Zodiac is a handheld console released in October of 2003 and manufactured by Tapwave with initial price US$299 and 32MB of RAM. Zodiac 2 released along with Zodiac 1 for $399. Zodiac marketed as a "Mobile Entairtainment Console", as the box of the console claims and aimed to gaming and technology enthusiasts between 18-34 years old who have:
Outgrown a Game Boy and need a device that can help organize their life
Essentially, Zodiac is a combination of a gaming console and a Personal Data Assistant (PDA). The main software that is running is Palm OS. The box of the console also claims:
Enjoy true console quality gaming. Listen to music, view photos, watch videos. Take control with leading organization tools. Customize your Zodiac with thousands of Palm OS applications. Includes 32 MB of RAM.
On the back of the box some of the features of Zodiac are explained:
Play games. Listen to music. View photos and videos. Organize your life.
Zodiac started quite strong with winning awards and having over 100 developers signed up to make games for it. However, the distribution was slow, since in the beginning the only way to buy a Zodiac was through the Tapwave's website. But even when it came to the stores the sales remained low. The most popular titles of the game like Duke Nukem, Tony Hawk and Doom II was released in the Game Boy Advance also, which was much cheaper. Nokia N-Gage was released at the same time as a combination of a gaming console, a mobile phone and a PDA. The market also started to move from PDA's to smartphones later. So, the discontinuation in July of 2005 wasn't a surprise with Tapwave closing down.
