Tapwave Kills The Zodiac

[Ed Hansberry]

<a href="http://www.tapwave.com/">http://www.tapwave.com/</a><br /><br /><i>"We are sorry to inform you that the Zodiac business was discontinued and service and support are no longer available as of July 25th 2005."</i> Well, that is a pretty brutal way to find out your device manufacturer is dropping the platform. Given the liquidators name at the bottom of the front page, "Ueker and Associates," I'd say this is a bankruptcy and not just a discontinued device.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/hansberry/2005/20050728-zodiacdead.gif" /><br /><br />I <a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=250911">never understood</a> why someone came out with a dedicated gaming machine based on a PDA platform, and a rather anemic one at that. I have no clue what they were thinking. Nokia tried this and failed. You have to have a ton of money and lots of stamina to stick around long enough to get a new gaming platform running now, or have something so totally new it blows people away. TapWave had neither. I feel bad for owners of this device. My understanding is games had to be signed to take full advantage of the platform. Unless TapWave releases the signing keys, there won't be anymore games for the platform.

[powder2000]

I agree, but it still is a sad day to see a pda manufacturer going out of business. To me, pda's/pocket pc's are awesome, no matter what the platform. They are and have always been a device that can do so many different things. At one point I actually considered getting the zodiac for gaming and multimedia. Oh well, I guess you could question why they didn't come out with a windows mobile pocket pc instead as a second generation device.

[BUMP THAT]

No my Zodiac!!!

I have this device. They are very nice. But I started to notice the devicess game specific dwindle to no more being produced. However standard Palm Games still work very well. This is definately very sad news for me. :(

[wocket]

The Zod is a nice little device and was very cheap in the UK. It is a sad day for all Zodiac owners. Just as they where rejoycing at Picard for making TCMP available for it. No more access to zodiac SDK's for the Xforge API's or the hardware specific API's like the rumble or the joystick or even the ATI hardware. And as ED said the signing keys are needed to run any app that takes advantage of the Zodiac's hardware. Codewarrior have even taken Codewarrior for Palm off their site (which affects most palm developers). The palm world is a very strange place.

[Jason Dunn]

No surprises here - you cannot make a handheld gaming device mainstream without millions upon millions of dollars in advertising, developer evangelism, etc. They just didn't have the juice to make this succeed. The Gizmondo will suffer the same fate. :?

[WyattEarp]

No surprises here - you cannot make a handheld gaming device mainstream without millions upon millions of dollars in advertising, developer evangelism, etc. They just didn't have the juice to make this succeed. The Gizmondo will suffer the same fate. :?

Agreed, I didn't understand the fasination in the first place. To think someone at my job bought one and actually thinks it's better than their PPC. Although they aren't a power user so that may have something to do with that. Oh well, it was a disaster waiting to happen I guess.

[Tari Akpodiete]

No surprises here - you cannot make a handheld gaming device mainstream without millions upon millions of dollars in advertising, developer evangelism, etc. They just didn't have the juice to make this succeed. The Gizmondo will suffer the same fate. :?

in other words, you'd betta be Sony (or you'll be sorry)...

[shindullin]

You'd better be Sony because they already have serious developer clout, lots of hardware and software engineers and a pre-existing user/customer base. Or you'd better be Microsoft with so much money from Windows and Office that you can afford hundreds of millions of dollars in the name of future profits, just like they're doing for PPC, just like they're doing for XBox, just like they're doing for .net, and just like they might do some day for mobile gaming if no-one steps up to the plate to challenge PSP and PSP eventually annihilates nintendo's portable gaming devices. If Sony actually turns the PSP into the mobile entertainment device it hints at being able to become, M$ will have no choice but to challenge it. Otherwise, Bill's dream of world media center domination will never come to full fruition. Xcube anyone? 0X

[guinness]

You'd better be Sony because they already have serious developer clout, lots of hardware and software engineers and a pre-existing user/customer base. Or you'd better be Microsoft with so much money from Windows and Office that you can afford hundreds of millions of dollars in the name of future profits, just like they're doing for PPC, just like they're doing for XBox, just like they're doing for .net, and just like they might do some day for mobile gaming if no-one steps up to the plate to challenge PSP and PSP eventually annihilates nintendo's portable gaming devices. If Sony actually turns the PSP into the mobile entertainment device it hints at being able to become, M$ will have no choice but to challenge it. Otherwise, Bill's dream of world media center domination will never come to full fruition. Xcube anyone? 0X

I still see the PSP becoming like a psuedo-Clie type device as well. I like the new firmware update, the built-in web browser isn't bad (based on Netfront), a touch sluggish, but it has a decent amount of features.

In Japan, Sony did partner up with a company to provide downloadable videos directly to the PSP, kind of neat. I wonder if something similar will happen in the US. http://www.p-tv.jp/

As for the news article, I thought that the Zodiac was a great device on paper, just that it was hampered by the limitations of the POS.

[Tim Rapson]

Well, the Atari Lynx, Sega GameGear, NeoGeo, N-Gage, etc. all prove that mobile gaming is on tough business. Now Zodiac runs until it goes over the cliff.

