Android-based 'ODROID' gaming handheld looks better than it sounds

Looks very similar to the WonderSwan to me. I don't know if that's a good thing or not, just an observation.

GIZZZMONDOOOO

Well looking at it/thinking about it...the device is supposed to be used horizontally and vertically. So it's equipped for both scenarios.

Although I won't disagree that it looks pretty...meh...but it is the first Android game thing. Hopefully this will spawn some kind of competition.

Dragon Ball Z?

Apparently this android is too stupid too know I don't need to stinking 3rd dpad! Ha!

Man 1
Android 0

They should just call it the Handroid, has a better ring to it than Odroid.

When I see some games for this I'll take more interest in it, until then it wont be on my radar beyond this post.

what....the...fuck...

Namco-Bandai's reviving the WonderSwan to compete with DS and PSP?


Oh... nevermind.

As someone with smartphone-envy but no income to support an actual plan, this sounds pretty awesome. I really hope it does come out, and it's affordable to me (okay, that part's kind of a stretch). Of course, I'd also be using it to develop/experiment with my own games as much as any Android apps (I actually don't know if there's any good Android games yet, but hey, you could probably just use it as a PDA too, right?).

The name sounds like a steroid that you take that will turn your muscles into oddly shaped masses......so this is the steroid the tanks have been taking, some thing told me they got some bad roids.

well.. it'd be perfect for a top down vertical shooter..

I have a feeling this thing will end up just running classic arcade/NES/SNES/Gameboy/Genesis emulator.

They should have just made it look exactly like a wonderswan, they already have the same control style so why not make it look cool like the wonderswan http://www.theoldcomputer.com/Libarary's/Emulation/bandai_wonderswan_color/wonderswan_color.jpg

wow! the rebirth of the Atari Lynx!

Android isn't suitable for console gaming needs. The reason is simple - it's fully JAVA based, and all android software (games including) should be written in JAVA, That's a good language, ok, but it runs basically on virtual machine, and perfomance is shit, especially in computation-heavy apps (like games). Also memory consumption for JAVA applications is higher than C++ ones due to enforced automatic garbage collection.

So that's pretty cool for mobile device like phone, but disaster for handheld gaming console - it should be at least 2 times faster computationally than iPhone let alone PSP (where programming can be even more low-level) to run games with comparable graphics and perfomance.
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All above is technical stuff which means shit because no major publisher or independent developer (such as... none left to the date) will support some ill-designed handheld completely lacking original features and developed by absolutely unknown fresh new company.
Device is just announced - with no high profile games in library and no release date for hardware. There're no retail partners and no marketing budget. Assuming all above points there won't be mass production, so price will stay no all that affordable.

Plus at the very same moment Creative is pushing forward its latest Zii platform with ready device prototypes and devkits for just 400 bucks (device itself costs only $200). It has much more interesting hardware concept (fully programmable 3D core can be used for video decoding or computations - all on the same pipelines), dual OS support (android + linux) and TONS of different interfaces (up to 3 HDMIs, SATAs, USBs and so on). Creative's marketing and development support is even more important.
Then you can take PSP /Go, Nintendo DS, iPhone, WebOS (Palm Pre), new Windows Mobile and ZuneHD which leaves no place for such crap.


Sorry, guys, times of garage electronics are all gone...

The 80s called, it wants its control scheme back.

It's Irish, can't you tell? I'm playin some games on me O'Droid.

I think that this will be just as succesful at transforming Android into a gaming platform as the Tapwave Zodiac was for the Palm OS. Not at all.

The Zodiac showed that developers of games for touchscreen operating systems aren't really going to think about integrating physical controls for the one device on the market that actually uses them.