The 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, the Gizmondo actually looks pretty good on paper. Simultaneously an MP3 player, GPS (to protect your children, see), a text messaging device, i gaming console, the weird little digital potato feels soft enough when you see it working. And if that $ 400 price seems exorbitant, then you’re going to be looking for a “Smart Adds-enabled” model for almost half the cost, in exchange for seeing a few streaming ads a day, of course. (This may be the most advanced aspect of the whole piece, now that we think about it).
Published by Tiger Telematics (unrelated to Tiger Electronics), Gizmondo didn’t even have to wait for Nintendo to come and crush it; massive promotional overspending, incredibly lax sales, and what were claimed to be some rather bleak financial self-operations caused a quick bankruptcy for the other Tiger in 2006. The DS could have overtaken the new features, but at least Nintendo didn’t go out to buy a controlling stake in a model studio just to help promote the damn thing.
digiBLAST (2005, $ 90)
One of several devices on this list that were essentially embryonic tablets – two years before Apple finally made a decent hit to break the concept with the original iPhone – Nikko’s digiBLAST is a classic case of trying to do too much little. Launched primarily in European markets, The Strange Square was both a media player and a play device, allowing children to watch (muddy) versions of their favorite TV shows on screen (decidedly muddy), before changing cartridges for reproduce them with blurred interpretations. of Rayman or Pro Skater 4 by Tony Hawk.
In defense of Nikko, Nintendo tried to address this idea of video player also in the days of GBA. (Can we interest you? a sample of the GBA cut of Principles?) But in 2005, the company had adopted the idea that its devices were gaming machines first and foremost, mostly because it had seen so many other competitors come out of the race trying to be everything to all the kids.
Caanoo (2010, $ 150)
Throughout this story, we have focused on the role that the Nintendo software library has played in driving handheld sales. Well, we’ve finally come up with a system that can too Benefit from all the hard work of Mario, through the magic of stealing. Launched by GamePark Holdings of South Korea, the Caanoo was one of the few laptops to hit the market during the DS era that was distinguished for being open source, meaning anyone could write software for them without worry about getting Nintendo certification or anyone else’s. These boxes, which included the Dingoo and later Pandora, were basically small laptops that anyone could program. And what they were usually programmed to do was play old NES, SNES, Game Boy, and Genesis games, because honestly, why wouldn’t you?
The Caanoo didn’t last long, but open source portable platforms have only accelerated interest, despite what Nintendo would probably prefer, famously intolerant of anyone screwing up their copyrights. (God only knows what they do with it Arduboy, an Arduino-powered riff on Nintendo’s most famous handheld device that’s about the size of a credit card.)