Tec Toy announces new console: Zeebo!

[thom_m]

Most of you guys know Tec Toy: the brazilian company that represents SEGA and makes (crappy cartridge slot-less) Mega Drives and Master System to this day.

Well, they announced today the prodution of a 100% brazilian console: the Zeebo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeebo). (I'll translate some brazilian news articles about it as soon as I have the time).

They're marketing it as a console to compete with the Ps2. The idea is to have only downloadable games at an affordable price, to avoid piracy. FIFA 2008, Need for Speed Carbon, Prey and Quake have been announced so far.

If you know some portuguese, you can find out more about it here (http://www.zeebo.com.br/). There are some pics as well - the pads look a lot like the Wii's Classic Controller. :D

So, what do you think? The idea seems fine but, taking from their last versions of the Mega Drive and the SMS, I don't know if they'll deliver...

[OldSchoolGamer]

LOL! a Brazillian console designed to combat piracy? That's funny!
Well, fail or succeed all new consoles are welcome, might be a collectable one day even if just for curiousity lol!

[carlcarlson]

Ha, the anti-collector console. No games to collect, just buy the system and you've got everything released.

I never got into obscure systems so I basically couldn't care less. Your mention of Quake, though, made me wish the original was released on the 360 so I could play it on Live!

[Pantechnicon]

Video of the console in action (http://mais.uol.com.br/view/3mk9h8436th5/zeebo-videogame-da-tectoy-04023266E0893326?types=A&). And get a load of that non-sequitur description of Quake on the menu at the 2:48 mark :?/ Clearly they've got some kinks to work out.

Well...even though it seems to be only about as powerful as a Playstation 1 it's still cool to see hardware development being hashed by a country that's not Japan, not the U.S., and more powerful than a famiclone.

[thom_m]

On the press release, they say that Brazilian, French, American and Japanese professionals are involved in the development of the system. Tec Toy is a brazilian company, though - and, as far as I know, they came up with the idea.

Still acording to their release, the console is developed by a company called Zeebo Inc, in San Diego; however, Tec Toy is the main shareholder of this company, which was named Tec Toy America once...:)

[PapaStu]

No one is going to want to pirate PREY or Quake so that helps TecToy considerably. LOL

I guess they've finally started to hit market saturation for the MegaDrive/Master System in Brazil.

[Misto]

I like how the system looks, still needs improvement in graphics and work on getting some games other then Crash Bandicoot Racing and Quake. It looks promising, but will probably turn out to be a flop.

[c0ldb33r]

Very cool!

What's the deal with Brazil btw? First they keep the master system for over 9000 years and now they get this? Weird-o.

Would one of these work on an NTSC set?

[rbudrick]

I have a feeling that the first thing hackers would do is find a way to transfer games off the system to another system. People don't like not having a physical copy when possible and would probably want a backup. Oh, that and people want crap for free.

-Rob

[CosmicMonkey]

Going by the technical specs, it's more powerful than a PSone, but doesn't touch a Dreamcast or PS2. I'm actually quite interested as to what hardware is in the box.

Accelerated Graphics: 1.6 million triangles / second
Audio: 8 channels simultaneous MP3, ADPCM, MIDI
Resolution: 640x480

[Buns34]

So its about as powerful as a PSP?

[CosmicMonkey]

I'd like to see full specs before making any judgment. I'm assuming it's going to be completely off-the-shelf components as TecToy couldn't have the hugest R&D budget.

They should have just licensed the Dreamcast/DC-on-a-chip technology as it's far more powerful than what's currently offered. There's a lot of people out there that have experience with Dreamcast development. There's also a huge amount of titles that already exist that could be licensed too. A DC with built-in BBA and HDD. Mmmmm....

[Steve W]

Who knows, they might be using the abandoned Sega US developed version of the Dreamcast, complete with 3Dfx chips!

[leglevy]

It's the same chipset on the T-Mobile G1 smartphone, the Qualcomm MSM7201A.

http://pdadb.net/index.php?m=cpu&id=a7201a
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=341860

It's supposed to do 1,6 mi pol/seg.

[The 1 2 P]

Here's some more info on the Zeebo: http://www.gamepro.com/article/news/208549/new-zeebo-video-game-console-launching-in-2009/

Part of it looks futuristic and the other part of it just looks cheap.

[icbrkr]

I'll buy one because I seem to collect obscurity.

[jedimind7]

So when is this being released? Or has it already been?

[The 1 2 P]

So when is this being released? Or has it already been?

Had you read the article(that is what they're for) you would know that it's releasing later this year.....in Brazil. Other South American countries will get releases following that one. As for the US, it's still up in the air at this point.