Gizmondo are itching for a rematch with the market. And this time, no Ferraris. Problem is, there’s an economic downturn going on at the moment, which means Gizmondo 2 isn’t in the best shape.
Today during Carl Freer’s Georgia Tech speech, he revealed that while his company plans to release the Gizmondo with unchanged hardware (save for a new graphics chip) to the market in the near future, the company is already collaborating with NVIDIA on a completely new circuit board for a future Gizmondo.
He explained that since the platform “could never compete with Sony or Nintendo in content”, they planned to take a completely open source approach instead, promoting software development from within universities. He also added, “If we do well, our roadmap entails expanding the hardware and supporting full telephony”. For the full story, make sure to catch our liveblog of the event.
Carl Freer founded Gizmondo back in 2002, the idea for the ultimate handheld gaming system stemming from a child tracking product he had been developing. Three years later he resigned from his position as Chairman of the Board, the company and product both having failed miserably. Now three years later, Freer is spearheading the relaunch of the Gizmondo, ready to take another shot at the market. In a talk entitled “High Tech Ventures in Mobile Gaming and Media” at Georgia Tech, Freer will discuss his experience starting and running high tech companies, with a focus on the failure and forthcoming rebirth of the Gizmondo. Let’s see what the man has to say.
