Widescreen Gizmondo on the way

If Nintendo's competitors fail to wrest control of the handheld gaming industry in the coming years, it won't be for lack of hardware offerings. With the American release of its Gizmondo handheld still in a "near future" holding pattern, Tiger Telematics today announced that it has completed development on the system's first redesign, the Gizmondo Widescreen.

The product of a multimillion-dollar research-and-development project, the new Gizmondo features a larger 4-inch display, "significantly" more memory, two analog joysticks, a video-out connection to hook it up to TVs, and a suite of new applications using Wi-Fi, BlueTooth 2, and tri-band GSM technology. The unit's processor has also been upgraded from 400MHz to 500MHz.

Tiger Telematics cofounder and chairman Carl Freer sought to sooth concerns some might have about introducing a new iteration of the handheld before the original had even launched in North America. "The convergence technology category is similar to that of cell phones where a one-size-fits-all approach does not work," Freer said in a statement. "Our long-term objective is to provide a range of entertainment and messaging devices that cater to different entertainment desires. Widescreen will favorably compare to Sony PSP but with even more power and features."

The Gizmondo Widescreen will be unveiled at January’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.