How do you think the new tapwave Zodiac will perform. OR what will be your next portable gaming system? POLL

[coolred]

Tapwave

Zodiac2 Cnet review.

It seems to me that if they produce some good games for it, that it will be an awesome PDA/portable gaming system. But will it be able to hold its own against the likes of the PSP and whatever nintendo has up its sleeve?


Please if you list other in the poll, post with what that other option is.

 

[Maleficus]

I think Nintendo has made it clear they OWN that market

 

[coolred]

Well its not to hard for a big comapny like Nintendo to own the portable gaming market, when there is not much competition. I do agree that the little competition the gameboy has seen has been easily dealt with by Nintendo. But with sony entering that market segment, they are gonna put a hurting on nintendo. I'm not saying they will beat nintendo, but they will give them a run for thier money and put the pressure on. And come on, its Sony, they could very very easily pull off a big win in that market.

Then the zodiac may not be quite what the others are, but it has many good features, as well as it being multipurpose. As long as it gets the game support, I will be getting one. Maybe a PSP too it its good enough. I am just getting bored with my GBA I guess.

 

[Ulukia]

The PSP will prolly be the best portable gaming system, but thats what it was designed for. The Zodiac, on the other hand, is a multi-use system. So really, is hard to compare.

 

[rgwalt]

I don't think the Zodiac will do well, though it is a neat idea. Technology like the Zodiac will die either due to rejection, or acceptance. If people really like the zodiac, the major manufacturers will integrate the technology (MP3 player, etc) into their next hardware cycle. Here is the deal with introducing a new portable system to the market... Nintendo has such a huge following with the GBA. The GBA (and future nintendo portables) have such a huge library of games that another company is going to have to do something extremely impressive to really contend with Nintendo.

I don't think that the PSP will be a contender. I don't know much about the technology they plan to use, but from what I understand they will use an optical drive, which makes the unit vulnerable to skipping due to shock, which is an issue when you are gaming on the road.

But these are just my opinions. I'm a Nintendo fan, so what can I say. I love my GBA SP even more than my Cube because of the great strategy and RPG titles available.

R

 

[rgwalt]

Wow, no one jumped in to disagree with me?

R

 

[Ulukia]

I disagree on multiple points. First, the Zodiac will not go away.

The Zodiac was designed to be a fully functionally Palm PDA. It has a better screen than the Sony Clie and more built-in memory than any PDA on the market. Granted it does not use WinCE or PocketPC like its cousins, but it does not need to. It does just about everything they can do on less.
It has two SDIO/MMC expansion slots, which no other PDA has. It has a ATI brand GPU, which is more powerful than the GBA's GPU, that can emulate 3D. No other device, game or PDA, can do this. Don't even bring up the N-Gage, the GPU thats in there isn't near as refined.

Lets talk multimedia. It can play MP3s out of the box. Sure, some of the others can too but none that run under Palm OS. It can also play movies to boot. What about word processing? All Zodiacs come with WordSmith, a great Word-compatible program. Will it be on par with PSP gfx? I don't think so, but then again it was never ment to be a Portable Gaming system like the PSP & GBA. As for what media the PSP uses, its GC like 1.8GB mini-cds.

PSP Specifications:
PSP CPU Core
MIPS R4000 32-bit core
128-bit bus
1-333MHz (1.2V)
8MB eDRAM main memory
2.6Gbps bus bandwidth
FPU, VFPU (2.6 billion flops)
3D graphics extended instructions
I Cache, D Cache

PSP Media Engine
MIPS R4000 32-bit core
128-bit bus
1-333MHz (1.2V)
2MB eDRAM submemory
I-Cache, D-Cache
90nm CMOS

PSP Graphics Core
1-166MHz (1.2V)
256-bit bus
2MB eDRAM (VRAM)
5.3Gbps bus bandwidth
664 million pixels per second pizel fill rate
3D curved surface and 3D polygon engine
Support for compressed textures, hardware clipping, morphing, bone, tessellation, bezier, b-spline (NURBS)
Maximum of 33 million polygons per second
24-bit full color (RGBA)

Sound Core
VME (Virtual Mobile Engine)
Reconfigurable DSP
166MHz (1.2 V)
128-bit bus
5 giga operations per second
CODEC capabilities
3D sound, 7.1 channels
Synthesizer, effecter, and other abilities
ATRAC3 plus, AAC, MP3 for audio

Media
UMD (Universal Media Disc)
60mm-diameter disc
660nm laser diode
1.8GB capacity (dual-layered disc)
11Mbps transfer rate
AES crypto system
Unique disc ID
Shock proof
Regional code system
Parental lock system
Repeat ordering system

Other Specifications
16:9-format widescreen TFT LCD (480x272 pixels, 24-bit full color)
MPEG4 AVC decoder
Wireless LAN (802.11)
IrDA (Infrared Data Association)
USB 2.0
Memory Stick
AV in/out
Stereo headphone out
Lithium ion battery
Expansion port

By Staff, Gamespot (Posted: 07.29.03 11:07AM)

 

[Ulukia]

I disagree with ya then you don't respond...

 

[Mr.IncrediblyBored]

It's hard not to dominate when you're the only game in town. Neither the PSP or Zodiac is on the market yet, and N-gage hasn't had a very warm reception.

The PSP launch for North America has been delayed until 2005 and will likely cost triple the price of the GBA SP at launch (as it should, give the hardware). That should give Sony a couple years before the next GameBoy hits the market.

 

[EvilYoda]

Well, I will always be an early-adopter of anything Nintendo puts out...I had the original GBA, and I have a GBA SP now too. I'll get the PSP depending on the final abilities (they're saying that it won't be a "all-in-one" unit anymore)...if it's still just a portable gaming console, I don't know. I don't use my SP at all, as it is, so unless the PSP is an all-around superior product, probably no go for me.

 

[thawolfman]

The Next N-Gage?

 

[opticalmace]

I dunno. I checked out the Zodiac at the CES, got to play with it a bit...
It didn't really impress me that much.

Good idea and such, but I don't think it'll do too well.