Gaming & Culture —

The Gizmondo widescreen, spitting in the face of the two people interested in the original

I mean, c'mon now. This is just dumb.

It's probably not a good idea to announce the new improved model of a handheld system before the first one even launches. You're basically telling early adopters that they'd be idiots to buy the first version of the hardware, since apparently a much better one is coming down the line. Yes, all of us console and PC gamers do this anyway, but at least the companies don't rub our noses in it. Welcome to Tiger Telematic's latest mistake with the Gizmondo.

The handheld console, which is supposed to be a media player and game system as well as a GPS and I believe a slushie machine, looks like a PSP with less game support. Considering the PSP has damn near no game support, that's just a sad state of affairs. Even worse is the fact that Tiger is already hyping the next iteration of the hardware, which will support widescreen, much like Sony's system.

I just don't get this move. It's one thing to have a console flop and then do a redesign like the NGage did, and no one is questioning that the Gizmondo is going to flop. It's quite another to announce a redesign before you ship a single unit. If the old unit is that crappy, at least hold up release and make the redesign the standard one. Who would buy a console when a better one is already announced?  

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