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G1 Google Phone Could End Up the Most Popular Console Ever

Posted by Soulskill on from the except-in-america dept.

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?'"

2 of 116 comments (clear)

  1. HAHA NO by sexconker · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  2. Summary is misleading by rtechie · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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?