Friend, editor, and Super Trooper impersonator, Rob Capps put together this fantastic investigative summary of the high drama Bo Stefan Eriksson and the Gizmondo crew ran into this Spring. The fantastic art, by comic artistJae Lee is stellar, too. The reporting and writing was done by Randall Sullivan, Rolling Stone Somebody, and author of the book on the Biggie Smalls murder. Anyhow, at 6500 words its sure to have turned up bits of the tale that haven't been seen before. For example, did you know Tupac is alive and on the board of Gizmondo?

Gizmondo, if you don't remember is the hand held gaming device decked out with GPS, motion-sensing, Bluetooth, and every other gadget buzz word you can think of. We'd seen prototypes, but it never seemed like the thing would get off the ground. That became the truth shortly after the CEO smashed up of a 660-hp Ferrari Enzo early one Spring morning. The rest is history, and now a legendary tale filled with ex convict Gizmondo executives, Swedish mafia thugs, stolen exotic cars, stock fraud, and extortion. Jump for the sweet opener.

THE BUMP IN THE ROAD that ended Bo Stefan Eriksson's fantastic ride is practically invisible. From 10 feet away, all you can see is the ragged edge of a tar-seamed crack in an otherwise smooth sheet of pavement...there's barely enough lip to stub a toe. Of course, when you hit it at close to 200 miles per hour, as police say Eriksson did in the predawn light last February 21, while behind the wheel of a 660-horsepower Ferrari Enzo, consequences magnify.

–Brian Lam

Gizmondo's Spectacular Crack-up [Wired]

2:10 PM on Wed Oct 4 2006
By Brian Lam
2,770 views
9 comments

Comments

jrghoull at 01:38 PM on 10/04/06
Reply by Email
*

i have a friend in the uk who has one of these...she loves it. course she knows her programming and is therefor able to do far more than any average joe like me could ever do with such a device. still though, with all that tech built in, you'd think it'd be a smash hit in the bargain basement asile of tech stores...course thats providing that this thing was ever taken seriously by the companies presidents in the first place..
strider_mt2k at 01:59 PM on 10/04/06
Reply by Email
*
Connectedness Index: 717
Brought to you by Acura TSX

Wow, what a story!
Incredible that a device DID get built and operated after all that BSing.

I smell TV movie at LEAST.
KernelPanic at 02:03 PM on 10/04/06
Reply by Email
*

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/tag/im-not-saying-im-just-sayin...
Slab at 03:28 PM on 10/04/06
Reply by Email
*

I played one at E3 '05 and was not impressed. The frame rate was so bad that I couldn't play a racing game. The booth babes were well trained as far a knowledge goes but couldn't get the thing to do what they were trying to when showing off how the camera could be used in-game. It also had a very cheap feel to it in your hands.
MosH8ed at 03:30 PM on 10/04/06
Reply by Email
*

I just checked, and sure enough there are 2 gizmondo consoles that are being sold on ebay this instant.
JomeyQ at 06:06 PM on 10/04/06
Reply by Email
*

I decided a few months ago that I was going to drop some cash on a portable system. My final choice was between a PSP, a GP2X, and a Gizmondo (they all had similar specs and prices). Guess what? I got the Gizmondo, and have never looked back. The thing has a monster collection of homebrew and emulator, and some of the 26-odd original games are pretty impressive (granted, some like Pocket Ping-Pong, and Sticky Balls are as laughable as their names).

Of course, as far as portable commercial gaming goes, the DS is the hands-down winner, but don't write-off the Gizmondo. If it had WiFi, I'd say it was the perfect portable entertainment device (as long as you're not shy about homebrew).
murray_the_dog at 06:35 PM on 10/04/06
Reply by Email
*

I read this article in the old-fashioned paper version of Wired on the weekend, and can recommend it as a very interesting read (and yes, you will learn much more than you already know about the story).

And like KernelPanic, I too remember Joel's posts about Gizmondo way back when. Boy, he wasn't impressed with the brand name. Ah, fond memories.
mazmodo at 03:31 PM on 10/05/06
Reply by Email
*

I have a Gizmondo, it was fun a while, i even got the swedish office to send me full games before release. But there were too few, and then they collapsed, så its now just collecting dust. But the device had many possibilities, only thing i missed was an SDIO slot, for use with SDIOwlan cards. By the way, they have opended the device, so you can run homebrew on it. Just needs new firmware.
Rask at 01:14 PM on 10/06/06
Reply by Email
*

I've played with one, and the guy at the London Gizmondo store just about wet himself when I told him I was a developer looking at this platform for my applications.

The best thing about these is the games by Fathammer (formerly Future Crew, for all the demo scene people out there).