Comments on: TapWave to Intro Helix, Game Focused Handheld

It's two ... two ... TWO devices in one!

It's both a serious organizer and a game machine!

Shimmer is both a floorwax AND a dessert topping! (Old SNL reference.)

Light is both waves AND particles!

the Reuters article says that ATI, Sony, Motorola and Yamaha are contributing products and that Activision, Infogrames and Midway are licensing their games for the platform. This is a big deal!

Even better would be TEXTMAKER!

(I had to drop in a productivity app to aggravate you gamers -- us old folk can't use games...)

>Specs:
>Dual SDIO
>OS 5
>Bluetooth
>320x480 screen, rotateable
>aluminum shell
>built in camera (on high end model)
>64k colors?
>All for $199 or $299!

-- WTF?! Are these specs for REAL?! Can't be!

These specs can't be for real!?!

If they had all those features for that price, it would kill off all the rest of the PalmOS licensees.

Jon Niola
President/CEO
Media Vortex, Inc.

An Intel chip with the Ram on top (as BlueAnon supposes) would have some real cost advantages, but the article says ATI, that means a graphics chip...Sony, that means a color screen (though I would not bet on anything like 320 by 480. I would bet on 200 by 160 or something even stupider), Motorola means that the Moto ARM implementation finally gets a foot in the market. This chip supports SD and CF and a bunch more right on the chip and would probably be sold cheap to get Moto a entre, Yamaha means a sound chip to do MP3s and stereo game sound.

All in all it sounds like a competitor to the New Neo Geo (I don't recall the real name of the ARM competitor to the GameBoy Advance that is going nowhere fast.) I suppose if it gets some really good games, still runs real Palm stuff, and cost less than $200 it might go somewhere. I wonder how a touch screen would work on a straightup game system. How long would such a screen last?

Anyway, it will be interesting to watch. The Palm site ads for the Zire look so much like those for the original Window CE, I wonder if they were from the same ad company. Games, Movies, Ebooks, and MP3s all in your pocket. The original CE ads even added up the cost of an organizer, Gameboy, Ebook reader, and MP3 player and claimed the CE models were worth like $750! Now, we have all the same on the "simple" OS. Plus 4 models with cameras built in! What a development.

"though I would not bet on anything like 320 by 480. I would bet on 200 by 160 or something even stupider"

Check out their spec page that I just posted. It says 320x480, alright. This is shaping up to be an exciting year after all.

Scott

I'll salute the spec above under $499.

>>PS2 wins not because of the hardware spec or the OS, but the availability of games.

yer right - but one of the reasons to go with Palm OS is that there are already hundreds (probably thousands) of games already for the platform. Most of these are crap of course, but thats because they are mostly pre-OS 5. This is already changing so that by the time the Tapwave device is released later this year you will probably have over a hundred half-decent games that either take advantage of, or are optimized for OS 5 (not counting the developer partnerships Tapwave announced with Activision, Midway & infogrames). That really helps a mobile game platform in a way that the Gameboys previous competition never had. Add to that the mobile multi-media/computer factor (mp3s, video, photo apps out of the box), and the ability to do bluetooth multi-player, and this thing has some pretty solid stuff going for it.

I'll believe it when I see it. The Nintendo Gameboy family has been an incredible success since its introduction, and its continued dominance does not seem to reflect the conditions that have allowed various players to be dominant in normal consoles. The gameboy has faced a ton of competition (Sega GameGear, TurboGrafix Express, NeoGeo Pocket, Atari Lynx, etc. etc. etc.) but for various reasons they have at best created niche audiences, but certainly not taken much away from the Gameboy. And it really does all come down to the software library..... the specs of this sound great, but it needs actual good games. And yes, those are some nice names (Sega, Activision, Midway) but other handhelds have had big name companies behind the software and it hasn't always translated to a great software library.

Don't think for a second that price isn't the most important thing for this device.

Sell it for $499 and it may do okay.
Sell it for $199 and you won't be able to make them fast enough.

My guess: $299 initially.

Game titles and marketing them would be second in importance. OEMing this for Sony would make a lot of sense and would give this a fighting chance in the marketplace too.

-Kevin Crossman

You are a fool if you think the XBox sells more than the GameCube.
Nintendo is just fine where it is, and is only going up from here on out.
Last month the top 3 selling games in the USA were Zelda and both pokemon's. Worldwide, the Cube is outselling the XBox by a cool 1.5 MILLION. Not to mention of course, amongst all of this, Nintendo is still making a large profit, while the XBox is a $1.75 Billion SINKHOLE. The only video game publisher making more money than Nintendo is EA(Not Sony's PS2 or MS's Home entertainment division). Next time get some numbers and facts before you just base it on public banter.

And in a try to make this not off-topic...
Anything that this company designs will end up better than the N-Gage. The biggest hurdle will be the price-point ratio against launch-title games. If people can't get a good INITIAL reaction to it, it has no hope.

I don't think you understand the gravity of the situation. We're in space.

Crimson Fire is the first company to be granted an X-Forge license for TapWave. We were able to develop a 3d demo space game in under 2 weeks using the new 3d engine, and the game was shown off at their private launch party. BUT they are being top secret about the device to generate buzz. All I can say is that you will see some AAA licensed titles with PS1 quality gaming coming soon... Exactly what we were waiting for, n-Gage is a total brick compared to this new device!