Tapwave update
The official word on the Zodiac
Newcomer to the gaming handheld market Tapwave has made an official 2004 update through Zodiac community site Zodiac Gamer, outlining the 'Zodiac' system's success so far, and revealing a number of plans the firm has for the device's future. The Zodiac is Tapwave's next-generation PDA-come-gaming handheld, and was released late last year, costing around $300 (depending on which model you opt for). Unfortunately, this very clever device is quite difficult to get hold of here in the UK, however we reckon anything as potentially impressive as this certainly deserves covering. As well as confirming that the Zodiac picked up three coveted awards at the CES show this month in Las Vegas, the company's update also outlined several free updates that will entice new and old Zodiac users alike:
Music and Sound
- Music update - Enable background playback with status bar integration.
- Sound update - Enhanced implementation of MIDI and utilization of Yamaha sound chip.
Photos
- Photos update - Improved JPEG scaling for size reduction.
- Photos update - New "delete selected photo" menu option.
Bluetooth
- Inclusion of phone drivers for Bluetooth connection to popular GSM/GPRS phones.
- Improved discovery process and performance.
- New Bluetooth APIs - inclusion of new gaming APIs, improved model for 2+ users, and updates to software development kit.
General Updates
- Updated releases of 3rd party bundled applications on CD & ROM.
- Power management enhancements for even longer battery life.
- SD driver performance
Interest and support from the game developer community continues to be outstanding. Over 1800 developers have signed up for our developer program and requested the software development toolkit. To put this in context, this number was 550 in mid September. Over 40% are from international markets and roughly 70% are coming from other platforms beyond the PalmOS. We expect this depth and breadth of developers to bring Zodiac customers a tremendous range of innovation and choice in the months ahead. In the last couple weeks we were pleased to see three new titles complete testing and become available on our online store. This includes: Galactic Realms from Crimson Fire, the first collection of Atari Retro games from Mobile Digital Media, and Altered Beast from Sega (the first title running the Genesis Game Engine). We are also aware of many new titles being developed and optimized for Zodiac (i.e., support for full screen, analog controller & buttons, vibration, etc) and we learn of new ones almost every week. Some of the upcoming titles that we are aware of include: Jack or 100 Ways to Barbeque, Firefly, Gamebox Solitaire, 2sky, Legacy, Dreamway, PaintBall, Phantom Strike, One for All Solitaires, Crosswords, Shattered Worlds, Kickoo's Patience, Yammy Yammy, The Wall and Crazy Olympics. For these titles to be available for sale on our web site, they must also pass third party testing (i.e., Zodiac Tuned program). While this may slow the process, it helps ensure a higher level of quality for the customer. Tapwave is also licensing premiere titles and working with leading game publishers to complement the independent efforts of the developer community and offer customers a broader spectrum of brand name titles. Some of these include: SpyHunter (Midway), Tony Hawk 's Pro Skater 4 (Activision), Doom II (id Software), Duke Nukem (Apogeee), etc. In fact, Doom II is going through final single-player testing and sign-off and Tony Hawk's' ProSkater 4 is in our final phases of multiplayer testing. With these titles nearly complete and the large number of developers signed up to develop for Zodiac, you can expect to see many new titles in the Tapwave store in the coming weeks.An interesting read for those of you interested in this rapidly improving and expanding handheld, I'm sure you'll agree. All the latest on the Zodiac as we get it.
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