Poor old Gizmondo – either totally unknown or heavily criticised, it seems to have little chance of surviving in the marketplace alongside the DS and PSP. Especially with that name…

We were passing its “flagship” shop (there’s only one of them, afterall) on Regent Street and had a quick look in today. Much as reports have suggested that the shop hasn’t exactly been raking in the sales, there were actually quite a few people in there playing on the many demo units. It was hardly full, and the many suited sales staff were hardly rushed off their feet, but it was certainly bustling. Yeah, that’s the word.

I had a quick go; the screen looks great, but the one game I actually managed to find was a crappy F-Zero/WipeOut racer thing called Trailblazer (alright, I realise it’s a remake of a much older game than the ones it appears to be aping, but still).

The trouble is that the Gizmondo really does have some nice features – especially the GPS receiver and mobile phone network connection. Games that can wirelessly connect to others over long distances with play based on where you are are really interesting. Colors is one of those, though Gizmondo don’t seem to want to communicate what it’s about on their website. Apparently, the GPS is used to identify whether other Colors players are geographically close to you. You then “battle for the supremacy of your turf, your hood”.

Course, its success rather depends on whether enough people actually buy it (oh, and whether it’s any good, naturally). And I suspect that they just won’t.