Nokia wasn’t the only company trying to knock Nintendo off its pedestal in 2003. The Zodiac, from Tapwave, was hailed by some as the next big thing in handheld gaming. At release, some reviewers considered it a legitimate threat to the reigning titans of gaming, including the then-upcoming PSP (via The Gadgeteer).
It featured a 3.8-inch color display, 128 MB of RAM, and 2 built-in SD card slots, and that was just for gaming. The Zodiac also doubled as a Palm PDA. As we’ve already seen, attempting to make a handheld more than a handheld is often a surefire path to disaster, but the Zodiac seemed like it might overcome the odds.
Tapwave gathered an impressive list of titles, including “Doom II” and “Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4” (via Retro Games Review) and you could use it as an MP3 player when you weren’t fighting demons or kickflipping off an escalator.
Unfortunately, all of the goodwill and hope for the Zodiac came to little more than nothing. It didn’t oust the Game Boy or the PSP and has all but been erased from gaming history and collective memory. But it wasn’t for lack of trying.
[Featured image by Evan-Amos via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC0]
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