Gizmondo Desperation: Price Drop Via On-Screen Adverts

Want to see something funny? If you live in or around London, visit the Gizmondo store on Regent Street. In it, you’ll see some consoles, a few poor games and some very bored, somewhat mystified sales staff.

Let’s face it folks, the Gizmondo has a hell of a battle on its hands. Right now, the asking price for a Gizmondo is a staggering and entirely untenable £230. If you select the version with adverts, you’ll get a 'oner' cleaved from this figure, making it, well, making it £30 more than a Nintendo DS and probably around the same price as a PSP.

It’s a shame really, as the Gizmondo does represent some good ideas such as GPS and so on. However, as far as SPOnG can see there are two Goliaths that right now won’t even notice the bloody bones of Tiger’s David staining their soles.

The ads planned by the Gizmondo team do sound as unintruisive as possible, with only the home menu showing them. The list of advertisers touted also makes for impressive reading, with Universal Music, Smart Cars, Warners Music, EMI, 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros.

The press release announcing the move states, “The Smart Adds themselves will feature anything from new trainers, to video clips of new albums, movie and game trailers, DVD previews, even advi-games direct to the device. Most importantly they're non-interruptive, i.e. a movie or a game will not be interrupted by the Smart Add, only when the user returns to the Home menu will be they be broadcasted to the device. Squarely focused on the MTV generation with similar tones and relevance to that particular audience, owners of this model will not receive ads for washing up liquids, tax return reminders, or stair lifts.”

But Thora Hird? What about Thora Hird..?

Ahem. To date, in spite of many calls and emails, SPOnG has heard nothing from the Gizmondo team. If you're out there, speak to us. Perhaps we're missing something...