile data communications, such as texting,
multimedia messaging, WAP, email, and over-the-air game, music and ringtone downloads, but not voice. The device would feature a
tri-band radio. It supports GSM Class 4 and GPRS Class 12 connections. 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.
Gizmondo Widescreen
Tiger Telematics planned to release a widescreen Gizmondo in 2006. It was intended to have a larger screen and upgrades like
Wi-Fi and TV-out support. The widescreen Gizmondo was announced just a few weeks before the US launch of the Gizmondo, possibly
prompting some potential customers to not buy the Gizmondo, and instead wait for the improved model.[2]
UK release
Gizmondo was released in the United Kingdom on 19
March, 2005, initially priced at £229. Units enabled with "Smart Ads" (see below) had a
reduced RRP of £129. The Gizmondo was available from the Gizmondo flagship store on London's Regent Street, via Gizmondo's online shop, and other
highstreet and online retailers (such as Argos, Dixons,
Currys, John Lewis among others).
U.S. release
In the United States the Gizmondo launched on October
22, 2005. Retail price was $400 for a unit without Smart Ads, or $229 for a Smart Ads
enabled device. It was available only through Gizmondo’s website or at one of several kiosks located in shopping malls. However,
only 8 of the planned 14 games were ever released in the U.S., along with no CoPilot GPS software, though the software was sold
on the British site for a week or two. There was little to no advertising, and some of their advertising was even put in
magazines of Nintendo Power (Nintendo's official magazine). Plans to distribute the handheld through other retailers never
materialized.
Games
At the time of the US launch (22nd October 2005), fourteen games were available for the Gizmondo.
- Classic Compendium 1 (Chess, Checkers, Backgammon, Four-in-a-line, Reversi, Othello)
- Classic Compendium 2 (Shogi, Chinese
Chess, Gomoku, Chinese Checkers and TaiPei)
- Fathammer Classics for Gizmondo: Angelfish, Stuntcar Extreme, Super Drop Mania (3 game bundle)
- FIFA 2005
- Interstellar Flames 2
- Hockey Rage 2005
- Motocross 2005
- Pocket Pingpong
- Point of Destruction
- Rayman
- Richard Burns Rally
- SSX 3
- Sticky Balls
- Toy Golf
- Trailblazer
Hit & Myth was the only game that was released after the US launch on the 13th April
2006.
Some games that were going to be released:
Although more games were in development, the company’s bankruptcy prevented release of further titles. A list of Gizmondo
games can be found here. There were also rumors of Microsoft trying to port
Halo (series) games on the Gizmondo, but the possibility vanished when Tiger Telematics
went bankrupt. The most anticipated Gizmondo game, Colors, was never released due to
the company’s bankruptcy (and would have been one of the few exclusives).
References
See also
External links
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
