New Console Coming Out: Zeebo
- Scribbled on January 12th, 2009 by Jonah Falcon
- Filed in Industry News, Platforms
Well, we speculated that Electronic Arts could be the next console producer, but that’s going to Brazilian toy company TecToy, who will be releasing the Zeebo.
Centered around downloadable games distributed only over a 3G wireless network (called ZeeboNet), the console is designed for emerging markets, and has high-profile partners and games including Electronic Arts’s FIFA, Id Software’s Quake, and Namco Bandai’s Tekken.
It will save its small, standard definition titles, many of which will initially be BREW mobile game ports, to the system’s internal flash memory. This is intended to sidestep the issues of piracy, home internet availability, and retail distribution of game titles.
The company is 57 percent owned by Tectoy and 43 percent owned by mobile tech company and BREW creator Qualcomm. As well as the above-mentioned larger companies who will release games for the console, Zeebo is hoping to attract independent developers as well.
Granted, it’s more of a GameTap-styled online download service, with older titles, but it also is a low-cost game machine aimed at less wealthy nations. There’s no US release planned yet, despite being made in the US.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:48 am
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May 28th, 2009 at 8:54 am
[...] told you in January about the new budget console, the Zeebo, which would feature downloadable games [...]