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Hands-On With The Tapwave Zodiac
Thanks to IGN Pocket for their hands-on preview of Tapwave's Zodiac handheld gaming system. The author suggests: "Whether or not Tapwave has the marketing muscle to steal away important market share from Nintendo remains to be seen, but at the very least the company has made a huge first impression when it comes to handheld system design." This Palm-compatible handheld has custom 3D game titles, including Spy Hunter, which IGN found "...very reminiscent of the PC's early years with the 3DFX Voodoo card", but overall, concerns about lack of "hard partnerships" with big publishers and the fact that the "price [$299-$399] definitely needs to come down" have the previewer worrying that this "great handheld design with incredible technical potential" may ultimately go neglected.
superior but inferior(and there was already gp32 around). superior in hardware but expensive and jumping into a market that needs lots of $$$ up front for advertising if they want to make it happen in the long run(and they also need some games with long long long lasting appeal).
also having two different models, what were they thinking? i bet the games do look and feel nice though.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I'd agree with you - if playing games was the only thing this device was good for. But a PalmOS PDA with a good processor, 32 MB RAM, 480x320 screen and Bluetooth like this for USD 299 may well be viable even without a single game. Now, add the ability to play good games, and you've got something very interesting.
Granted, I don't think this device will cut into GBA's market segment. I think it will mostly be bought by people who would otherwise had bought some other PalmOS device. And remember, there already are a lot of interesting PalmOS games out there that work on this device too. Many of them are crap, but there are so many to choose from, there's bound to be some good ones around too.
-Enfors-
Think about it -- competition has brought the GameCube down to $99. The GBA, with no real competition, is now more expensive than the Cube.
While I don't care to argue about the consequences of monopolies (or whether or not there is one), I do have to point this out. The GBA is about half the price of the Cube, and the GBA-SP is the same price, not more expensive (I bought a black GBA-SP not too long ago for $99, and that's the MSRP). The SP is also a significantly newer piece of hardware than the Cube, although most of it's internals are the same as those of the GBA.
The SP is basically at the price the market will pay, as is the Cube (based on the huge increases they've seen in sales since lowering the price). Lowering the price of the SP might increase sales, but not nearly in the way that lowering the price of the Cube has. On the other hand, you always have the choice of buying a standard GBA or GB Player for half the price to play GBA games.
And yes, I got a rebate in the mail from Nintendo for the things they did with the NES pricing. When all was said and done, that was a joke, too, because it was a coupon towards a game, which, of course, Nintendo made some money on (though the rebate cut into that profit somewhat).
-PainKilleR-[CE]
Personally, as someone that has been looking at PDAs for a while, I may buy one of these eventually (though not right away, as I won't have the cash in the near future). That being said, I will purchase it as a good PDA, not as a handheld console. Whether or not it can succeed on those types of purchases remains to be seen. I may pick up some games if they have some good ones available, but it's not going to be the primary purpose of the device for me.
The only reason I see a problem here is that I haven't really seen a lot of reaction from PDA owners to this device. It seems like they may be having issues with marketing to the right people, though again I'd rather wait and see what the launch looks like and what kind of advertising comes along once it's available.
The NGage may have it's own limited success in the area of people looking for that specific type of phone, rather than people looking for handheld gaming devices. Personally, I'm more than happy with my cheap Ericsson R300D; there's nothing special about it, it's just a phone with 4 half-assed games and no really special features (like colour, polyphonic rings, etc.) or features that would force me to leave it in the car half the time (like a camera which I wouldn't be able to bring to work). Do I play games on my phone? Sure, but they're games I can play with one hand while I'm out on a smoke break or waiting in line at the store, and can shut off at any time.
-PainKilleR-[CE]
- Have the same price point (or within about $30 of the GBA)
- Have a significant technological lead
- Cement a lot of software partnerships before launch
- Probably cut a better licensing deal for the software developers than Nintendo offers
I love the GBA (when I can get it out of the hands of my son :-) ), but a little *viable* competition for Nintendo would really help in that end of the market.