Comments on: Tapwave exits game device business

Maker of the Zodiac handheld device business discontinues sales, leaving PalmSource with one less customer.

[David Dudley]

I blame their CEO

Peng Lim was an idiot when he worked at Palm. What made him think that he could lead his own business to success? Obviously nothing changed and his creation is now dead.

Their marketing squarely aimed at Nokia's N-Gage, which also flopped, when they should have been targeting the mass market. Of course, they would have to lower prices and actually get a real game studio to create titles for their device, but being the smart guy that Peng Lim is, you would have thought he would have known that, right?

[David Dudley]

I blame their CEO

Peng Lim was an idiot when he worked at Palm. What made him think that he could lead his own business to success? Obviously nothing changed and his creation is now dead.

Their marketing squarely aimed at Nokia's N-Gage, which also flopped, when they should have been targeting the mass market. Of course, they would have to lower prices and actually get a real game studio to create titles for their device, but being the smart guy that Peng Lim is, you would have thought he would have known that, right?

[ackmondual]

not much Tapwave could've done

bad business model. Not good when you walk into an EB Games and see demo Ngage QDs along with a rack of games for it, but no zods. Not good to walk into Staples and see Clie PDAs, Palms, PPCs, but no zods. Just online isn't enough. And compUSA is a joke. THey don't take care of their store models. Their current selection of PDAs can't be demo-ed anyways b/c they're not charged

Ngage QD was also a flop, but at least Nokia's got deep pockets to fall back on. Between competing vs $150 GBA's and Sony's PSP announcement, TW didn't stand a choice. TW did get some agreements for some games for their device, but they were empty promises. They devs were really trying to work with Sony to focus games for PSP first.

All in all, nice effort none of the less. The Zodiac may not be in mainstream sale anymore, but the zod community is still going strong.

[ackmondual]

not much Tapwave could've done

bad business model. Not good when you walk into an EB Games and see demo Ngage QDs along with a rack of games for it, but no zods. Not good to walk into Staples and see Clie PDAs, Palms, PPCs, but no zods. Just online isn't enough. And compUSA is a joke. THey don't take care of their store models. Their current selection of PDAs can't be demo-ed anyways b/c they're not charged

Ngage QD was also a flop, but at least Nokia's got deep pockets to fall back on. Between competing vs $150 GBA's and Sony's PSP announcement, TW didn't stand a choice. TW did get some agreements for some games for their device, but they were empty promises. They devs were really trying to work with Sony to focus games for PSP first.

All in all, nice effort none of the less. The Zodiac may not be in mainstream sale anymore, but the zod community is still going strong.