Gizmondo - The handheld that refuses to die.

[diskoboy]

Looks like the Gizmondo may see the light of day, once again.

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/01/24/gizmondo-refuses-to-stay-dead/

The inventor of the device now wants to market it himself. Without help of Stefan "I love to destroy Ferrari's" Eriksson. Which is probably a wise business decision (key word - 'probably'. I still don't see it selling too well)

Hopefully, they'll finally release Colors. That was the only game on the entire platform that sounded like it had some promise. But the thing could definitely use a facelift. The Gizmondo was one damn ugly lookin' hunk of plastic.

[Steve W]

You know, just because the company was created by criminals just to scam investors out of money doesn't mean that it was bad technology. I have one, and it's a pretty nice machine. If they decide to bring it back, I'd love to see some of the GPS-enabled games that they were planning on releasing originally. Or the Augmented Reality games (like Eye of Judgement on the PS3) that were on the verge of being released before all the shit hit the fan. They had a lot of good ideas, just bad management. I'd like to see the Gizmondo get a little niche of the market and stick it out for a while, just to see them reach at least a part of the handheld's full potential.

[Bojay1997]

It's an interesting story that just never seems to end. The company that is re-releasing the Gizmondo is the same one that developed and implemented the GPS functions on the system. I'm not sure why they're doing business with Carl Freer who is not exactly an innocent victim in the previous corporate antics, but I would be happy just to see a few more games released.

[Steve W]

Yeah, Carl Freer being involved with it does send up a few flags. He was involved at least partially in the whole investment scam. I know he went on to work with some other technology company that didn't pan out, maybe he's thinking he could go legit with the Gizmondo II. I hope they go with the widescreen version. And release Furious Phil. I was really looking forward to that one, along with Alien Hominid (before I bought the GameCube version and found out it was hard as nails).

[vintagegamecrazy]

I too would love to see it come back, it was an interesting and unique system and I always welcome more contenders in the console race.

[Steve W]

http://sandberghans.blogspot.com/2008/01/carl-freer-starts-over-with-gizmondo.html

An interesting idea if this guy can pull it off... He thinks he can get the price of the handheld down to $99. And he's still considering putting out the widescreen version, if everything works out. This could be pretty cool.

[98PaceCar]

Pulling this thread back up to the top again as I know there's a few Gizmondo collectors around here. There's a seller on ebay UK that has copies of Interstellar Flames 2 and Fifa 2005 right now. I've seen Fifa for sale before, but not IF2. The price is good, so grab them while they are out there!

Seller's name is p1tlimited.

[slapdash]

Not any more apparently... :-(

[Bojay1997]

Not any more apparently... :-(

Yep. Looks like several buyers bought multiple copies. Plenty of Fifa left though.

[98PaceCar]

Wow! They sure didn't last long. I know it's one of the Euro exclusives, but is it that rare? Giz stuff never seems to move very quickly anymore.

[Bojay1997]

Wow! They sure didn't last long. I know it's one of the Euro exclusives, but is it that rare? Giz stuff never seems to move very quickly anymore.

It is very hard to find. I haven't even seen a single complete copy on Ebay.UK in over a year now. Not sure what the actual print run numbers were, but it seems like it sold out within weeks of the company going into liquidation. Most of the other games were and are available pretty easily.

[98PaceCar]

It is very hard to find. I haven't even seen a single complete copy on Ebay.UK in over a year now. Not sure what the actual print run numbers were, but it seems like it sold out within weeks of the company going into liquidation. Most of the other games were and are available pretty easily.

I've been watching for it for some time now. Got lucky I guess. With IF2 and Fifa, I've completed the run of games, though I'm still missing 2 US versions (have the Euro versions instead). Not sure if I'll try to track down the copilot setup for the US or not. I guess if one comes along, I'll probably grab it just because.

Do you happen to know if there are any versions of Johnny Whatever out there other than what was on the E3 cart? The E3 demo is short, but probably my favorite game on the system. It's a shame it was never released.

[98PaceCar]

To the top again. The same seller that had the Interstellar Flames 2 now has some of the US Navigator software listed.

Linky:http://cgi.ebay.com/Gizmondo-USA-Navigator_W0QQitemZ270438780972QQcmdZViewItemQQptZ UK_AudioTVElectronics_GPSSystems_GPSSystems?hash=i tem3ef768502c&_trksid=p3286.m63.l1177#ht_500wt_976

He's also got a good selection of the other UK titles and was great to work with the last time around.

[Bojay1997]

To the top again. The same seller that had the Interstellar Flames 2 now has some of the US Navigator software listed.

