Gizmondo Rises Again

The benighted Gizmondo handheld games device could find user-generated content coming its way via a new website promising 'exciting psychic worlds' and 'Open Source environments'. It is also either asking you to contribute content or it's simply promising the ability to 'create your own games'.

All very exhilarating - and all very close to the release of Gizmondo's notorious executive, playboy and gangster Stefan Eriksson from the California Mens Colony in San Luis Obispo. As reported on SPOnG back in February 2006, Eriksson smashed his unpaid for, "$1,000,000 Ferrari Enzo... into pieces in a high speed crash in Malibu during an illegal street race."

Having got time off for good behaviour, Eriksson is to be deported to his native Sweden on release from a staging detention centre outside Los Angeles in 'the near future'.

The news has seen attention turn to the mysterious new Gizmondo website, operating under the banner of Gizmondo Live. All that currently exists on the site is a flash intro:

“The legend is reborn”, the site grandly tells us.

The intro also carries the phrases, “open source environment”, “Gizmondo Live Marketplace”, "Exciting Psychic Worlds", “Create your own games” and the promise, "We WILL democratise gaming".

SPOnG is going to go out on a limb here and suggest that maybe user-generated content is going to come into play, while the "Live Marketplace" reference suggests that the company will offer a distribution platform for said content.

Back to Bo Stefan Eriksson (aka 'the fat Swede'). It's been widely stated that he has already been released, however, this has not been confirmed. Swedish Foreign Ministry spokesperson Sofia Karlberg said Eriksson is due to be released and deported to Sweden "in the near future." She declined to give a specific date, saying the government “does not provide more specific information than that on matters like this”.

A search of Californian penal institutions also delivers no fixed date for his release.

Eriksson spent most of his time at the California Mens Colony (CMC) in San Luis Obispo, which has been described as a country club prison. Other inmates who have spent time there include psychedelic drugs advocate and novelist, Timothy Leary and the male half of the Ike and Tina Turner duo.

Malibu Surfside News reports that Lt. Mike Siebert from CMC stated Eriksson was actually paroled on December 13th, but due to pending restitution proceedings and the fact that he needed deporting, the Gizmondo gangster was passed to federal custody.

"Everything was ready before Christmas", Eriksson's wife, Nicole Persson, told the Stockholm newspaper Veckans Affaerer. "It took a while for the Swedish consulate to prepare a new passport. But he's expected to be on his way very soon."

Once Eriksson returns to Sweden, he will be treated as a free man. Sofia Karlberg stated that he will be able to resume a "normal life" and be issued a passport. "In Sweden, if you have been punished for what you have done, you are a free person", she told press.

That said, The Bank of Scotland, which actually owned the Ferrari Enzo Eriksson crashed (having financed it without ever seeing repayment from Eriksson) has $1.3 million (£666,770) worth of civil judgements against him. The UK has an extradition treaty with Sweden and should the Bank of Scotland wish to escalate the judgements to criminal charges, he could be shipped over here.

You can read about Eriksson's driving shenanigans in SPOnG's exclusive coverage of the crash here. You can read up on Eriksson's sentencing - initially set at three years - here.

So, what does this all mean? Well, back in November Carl Freer, the other man behind Gizmondo, stated his interest in beginning manufacture of the Gizmondo handheld once again^†. It could be that Eriksson has nothing to do with it. The timing, however, is immensely difficult to ignore...

^{Source: Gizmondo Live, Malibu Surfside News, †idg.se}