Zeebo : The Forth Console?

March 25, 2009 by Chapree

Zeebo - consoles for developing countries?
Image credit: ZeeboInc.com

Some already touted the OnLive Game Service - posted by our frontpage editor Wern Shen, as a revolution in the game industry. There is another entity that could be arguably considered as revolution as well, in the name of Zeebo.

Officially launched at the recent GDC’09 as per OnLive, Zeebo was developed by Tectoy and Qualcomm to target four emerging developing nations: Brazil, Russia, India, and China. Relying on fully digital game distribution, the console will be using wireless 3G network to download games into its system and can also acts as an access point for other computers in the household.

Zeebo was not meant to be a console with a huge performance power. Instead, the computing power that it packed is just in between PlayStation 1 and PlayStation 2. With that little power, you can’t expect all those shiney-shiney fancy effects from the latest triple A titles. But at the very least, you can expect games will be very small in size (around 5 to 50 MB), perfect for wireless distribution on 3G.

The games would be kinda cheap, ranging from RM 10 (USD 3) to less than RM 50 (USD 13). The only things that actually questionable is that you need to repurchase games that you deleted from your Zeebo, as demoed at GDC’09. So, if your deleted your games because the unit’s 1GB flash memory have been filled to the brim, you got to buy those deleted games again. EHHHH, what gives?

Couple of big game company have signed up for Zeebo like Electronic Arts, GLU, id Software, THQ, Capcom, Namco, Gameloft and Activision - among the many. On the first release later in May, each unit of Zeebo will come with pre-installed FIFA’09, NFS Carbon, Brain Challenge, Pray Evil and Quake.

Zeebo will be first released in Brazil with a price tag of RM 721 (USD 199). As a comparison, a typical PS3 in Brazil cost around RM 4000 (USD 1100) as it was not officially launched there. Even Wii costed around RM 3600 (USD 1000) in their grey market.

The next launch will be in Mexico (late 2009), India (2010), Eastern Europe (mid-2010) and China (2011).

Should Zeebo be launched in our country? Is there a market for it? Or we already been spoiled by PS3, Wii and Xbox 360? Your comments are much appreciated in our comments box.

[sauce: Gamasutra via Engadget]

Zeebo Official Website

Posted in Consoles / Handheld, Hardware, International