Gizmondo

The Gizmondo was a handheld gaming console manufactured by Tiger Telematics and launched in March 2005 in the UK and in October 2005 in the US. However, the Gizmondo sold poorly, and by February of 2006 the company was forced into bankruptcy and the console was discontinued.

Features

The device could play a variety of 2D/3D games, along with WMV/MPEG4 videos and MP3/WAV/MIDI music, and contained a 1.3 Megapixel camera mounted on the rear of the device. The Gizmondo was bundled with a pre-pay Vodafone account, which enabled owners to send email and SMS/MMS messages; however, the device lacked the ability to send or receive voice calls. In addition, the unit included GPRS and GPS technology, which could be used for in-car navigation or to track player movement in real-time for multiplayer games.

The system's ergonomics and appearance were designed by Rick Dickinson, who had worked on various Sinclair products such as the ZX Spectrum.

Gizmondo was powered by a ARM9 processor running at 400 MHz, with an NVIDIA 128 bit GoForce 3D 4500 GPU featuring a hardware transform engine, programmable pixel shader and 1280KB of embedded memory, along with a 2.8 inch 320x240 pixels TFT screen. The NVIDIA GPU was a relatively late addition to the system's design, which required the launch titles to be redesigned, causing delays for the launch of the system.

Launch

The console was released in the United Kingdom, initially priced at £229. However, purchasers could choose models units enabled with "Smart Ads", which had a reduced RRP of £129. On these systems, 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 required to watch them before selcting the next function or shutting down the device. The device was available via Gizmondo's online shop, from the Gizmondo flagship store on London's Regent Street, and other highstreet and online retailers such as Dixons, Currys, Argos and John Lewis.

In the US, the Gizmondo was launched on October 22, 2005 at a retail price of $400, or $229 for a Smart Ads enabled device. Devices were available only through Gizmondo's website or at one of several kiosks located in shopping malls. However, a few weeks before launch, Tiger Telematics announced plans for a widescreen Gizmondo for the following year, which would have a larger screen and upgrades such as Wi-Fi and TV-out support. This announcement possibly deterred potential customers from buying the device, in order to wait for the improved model.

Games

Although many games were planned for the Gizmondo, only a fraction of these were ever released due to the company's bankruptcy in February 2006. These included:

• Ball Busters
• 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
• FIFA 2005
• Hockey Rage 2005
• Motocross 2005
• Pocket Pingpong
• Point of Destruction
• SSX 3
• Sticky Balls
• Toy Golf
• Trailblazer