You might remember how in your younger days you had a Nintendo Gameboy. One of the kids in your class might have had a Sega Gamegear. These days, possibly depending on whether or not you have a social life, you might have a Sony PSP or a Nintendo DS. But did you know that since 1979 there have been 33 known handheld video game systems released throughout the world? Most of these haldheld games quickly faded into obscurity. So which of them is the most expensive handheld video game system in the world?
Some of these video game systems were very ambitious and way ahead of their time. Most of them were complete disasters, due to either poor marketing or other kinds of corporate ineptitude that lead to terrible design decisions. The three expensive handheld video game consoles we’ll be looking at today are the Gizmondo, the Tapwave Zodiac and the TurboExpress.
Released in October 2005 for $400 (without ads), the Gizmondo featured a 400MHz ARM9 processor, a GeForce 3D 4500 GPU and a GPS module for in-car navigation. Between January and September of 2005, Tiger Telematics, the company responsible for this abortion, reported a loss of $210 million USD. Soon afterwards Gizmondo declared bankruptcy and a controversy about Steffan Eriksson, a Gizmondo exec with connection to the Swedish mafia, soon errupted after he crashed his Ferrari Enzo. Only 8 crappy games were ever released for it.
The Tapwave Zodiac, costing $400 (depending on config), was released in time for the 2003 holiday shopping season. It was a Palm OS 5 based PDA created by the Tapwave company. It featured a 200MHz ARM9 processor and an ATI Imageon W4200 GPU. A lot of Palm OS compatible games could run on it, but it’s not clear how many games were released specifically for it, because Tapwave went bankrupt in July 2005, and because nobody cares.
Having the honor of being the most expensive handheld video game ever made, the NEC TurboExpress, the Rolls Royce of handheld systems, was released in 1990. It was the portable version of the TurboGrafx-16 and cost $249 at launch. Its price was briefly raised to $299, which adjusted for inflation is $446 in todays dollars. It featured 6820 CPU which ran at 3.58 or 7.16 MHz and had a 512 color palette. It could also be connected to a TV. The TurboExpress was never able to catch on with gamers due to bad marketing and the price of the expensive game system.