TapWave

The first Palm OS-based handheld designed primarily for gaming.
http://www.business2.com/articles/web/0,1653,49405,00.html

TapWave's machine is code-named the Helix, and it's scheduled to ship later this year. It has a solid ARM9 processor, an ATI graphics engine, a Yamaha sound system, and a very nice 480- by 320-pixel color display -- all wrapped in a restrained design slim enough to fit in your pocket. Significantly, it doesn't look like something you use to play games. The device is aimed at a target market one notch up from that of the Nintendo GameBoy Advance: TapWave wants to get 18- to- 34-year-olds playing games on the go, and it wants to sell them a product that doesn't look like it fell off the junior high bus

Lim and his team claim they've identified a gaping hole in the market. There is, they say, no satisfactory portable gaming platform for grown-ups. Who, they note, do indeed play games on their home computers and consNot the Only Game Boy in Town.ems oles, and perhaps unsatisfactorily on their cell phones and PDAs.

TapWave, like Nintendo, will develop and market its own games. It has already signed on some popular gaming studios like Activision (ATVI) and Midway, and Lim says it should launch with some high-profile titles (though the company hasn't given specifics). TapWave will also make its APIs -- the internal programming codes that developers need -- available to other game manufacturers in hopes that they will develop for this new platform. Whether they do or not, of course, depends on how many people buy the handheld, so TapWave's own initial games have to be good enough to sell the hardware.

Personally, what I like about TapWave's platform is that it's not only the slickest portable game platform I've seen, but also a Palm (PALM) device running an enhanced Palm operating system. It runs all standard Palm apps -- the date book, the calendar, you name it. In other words, when you pull out your TapWave box and tap away at it in a meeting, your co-workers won't know if you're taking notes, entering an appointment, or playing Tony Hawk Pro Skater.

The device has a nice look and feel, a fantastic screen, and will likely be cost-competitive with Palm's existing non-networked high-end product, the Tungsten T. On the other hand, while the Helix will have Bluetooth (for multiplayer gaming and Net connections via a Bluetooth cell phone), the first products won't have Wi-Fi or cellular radios, like some products from Palm, Handspring, and Sony (SNE).

Lim says the company is backed by a large Taiwanese electronics manufacturing company (he won't say which one), which gives TapWave the resources to build the business and distribute the products. It will, however, compete with several other huge companies in the portable gaming platform market, most notably Nintendo, with its GameBoy Advance, and Nokia (NOK), which is releasing its N-Gage gaming phone.

But I do think TapWave is onto something. This is an interesting gaming platform, and a great Palm-based computer. PalmSource CEO David Nagel confirmed for me that there's no other Palm-powered device like this in development. I bet Palm fans will love this product, no matter which demographic they fit into.