Gizmondo (2005, $ 400 or $ 229 with “Smart Adds”)
The only portable gaming console ever – as far as we know –released by former members of the Swedish mafia, Gizmondo actually looks pretty good on paper. At the same time, an MP3 player, GPS (to keep your kids safe, see), text messaging device, and game console, the weird and small digital potato feels smooth enough when you see it running. And if that $ 400 price seems exorbitant, well, go ahead and choose a “Smart Adds” enabled model, for almost half the cost, in exchange for tracking a few streaming ads a day, of course. (This may be the most advanced aspect of the whole play, now that we think about it.)
Launched by Tiger Telematics (unrelated to Tiger Electronics), Gizmondo didn’t even have to wait for Nintendo to come and crush it; Massive excessive promotional spending, incredibly lax sales, and what were supposed to be rather shady financial transactions led to a quick bankruptcy for the other Tiger in 2006. DS could have gone over new functions, but at least Nintendo didn’t go out and bought a controlling stake in a modeling studio just to help promote the curse.
digiBLAST (2005, 90 USD)
One of several devices on this list that were essentially embryonic tablets – two years before Apple finally took a decent hit to break the concept with the original iPhone – Nikko’s DigiBLAST is a classic case to try to do too much with far too little. Launched primarily in European markets, the odd square was as much a media player as a gaming device, allowing children to watch (muddy) versions of their favorite TV shows on its (decidedly muddy) screen before changing cartridges for render unclear interpretations. of Rayman or Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4.
In defense of Nikko, Nintendo tried to address this idea of video player in GBA times. (We may be interested in you a presentation of the GBA cut a Principle?) But by 2005, the company had adopted the idea that its devices were toy cars in the first place, especially and only – perhaps because it had seen so many other competitors stepping out of the race trying to be all things to all children.
Caanoo (2010, $ 150)
Throughout this history, we have focused on the role that the Nintendo software library has played in pushing its portable sales. Well, I finally came up with a system that can also benefit from all of Mario’s hard work through the magic of theft. (Or emulation, if you want to specify.) Launched by South Korea’s GamePark Holdings, Caanoo was one of a handful of laptops that hit the market in the DS era, which stood out through open source – that is, anyone you could write software for them without worrying about getting certified from Nintendo or anyone else. These boxes, which included Dingoo and later Pandora, were essentially just small laptops that anyone could program. And what they usually scheduled them to do was play old NES, SNES, Game Boy and Genesis games, because honestly, why not?
Caanoo itself did not last long, but open source portable platforms only accelerated interest, despite what Nintendo would probably prefer, the famous intolerant of anyone screwing up with his copyright. (God only knows what I make of Arduboy, a riff powered by Arduino on Nintendo’s most famous portable device that is about the size of a credit card.)