Topic: Another Handheld contender trying to enter the market.

[BlkPaladin]

A bunch of Palm Inc executives are getting together in a company called Tapware to make a handheld system code named Helix.... They are going to try and compete with Nintendo and Nokia with superior technology.

The only number they are pushing are:

The Helix boasts twice the color palate of the Game Boy and nearly 16 times that of the N-Gage. It offers a screen resolution well sharper than either one and a much larger screen size.

Connell said the device will play full-motion video in a number of formats, as well as music in the MP3 format. It will also ship with a photo viewer and all the productivity applications that are part of the Palm OS.

Here is the Reuter's News this information came from.

Oh and they are going to try to target 18+ who have "graduated" from the Gameboy... I didn't know it was a school....

[OldMan Nintendo]

Eh... too much functionality, IMO.  Not that that's a bad thing, it just seems like they'll be sacrificing some of that gaming power to... view pictures?

I think this device might go the way of the dodo if and when it hits the market.

Graduated from the GameBoy... HA!! Yeah right, they can't be serious... who's turning 20 soon and still plays Tetris on his GameBoy?? <raises hand>

EDIT:

Quote
The Tapwave executives hope to compete with those two units on the basis of superior technology.

Remember these words: Superior technology only fills the glass half way, if not less than that... for shame.

[PIAC]

DOA:XB Hand Held anyone? ohwell, they can try, but really.. portable happyness is a warm gameboy (pocket, colour, advance, sp). another day another yuppie device.. ill still have my Gameboy and its future incarnations for years to come

*raises hand also* despite not having tetris anymore :\ should really get my old GB games back..

[oohhboy]

"Games publishers who have already agreed to license some of their top titles for the platform include Activision Inc. ATVI.O , Infogrames Inc. IFGM.O and Midway Games Inc. MWY.N ."

Haha! They had to pick up the three most unrieliable game publishers in the bussiness. I wonder what mode the color palette would be in? because if it turns out to be picture mode only, it's going to waste. Maybe it will end up like the saturn when Nintendo releases the next GB and it turns out to do 3D or something. This is looking like a Plam that has games on it, not the other way round.  

[EggyToast]

And the price?  Basic black 'n white palms with v. low memory and mediocre resolution cost the same as the GBA:SP.

To have palm functionality, you'll need to have a touch-sensitive screen, which, although might lead to some cool games (but not from the publishers they mentioned), will simply bump the price up outside the range of those looking for a handheld gaming device.

It'll probably be successful in the hardware dept., but software?  People are going to buy it as a tricked out PDA, not as a tricked out gameboy.  They'll end up with "Super Nibbles" (with touchscreen stylus control!) and "PDATris."  Whoopee!

[Smithy]

If I wanted a high resolution "handheld" I'd buy a PocketPC. I already have a Palm and I don't like the PalmOS at all. And if I want to play portable games i'll do it on my GBA.

[vudu]

Quote
And the price? Basic black 'n white palms with v. low memory and mediocre resolution cost the same as the GBA:SP.

i read on ign.com that the system will probably cost between $200 and $300.  no word on how much games would cost.

[PIAC]

well it is being targeted at 18-30 year olds, i guess they figure they have money to burn.

[Fammy2000]

As a Palm owner, I would consider this device. It sounds like it will be fairly cheap and feature packed. Heck, it's cheaper than the Palm I have now, and is 10 times as cool. Granted, I'm still stuck in the last generation of Palms.

Worst case scenario, for me anyway, is the gaming side of this thing bombs. Then I am left with a Palm, which I want anyway. So I have nothing to lose. Palms already play games. In fact, I play more backgammon on my Palm than I do GBA. Ack! Why? It's with me all the time. The GBA has to be a premeditated bring along. That and it would look silly if I brought a GBA to work and popped it out in the middle of a meeting. (Not to say I haven't played GBA on lunch).

The whole over 18 thing is a load of crap. There are many over 18 GBA players. I knew tons of people in college who played the GBA/GBC.

My guess is this is be about as successful as the Neo Geo Pocket.  

[Ian Sane]

I think a big problem with any attempts to enter the portable market is that these companies always make stuff that does more than play games.  Now with consoles the "all in one" approach isn't so bad because so far the only extra features are stuff like DVD playback which doesn't add that much cost to the unit.  But with portable technology extra features can raise the price significantly so the GBA's supposed competition ends up costing hundreds of dollars more.  So what you end up with is an overpriced device that's really average at everything.  It doesn't have as good of a game selection as the GBA and it's an average palm pilot or cell phone or whatever.  The only way a company will EVER have a chance against the GBA is if they release a games-only device with comparible pricing and battery life that is significantly more advanced from a graphics and sound capability.  None of these "do everything" devices are going to work.  In fact if this mentality becomes too widespread we may see this sort of thing hurt consoles as well.

