iRiver's G10: Gaming Handheld

[A Black Falcon]

Well, I think that the problem is that those earlier devices tried to target Nintendo's market of games. They need to create their own market, or try to improve on another handheld market. Don't you think that there is a potential for a device that combines MP3, video, and game playback? The popularity of the new MP3 players offering video playback is amazing, as well as the amount of downloads of tv shows like Lost down to the small devices. The popularity of Sony's UMD's have shown that there is certainly a growing interest in media on the go. How is it a far fetch to add gaming to the roster of MP3 player capabilities?

Gizmondo has a GPS addon! :) N-Gage is also a cellphone, this thing is really a PDA (like the Tapwave Zodiac... a decent idea which failed and died...)... doesn't mean that any of them actually have a chance of success. :) The problem is that this 'convergence' thing... how much do people actually want it? Yes, perhaps it is easier to only have one thing that does a bunch of stuff... but so far, that doesn't seem to have translated to a whole lot of success... maybe a few cases have something with multiple successful functions (perhaps the PS2 as a DVD player?), but usually...

As for the PSP, it has benefitted from the movies and stuff mainly because the actual game lineup is so thin, I'd say... and most of the games it does have are PS2 ports. Yay. (but really, I don't get the UMD movie thing. They can only be played in that one format! On a tiny screen! It just seems like a waste of money...)

As for the PSP being competition for the iPod, um, I don't think so...

What you are describing is the iPod. The closest competitor, which I believe is iRiver, has something like 3% of the market. If Apple were to introduce a device like what you are describing it may be successful, but I don't think any other player in the MP3 market could succeed introducing a handheld like that. No one has the cache of Apple to introduce a gaming function to their MP3 player and make it competitive with Nintendo.

Yes, because videogaming on Apple platforms is such a vibrant, growing field... :D

Sorry, but no. This is about as likely as those rumors of an Apple videogame console, and about as likely to be successful as this iRiver thing.