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your Windows® embedded community
Windows For Devices
your Windows® embedded community
| When we saw the Gizmondo portable game and entertainment console at E3, we weren't impressed. It came off as one of those Swiss Army style devices that didn't do any on thing particularly well. It turns out that the UK company developing it pushed the release date back, and beefed up the unit with a nVidia GoForce 4500 mobile graphics chip. Now with decent 3D acceleration, it's a whole different animal. Technically speaking, it's a pretty solid little handheld. It features a 400MHz ARM9 CPU and GoForce 4500 graphics chip, so it's capable of graphics better than PlayStation quality, but not quite as good as the PSP or PlayStation2. It's worlds better than the 2D-only fare they demonstrated at the E3 expo last May. This change has pushed back the release date a bit -- it only just shipped in the U.K., and about 250,000 units will be in the channel by the end of the month. A U.S. release is planned for April or May. What about games? The big hardware change has certainly been a challenge for game developers, but the vastly improved 3D power is welcome. There will be 12 games for the U.S. launch, mostly smaller or original titles. Sega just committed to a game pack with some of their most popular Genesis games, and the Sonic game on display at the Gizmondo CES booth really looked and felt like the Genesis classic. The company has partnered with Microsoft to bring Age of Empires and MechAssault branded games to the system, too . . . |