[aoi tsuki]

If they keep the Palm compatibility and make a device which is physically capable of competing with the GBA gamewise, i'm sold. i too own a PDA (Clie NR70v) and while i'm happy with the PDA end of things, the selection of games isn't the greatest (puzzle games aside).

Honestly, i'd rather Nintendo release a PDA cartridge, like they did years ago with the original "brick" GB. i don't always need my PDA, but i don't want to have to make a choice between pure entertainment (GBA) and a multi-function device (PDA), because the PDA wins almost all the time.

i think for the most part, the age thing is pretty dead-on. i've seen more people in that age group with PDAs than Gameboys of any type. Outside of Nintendo fans (of any age) the Gameboy is thought of as something for kids, especially in the shadow of the Pokemon craze. And some jobs and universities offer incentives to buy PDAs; there's nothing i know of like that for GBAs in that age group.  

Update: A quick visit to Tapwave's site reveals details on the device:

High-resolution 480 x 320 pixel screen, with portrait or landscape-mode display (3.8 inches diag. according to Palm Infocenter)
i.MX1™ Motorola® ARM9 Processor
Analog controller, integrated triggers and a full complement of action buttons
Unique ergo-centric design, weighing less than 6 ounces
All-inclusive gaming environment with the Fathammer X-Forgeâ„¢ 3D Game Engine
ATI® Imageon™ graphics accelerator
Yamaha audio component, stereo speakers and earbud-style headphones
Dual lithium batteries
Rumble effects
Full-featured digital music player
Built-in Bluetoothâ„¢ networking for multiplayer wireless gaming
High-score conduit for community competition

Also according to Palm Infocenter, the device won't have 3D hardware, but can do 3D graphics in software via the Fathammer API. For some screens of Fathammer-powered games, check http://www.fathammer.com/games/games.shtml. Note that the shots on that site don't show Helix hardware, but it should be safe to assume that the Helix would look similiar to them, which would put it at least as capable as the GBA in terms of poly pushing, easily above. Of course, factors like framerate and resolution have yet to be announced.

As pretty much always the case, the hardware is interesting. Let's see the games.

i could be wrong, but the three-button motif on their site seems to suggest that it'll have three "action" buttons on the face. Just a thought.  

[EggyToast]

Holy crap!

Well it's definitely got impressive specs.  Which means it'll cost an arm and a leg.
The funny thing is that the most popular Gameboy games are the ones that aren't tech-savvy, and are using 10 year old graphics (or worse!).

[oohhboy]

I don't think they are or can pull a Microsoft and buy thier way it. To subsidise that thing to an affordable level would be astronomically expensive if they were to follow the normal game machine/game marketing structure. So far it looks like an overpowered, overly expensive machine which to few games of any quality(Guessing from the devs), too few buttons? People may think it more as a PDA that a games machine which would really hurt game sales. This looks like a DOA(Dead on arrival) if not vaporware/Phatomware .

[BlkPaladin]

Well if they have developers already signed up for it they are probally going to make a run for it. But they are going to have though competition from even the newer handhelds to try and get a piece. The last one to try and do somewhat well was NeoGeo with the help of Sega. And that project basically sunk SNK.

[PIAC]

3 'big' hand helds, the market will go crazy


or not gameboy for me

[oohhboy]

Ngage is a DOA, while the PSP(Point singlarity projector?) if released with little to not response from Nintendo with it's promised features/games delivered would indeed pose a massive threat to Nintendo. But we all know that as soon as a console is launched, another console is in the works regardless of whether they are saying so or not. Nintendo may already have something along the lines of a GBNX in development and possibly ready except that it is waiting for technology to catch up with thier idea/specs

[aoi tsuki]

Tapwave's new site http://www.godoplay.com has a video with clips of Spy Hunter and Tony Hawk 4, which is already on six systems already (counting the Ngage). Looks pretty good; definitely better than what the Ngage and GBA have done so far.  

[oohhboy]

I would not care too much about the other competitors as of now. Go to the GBA and look up the PSP Vs GBNX thread and you will get the idea.