Gizmondo return points to "utter madness"

Jan 25, 2008

It's not even February yet, and the world of videogaming has already received its biggest shock.Gizmondois back. Until this week, if you'd so much as suggested that the hilariously disastrous handheld would be relaunching this year we'd have smacked you in the mouth for sheer, barefaced idiocy. And, yet, such a thing may come to pass. Though unless this new venture is a million times more successful than Gizmondo's original appearance, you'll probably never actually see one yourself.

To cut a long (and incredibly complex) story short, here's a quick recap. The Gizmondo handheld launched in March 2005. It was awful. Then, Gizmondo the company folded in February 2006, amiddisturbing rumoursconnecting the company with the Swedish Mafia, while Gizmondo'sexecutive directorwas off wrecking an excruciatingly-expensive Ferrari Enzo. A Ferrari that turned out to belong to a Scottish bank. From beginning to end, the Gizmondo saga was an unadulterated catastrophe.

So how on God's green Earth has this unlikeliest of phoenixes risen from its self-made pyre? We sought out a contact of ours who is an ex-employee of Gizmondo, someone with experience of the Gizmondo phenomenon first hand, to try and explain this crazy situation.

Ben Richardson is a former Staff Writer for Official PlayStation 2 magazine and a former Content Editor of GamesRadar+. In the years since Ben left GR, he has worked as a columnist, communications officer, charity coach, and podcast host – but we still look back to his news stories from time to time, they are a window into a different era of video games.