Panasonic has tried, and failed, to enter the video game sector before. Numerous parties have tried to destroy Nintendo’s hold on the handheld market, from Sony to Nokia to Bandai. No party – with the exception of Sony – has managed to stay around, let alone gain any ground. Panasonic is looking to avoid the failures of the past by creating a new market, true mobile MMO gaming.
Forget mobile applications. The Jungle hopes to relegate these small windows in to our MMOG worlds like WoW, Fallen Earth or Guild Wars 2, as pure rubbish. Panasonic will attempt to carve its own niche with The Jungle. The company believes that by developing a piece of hardware capable of playing today’s browser-based MMO games it can create the mobile MMOG market.
Hit the jump for the full details, including the teaser video.
The Jungle is a “mobile device concept designed specifically for online gamers,” that resembles a small laptop. The machine has a full QWERTY keyboard and touchpad, in addition to standard gaming equipment like shoulder buttons and a D-pad. 4G/3G and WiFi support weren’t mentioned, but will likely be a standard feature for a piece of hardware of this type.
The Flash teaser/reveal video (above) showed a micro USB port and headphone and cross-branding with the upcoming Battlestar Galactica MMORPG. It’s rumored that the device will run a Linux OS, which means current MMOG will need to be ported to Linux to play. The thousands of browser-based games will reportedly run without issue.
Panasonic hasn’t divulged the full juicy details or launch plans, but the company believes it has a winner. “All we can say for now is that this mean little machine features a kick-ass display, touch pad, keyboard, and other gaming controls that we’ll be saying more about soon,” the company said.
Like the rest of the world, we’re intrigued, but cautious. Details on system specifications, such as wireless options, size, weight, battery life and screen resolution are non-existent. Panasonic’s last attempt in the video game industry was a total (expensive) failure. There is also no experienced person leading the charge as far as we know.
Yet, this is something I am highly interested in. What about the Lore Hound Pound? Are you up to do some mobile questing? What if – and I wouldn’t hold your breath here – a Linux port of your favorite game actually happened?
[Update]
The respected hardware site FudZilla is reporting that the unit will be powered by NVIDIA’s impressive Tegra architecture. The site couldn’t confirm which version The Jungle will use, stating “We can only hope that Jungle has a dual core Tegra 2, but a single core Tegra 1 sounds more likely.” Tegra 1 would keep the cost down and still make it the most powerful handheld on the market including the upcoming 3DS and PSP2.
well it’s an interesting idea. In Theory.
The purpose of an MMO is to divulge time and effort, which is normally done in the comfort of your own home (or office :P). Portable’s are meant to be thing’s you can pick up and play for a short time then send them on standby. If I’m in the dentist office and get called in, I’m not use the best response would be “Mind If I kill these last few worg’s and log out at a town? should only take 20 minutes”.
Agreed. In theory, this sounds amazing. The real life application of this, however, falls flat for me. Nevertheless, I would like to see where this goes.
I think it’s a great idea. For people that want to play mmo games and can’t afford an affective 2,000 dollar computer this will be the cure! I’m not sure how well it will do though without more advertising, this is the first I have heard of it