For people who are not brazilians (maybe everybody but me), I'm starting this thread to give my impressions about Zeebo, the last brazilian console (2009 to 2011).
It was created by Tec Toy the same company which represented Sega on Brazil, where Master System dominated the 8-Bit Generation. Nintendo never arrived here before the SNES.
The idea was to create a console where all games were on a internal SD card (1GB, expansion would be available later), downloaded by an exclusive 3G network (Zeebo Net 3G). That 3G network was very cool indeed.
I bought one of the total of 30.000 consoles sold. They started making ports, like Crash (PS1). While they were developing games, they continued to make ports, like Quake I and II and NFS Carbon (the cell phone version).
Obviously, people didn't get impressed, there were poor graphics if compared to PS2. Probably blame it on the Brew platform, too heavy for developers. Tec Toy ignored the Android. Zeebo has PS1 graphics, but they were positive in saying that the console had PS2 capabilities. They where running on a learning curve, which demands the time Tec Toy did not have.
So Tec Toy changed its focus: they started to invest on educative games and to explore the 3G network to internet access, for kids. In my opinion, another mistake, because in Brazil we have a governmental program which allows almost everybody to have a PC. They even created an avatar system named Zeeboids. And not only because of that: everywhere you go here, people only knows PS2, PS3 or 360. I struggled to find a Neo-Geo CD laser (people ignore old platforms, even those who are self called technitians).
Because my console is the very first version of Zeebo, Tec Toy made a recall and gave me a keyboard and a new joypad (the original one was a copy of Wii's pad), the Dragon. Zeebo also had an movement stick, like Wii's, called Boomerang (you can see on my pic below). Well the Boomerang is not very accurate as Wii's, but you can spend a lot of calories playing Tenis. They actually developed some sports games for it and I confess I liked Tenis a lot. I finished second in a sports championship Tec Toy organized. 😛
In 2011 they announced the end of ZeeboNet and started to work on a new Project, this time Android based, where Tec Toy wanted to deliver in 2012, which I don't know where it is. Maybe OUYA Team has stolen their idea...
Since there's no ZeeboNet available anymore, there's no way to install games (the total is 75, I think). But there's a group called Open Zeebo which is working on it.
The console was also overpriced, even for brazilian standards. On its launch it costed the same amount of a PS2 (R$ 500 = US$ 250), but Tec Toy lowered its price to half when the sales gone badly. Nowadays, it worths, if complete like mine, no more than US$ 50 to 75.
Here's a pic of my bundle.
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Zeebo
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