Game console for emerging markets
A start-up called Zeebo is due to launch its "video game console for the next billion" in Brazil next month for 199 dollars (£135) and in other countries later this year for 179 dollars (£121.6).
The console was developed using the mobile phone technology of Qualcomm, the San Diego company best known for its mobile phone chips.
The Zeebo unit is light, and a little larger than the Nintendo Wii. But instead of playing video games on disks, the Zeebo will use digitally downloaded games - distributed through mobile phone networks that players don't even have to subscribe to.
The console is not meant to directly compete with the latest, powerful devices such as Sony Corporation's PlayStation 3, Microsoft's Xbox 360, or the Wii.
Rather, said Zeebo CEO John F Rizzo, it is targeted at consumers in emerging markets such as India, China, Brazil and Eastern Europe who generally can't afford the latest high-end consoles, or the games published for them. In many of these countries, mobile phone service is more readily available and cheaper than wired broadband.
Zeebo, unveiled recently in San Francisco, attaches to any TV and uses a fraction of the electricity that high-end gaming consoles need. Its batteries can be juiced with what looks like a typical mobile phone charger.
The Zeebo's technological capability is somewhere between that of the original PlayStation, which launched in 1994, and its 2000 follow-up, the PlayStation 2.
By US standards this won't elicit many oohs and aahs, but Rizzo said the vast majority of the Zeebo's target market has not played an ultra-realistic modern video game.
Zeebo hopes that by improving on systems like Mega Drive and offering wireless downloads of games, it will attract the emerging middle classes of India, China and Brazil to modern video games.
