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[doncale]

surprisingly, Raytheon Missile Systems engineers are behind some of the guts of this monster handheld system


http://www.edge-online.co.uk/

Putting The 'Table' Back Into Portable

Arizona Newspaper the Tucson Citizen has the scoop on the latest contender in the portable console wars, only this time it’s bigger than the GameBoy or the PSP. No, not in terms of reputation or potential: physically bigger. It’s a monster.

The SL-Interphase ‘Rogue’, a handheld being developed by two Arizona residents (and Raytheon Missile Systems engineers, suggesting that perhaps creating a portable console really is rocket science), puts even Atari's fondly remembered Lynx handheld/blunt trauma weapon firmly in the shade. Boasting a massive 8.4-inch LCD screen and priced at $1,500 (£835), the device is essentially a tablet PC, but with a focus on gaming.

"We developed new hardware to help the CPU do its job," reports Dyster, SL-Interphase's vice president and still a Raytheon engineer in Tucson. "We've taken some of the more tedious tasks the processor has to do and it is handled by the new hardware so it (the CPU) has more available for playing the game."

The company still need $20m (£12m) to get the device onto (hefty) shelves across the world. Even if the capital is found, whether it will be able to stir up the sluggish tablet PC market is another matter.

you should recall the Rogue was first shown last year, as this:

video
http://www.sl-interphase.com/Rogue_web_movie_high_res.wmv

at $1500, it makes Rogue the NeoGeo AES of handhelds. but on second thought, no, the Rogue is really more like the 'Phantom' of handhelds, cause it's simply PC-based like the Phantom.

If some company were to come up with a $500 handheld based on proprietary hardware and had exclusive games, and full internet features, it might be worth concidering--that is, worth concidering over say, the PSP, for instance.

this Rogue is seriously not going to sell more than 10 units :lol wow what an install base.
cool concept though.

 

[Guy LeDouche]

Boasting a massive 8.4-inch LCD screen and priced at $1,500 (£835), the device is essentially a tablet PC, but with a focus on gaming.

Ha, yeah. Let me know how that works out for you, SL-Interphase.

 

[VictimOfGrief]

What the fuck?

 

[isamu]

Im getting one on the first day! Battery life is probably gona be 2 seconds.

 

[Mrbob]

If you are going to charge $1500 could you at least make the product look aesthetically appealilng and not like a childs toy?

 

[Agent X]

The idea is nice, but the price is outrageous. If you could get something like this with a fair amount of processing power for under $500, then it would probably be worth it even if it was only used for loading it up with emulators and multimedia files.

At $1500, it really isn't appealing, especially since the device appears to be lacking a built-in keyboard that's necessary for most of today's popular PC games. Sure, you could play "console-style" games with the built-in controls, but there aren't that many games like that on the market for PC that aren't already available for consoles, or even for other handheld video game systems or PDA devices. Gamers who are heavily involved in PC gaming would be better suited with a good gaming notebook PC.

I do like the concept, it's just that the market for this product isn't there now. They should wait until the technology is cheaper and/or developers start bringing more action-oriented games (other than first-person shooters) to the PC market.

 

[joshschw]

I can see it now. you get onto a public bus or something and 12 people whip out there Rouge's.

 

[tedtropy]

Honestly, at that point, just play the shit on your TV. $1500 buys a pretty nice entry-level HDTV.

 

[doncale]

I can see it now. you get onto a public bus or something and 12 people whip out there Rouge's.

:lol :lol :lol :lol

 

[aoi tsuki]

Good to see companies still partying like there was no dot com crash.

 

[Community Forum]

I used to think this looked big...