Hands-On With The Tapwave Zodiac 34
Thanks to IGN Pocket for their hands-on preview of Tapwave's Zodiac handheld gaming system. The author suggests: "Whether or not Tapwave has the marketing muscle to steal away important market share from Nintendo remains to be seen, but at the very least the company has made a huge first impression when it comes to handheld system design." This Palm-compatible handheld has custom 3D game titles, including Spy Hunter, which IGN found "...very reminiscent of the PC's early years with the 3DFX Voodoo card", but overall, concerns about lack of "hard partnerships" with big publishers and the fact that the "price [$299-$399] definitely needs to come down" have the previewer worrying that this "great handheld design with incredible technical potential" may ultimately go neglected.
Re:I don't get it (Score:2, Informative)
While I don't care to argue about the consequences of monopolies (or whether or not there is one), I do have to point this out. The GBA is about half the price of the Cube, and the GBA-SP is the same price, not more expensive (I bought a black GBA-SP not too long ago for $99, and that's the MSRP). The SP is also a significantly newer piece of hardware than the Cube, although most of it's internals are the same as those of the GBA.
The SP is basically at the price the market will pay, as is the Cube (based on the huge increases they've seen in sales since lowering the price). Lowering the price of the SP might increase sales, but not nearly in the way that lowering the price of the Cube has. On the other hand, you always have the choice of buying a standard GBA or GB Player for half the price to play GBA games.
And yes, I got a rebate in the mail from Nintendo for the things they did with the NES pricing. When all was said and done, that was a joke, too, because it was a coupon towards a game, which, of course, Nintendo made some money on (though the rebate cut into that profit somewhat).