N-gage Vs. Zodiac

[Slipdeath]

....

[Darth Sensei]

How about a "None of the above" choice in your poll?

Dave

[Half Japanese]

DEFINITELY THE ZODIAC. I'm sort of tempted to buy one, but as with the N-Gage, the $300 pricepoint ($400 for the better model) is a little offsetting. Whatever happened to 'sell the system for cheap and recoup cash on the games'? The Zodiac looks far more interesting than the N-Gage and I'd probably buy one for $99, but not until then.

[ubikuberalles]

Whatever happened to 'sell the system for cheap and recoup cash on the games'?

Probably because Nokia thinks of the N-gage as a cell phone that plays games and so they price it as a top -of-the-line cell phone. That's the only explanation that makes sense to me.

[Captain Wrong]

What the hell is a Zodiac, aside from the odvious.

[Slipdeath]

What the hell is a Zodiac, aside from the odvious.
www.tapwave.com

[Rev. Link]

I definately want a Zodiac. It'd be cool to have a portable MP3 and video player that also functions as a PDA. And it plays games, on top of that! :)

$400 is a bit much though.

As for N-Gage, I won't buy one until it hits the bargain bins. $40 or less.

[hamburgler]

Zodiac definitly. 8-) N-Gage definitly not. LOL

[RetroYoungen]

I voted Zodiac. I admit, I haven't played it yet, but the design is impressive and I've played a bit of the N-Gage ( :( :? ).

Plus, even if you don't need a game system, it's a Palm, and a good Palm is always good to have. And if I ever get one I won't have to dl much to play my anime on it :D 8-)

[maxlords]

Well....I'd say Zodiac, but I won't pay that price for it!

[Captain Wrong]

What the hell is a Zodiac, aside from the odvious.
www.tapwave.com


Ahh...so it's kind of like a game playing PDA?

*sigh* What ever happened to just making a console that plays games? I don't want or need all that other crap, but I do want a true next gen protable gaming maching.

[slapdash]

What the hell is a Zodiac, aside from the odvious.
www.tapwave.com


Ahh...so it's kind of like a game playing PDA?

*sigh* What ever happened to just making a console that plays games? I don't want or need all that other crap, but I do want a true next gen protable gaming maching.

What they need to do is make the connector allow add-ons like a phone, TV tuner, PDA w/memory, MP3 player, etc, but not build it in. That way 1) the gamers don't have to pay for crap they don't want, and 2) those who want it can buy it, and the system is set up to be able to HAVE those addons. And yet no one has figured that out...

Of course, it would likely raise the base price of the game system by $5-25 or so, depending, not to mention that the price of the add-ons will cost more than if they'd been built in, and that may be why they don't do it.

[Zaxxon]

I suspect that huge screen is the bulk of the units cost. The only way to significantly reduce the cost would be to use a much smaller non-backlit screen. Removing the mp3 chip and other software probably wouldn't reduce the units price by much ($25?).

But it's worth it just to experience the "Fathammer X-Forge™ 3D Game Engine". oooh.. How stupid. :roll:


Fathammer X-Forge™=blast processing™

[Ed Oscuro]

Four brave souls have voted for the N-Gage so far.

I don't see how I could conscientiously vote for either. $400 for a Tapwave is ridiculous as far as most gamers (including myself) are concerned. While it undoubtedly does everything much better than the N-Gage (that it's meant to do, that is; doesn't have all the thrown-on functionality of the N-Gage) this comes with a rather high price, even for a Palm (Palm Tungsten and the Compaq iPAQ 3635 are both very close to $400 on Amazon.com; they're new machines).

[whoisKeel]

$300, $400 for a portable? Insanity. I don't even see $300 as the lesser of two evils if you're already paying that much. You could buy a gba, a discman with mp3 support, and a cell phone for that much. how many mp3s can you load up on one of those anyways? i doubt anything decent.

[Ed Oscuro]

For me, that money buys maybe two rare games :D

...Or would buy a whole lot of Nintendo game guides from Japan as well as a couple needed additions to my collection. I don't like buying many new games at all 'cause most don't have the right "price point" for me.

In other news, I think Tom's Hardware should close down their game reviews section. They're among the weakest reviews on a professional site I've seen; not incisive or compelling to read, and their rather glowing review of the N-Gage bears that out:

http://www.tomshardware.com/consumer/20031030/nokia-05.html#conclusion