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G1 Google Phone Could End Up the Most Popular Console Ever
Jon Jordan writes "Pocket Gamer has been getting its fingers inside the unique new Zeebo console — a sub $200 system designed for emerging markets — to discover it's based on a hacked version of the T-Mobile G1 Google phone. It effectively consists of the chipset from the HTC Dream/G1 Android phone, plus some extra I/O to deal with TV screens, controllers and the like. If this gaming, entertainment and educational console for the billion-strong middle classes in emerging economies such as Brazil and India catches on, HTC could become a serious global gaming force. Qualcomm's Mike Yuen said in an interview, 'We have this mass market chipset, and our next-generation chipset is getting faster. What we announced, [Qualcomm's] Snapdragon [chipset], is going to netbooks; it bumps it a few notches above that. The cell phone business, including us, is never going to build a processor that's going to match or surpass what the video game guys do. So, why chase that?'"
Well, if they want to sell a lot of copies in Brazil all they have to do is show someone in a soap opera playing it. Or in the Big Brother show. You think I'm kidding: we have a store that sells houseware stuff, we keep an eye on what they show on tv because the next day people will be in here looking for the same stuff.
Who is this Karma guy and why is he bad ??
And the iPhone is going to be competitive gaming platform too!
People.
Look at the fucking sales for the Nintendo DS.
Look at them. 103 million Nintendo DSs have been sold without contracts, for use as a game system.
Then look at the software sales.
The DS has well over 400 million software sales under it's belt. Keep in mind these games typically sell for $39.95.
Fighting against Nintendo in handheld games is a fool's errand.
Why would someone buy a console with no titles, regardless of price?
Apparently it runs titles for Qualcomm BREW. You might recognize BREW from Verizon Wireless in the United States. From the article: "They submit their games to Qualcomm as they would any other BREW application, and they get paid in the same way." But I've read that BREW is even more closed and painful than the iPhone SDK.
Where are the games? They're going to have to cost a lot less than $12 for what you'll be able to play on that device. It almost would have made more sense just to go back to selling the original Playstation or something.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The photo at the top of the article makes it clear that the PROTOTYPE for the Zeebo is a TMobile G1 attached to a miniPCI video in/video out card and apparently another miniPCI 802.11g wireless card. This is definitely not going into production.
Will the Zeebo take off? Definitely not.
The developers seem to forget that there IS a very popular low-cost console sold in emerging markets, the PS2. The PS2 has VASTLY more capabilities than the Zeebo will have, has thousands of games, and it's cheaper. New games are being released for the PS2, at a rate that will almost certainly beat Zeebo. Did I mention the games are vastly superior on the PS2?
My wife and I are both in our 30s, and certainly do not have a celibate marriage. We have a pair of PS3's, and we spent last night playing Street Fighter 4. Usually she's on Xenosaga or a Final Fantasy game and I'm on an FPS or TPS of some sort.
Most of my friends are in their 30s. Only a few of them don't have consoles. With the exception of one girl who just turned 30 (and just got a PS3... maybe it's something about that magic 30), none of us use Wii's for anything other than entertaining small children. Don't misrepresent me as saying the Wii is garbage - I never said it doesn't do a specific job acceptably. But you can NOT make the ridiculous claim that anyone who's ever gotten laid prefers Wii-style games.
My 229 is all the Sig I need http://thegunwiki.com/