What is next. I believe that the Sony PSP is stumbling. I see them on sale and hear news of Sony dropping the price to $200 in the US before they even get it out in Europe. They are rushing to add a browser and other features that they have also promised forever on the PS2 and still not delivered.

The Gizmondo has yet to fail, but almost certainly will. The N-Gage technology in the Nokia phone lineup seems unlikely to go anywhere. I would like to see WM offer a third platform (beside the phone and PDA) with specs for a game machine that could be smaller than either the PSP or DS.

Now, there is another possibility on the horizon. Nintendo has liscensed the Palm OS, at least the synch portions. AND they now have a touch screen for the bottom half of their DS, the only mobile game device I know that has done that.

Alas, poor Zodiac. You have lots of company in the field of failed mobile gaming systems. You will likely get even more.

[BUMP THAT]

Sony!!! Haha...Sorry. :lol: I am just mad that I bought a Sony PDA. Luckily I returned before suport and accesories started dwindling. I hate SONY for pulling out. But PPC is better so I dont care.

[Phillip Dyson]

No surprises here - you cannot make a handheld gaming device mainstream without millions upon millions of dollars in advertising, developer evangelism, etc. They just didn't have the juice to make this succeed. The Gizmondo will suffer the same fate. :?

Its true. I never even heard of the Zodiac until found BrightHand. Or it may have been here. Can't remember. But there are no commercials, no billboards, not resellers pushing it. How is anyone even supposed to know it exists.

I didn't know that the Gizmondo was released yet. So there you have it.

I think that they may have thought that the fact that is was on the PalmOS, developers may have come to them. Instead of the other way around.

N-Gage advertised for awhile. Their commercials were even a little interesting in concept, but I never really could get a sense of what the games were like.

Wasn't it Tapwave that said they were looking into licensing their technologies to others? I'm wondering what technology that is. What did they really provide? Hardware, okay. But anyone making POS devices could probably their own without paying licensing. OS optimizations? Maybe.

If I could summary so of the previous comments (which I mostly agree with) its that you can't trail the established players and expect to be successful. Its debatable if you can go toe to toe and expect to be successful. You have to distinquish yourself in a significant way.

If/when microsoft enters the field, their claim to fame will be a "seemless experience" for players and developers across Windows platforms. I believe they are already heading this direction with PCs and Xbox (for developers anyway).

[Vincent M Ferrari]

I'm sure the 6 people who owned it are devastated. Beyond that, it was never more than a niche device that didn't have a niche.

[davea0511]

I wonder how often game oriented PDAs fail simply because they're seen as nothing more than expensive Gameboys. Perhaps they'd be more successful if they were billed as an "intuitive-interface PDA which also happens to be bundled with some games that demonstrate how intuitive the interface is".

Instead they call it a gaming device, which rules it out for boardroom purposes ala "...Watson! Is that a gameboy?! At work?! You're fired! Snively, why don't you show us how marvelous your paper-based organizer is."

The truth of the matter is that one of the problems with PDA's is that they're often difficult to use without a stylus, and PDAs like th Tapwave have buttons that could be utilized to resolve that problem. Ultimately they should be the better business oriented PDA... but they aren't, and marketing puts them in an oxymoronic no-man's land when they call it a game-playing device that doubles as a PDA.

[Fishie]

Are peoiple still dillusional about the PSP?

[Vincent M Ferrari]

Apparently.

Frankly, I don't see what's so great about it, which is odd because I snap up every game system right away and I just can't bring myself to throw down the cash on it.

The fact that they cut 6 million units off their production run is proof that it just isn't lighting up people's eyes when they see it.

[sponge]

My understanding is games had to be signed to take full advantage of the platform. Unless TapWave releases the signing keys, there won't be anymore games for the platform.

Absolutely false. You just can't use their APIs to do it. Additionally, you can contact someone specifically to sign programs, she will be doing it for the next few months at least. EDGE, for example, uses the full wide screen, analog stick, and will likely use the rumble. This is without being signed, or without the DAA (a special unlock that lets you run unsigned apps)

There was nothing wrong with the device. A 320x480 screen is more or less standard in Palm OS now, and the $300 price point puts it about on par with other devices. If it were targetted as a general PalmOS device rather than gaming, they would still be around.

[T-Will]

I'm just curious, what do you guys have against the PSP? It's the most flexible gaming device out there right now, although, it doesn't have the variety of games that the GBA has, it does have multiple emulators that are available for it which pretty much gives it limitless access to games.

[Vincent M Ferrari]

Nothing "against it" per se... Just not that impressed with it, that's all.

And as for the emulators, it won't be long before they lock them out with a ROM upgrade which will be required to play newer games... Sony isn't stupid and if they aren't making money on it, they ain't gonna allow it for very long.

[Ed Hansberry]

Nothing "against it" per se... Just not that impressed with it, that's all.
Please continue any Sony PSP discussions at http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=41399

Thanks.