Linky:http://cgi.ebay.com/Gizmondo-USA-Navigator_W0QQitemZ270438780972QQcmdZViewItemQQptZ UK_AudioTVElectronics_GPSSystems_GPSSystems?hash=i tem3ef768502c&_trksid=p3286.m63.l1177#ht_500wt_976

He's also got a good selection of the other UK titles and was great to work with the last time around.

Good to hear. The US Navigator software is probably the rarest released software for the Gizmondo. Each kiosk only got one copy when they opened in the US and never got additional copies since they never quite got the GPS servers working in the States. I don't think they even really sold it in the UK at retail, although there have been several previous Ebay UK sales of the software. In any event, this is a great price for something that probably won't be turning up very often down the road.

[slapdash]

Yeah, thanks much. I missed out on Interstellar Flames 2, and I'd rather have had that, but what the hell... GPS here I come!

[NayusDante]

"Carl Freer says that he already has an agreement with a Chinese company in Shenzhen."

I knew the crappy plastic on the Gizmondo looked familiar. If I'm not mistaken, Shenzhen is a slang term for counterfit electronics, since so many of them allegedly originate there. I'm not so sure about how safe the device is now.

I was excited when I originally heard about the Gizmondo, but it's not very exciting anymore. You can get a real GPS for that price, so it's kinda like buying a PSP to play music. If I were to buy another handheld right now, I'd put down a deposit on a Pandora (http://openpandora.org/).

Gizmondo gave us the most interesting industry story yet, and probably ever. John Romero threatened to make us his bitch, but he never wrecked a Ferrari and blamed some non-existant guy named Dietrich. Unless they get some killer software for it, it's already six feet underground. I dare them to make a "Pokemon killer," and bring about a second renaissance of portable monster training. There's not much else that a portable game console could do right now to innovate.


If they market it as something OTHER than a game console, it might do better. I think there's a market for a device much like a smartphone, but with more information functionality instead of cellular phone capabilities. Imagine a device designed around the things that teenagers do, like social networking, music, and casual web surfing. Now, build it into not only the device itself, but a virtual machine that you can run on any computer when you connect it via USB, with one consistent interface for both the device and the VM. Everything that today's youth recognize as the data and programs on their computer, portable and in their pocket. If you want to shake up the handheld market, that's the way to go. Me, I just want a better gaming device.

[Bojay1997]

"Carl Freer says that he already has an agreement with a Chinese company in Shenzhen."

I knew the crappy plastic on the Gizmondo looked familiar. If I'm not mistaken, Shenzhen is a slang term for counterfit electronics, since so many of them allegedly originate there. I'm not so sure about how safe the device is now.

I was excited when I originally heard about the Gizmondo, but it's not very exciting anymore. You can get a real GPS for that price, so it's kinda like buying a PSP to play music. If I were to buy another handheld right now, I'd put down a deposit on a Pandora (http://openpandora.org/).

Gizmondo gave us the most interesting industry story yet, and probably ever. John Romero threatened to make us his bitch, but he never wrecked a Ferrari and blamed some non-existant guy named Dietrich. Unless they get some killer software for it, it's already six feet underground. I dare them to make a "Pokemon killer," and bring about a second renaissance of portable monster training. There's not much else that a portable game console could do right now to innovate.


If they market it as something OTHER than a game console, it might do better. I think there's a market for a device much like a smartphone, but with more information functionality instead of cellular phone capabilities. Imagine a device designed around the things that teenagers do, like social networking, music, and casual web surfing. Now, build it into not only the device itself, but a virtual machine that you can run on any computer when you connect it via USB, with one consistent interface for both the device and the VM. Everything that today's youth recognize as the data and programs on their computer, portable and in their pocket. If you want to shake up the handheld market, that's the way to go. Me, I just want a better gaming device.

Dude, what are you talking about? The Gizmondo was already released years ago and is just a novelty collectors item with some hard to find games. I realize that there was talk a year or two ago about Carl Freer relaunching the system, but the economy seems to have crushed that talk for good.

[Steve W]

To the top again. The same seller that had the Interstellar Flames 2 now has some of the US Navigator software listed.
I wasn't aware the US Navigator software was ever released. I know that the manager of the Austin development studio Warthog (renamed Gizmondo Texas after they were bought out) used to go on to a Gizmondo collector's forum and talk about having beta copies of the US Nav software, along with plans to put out limited amounts of unreleased games they finished development on but didn't have the money to go into manufacture.

I don't do eBay, so there's very little chance of my finding any other Gizmondo software to add to my meager 5 game collection. Dallas was the only city in Texas that got a Gizmondo mall kiosk, so I keep hoping I might find some stuff in the wild (a co-worker told me that a Movie Trading Company had a Gizmondo, but didn't tell me which location, so I ended up hitting every store in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and didn't find anything). I prefer to find my stuff in the wild.