Hi! I was working in QA at Gizmondo for 8 months before getting offered a new job 3 days before they fired us all :)
I dunno if this will be of any interest to you but you might be amused to hear that I got paid late on about 5 of those months because they just didn't have the money to pay us (apart from that one time their bank manager made a mistake and they showed us all a copy of the letter from the bank manager so we would actually believe them). So for about a week every month or so, the Gizmondo QA department among others would refuse to do any work until we got paid. Some of us had to borrow money from petty cash just to afford to make it into work on several occasions.
When I joined it was a whole development studio (used to be Warthog) and they had some cool sounding games in production which probably would have been the best games on there, but obviously when they realised no money was coming in after the launch they thought making good games was going to be too expensive and 'downsized' by firing their developers leaving just a rather demoralised QA department.
Other than that, we all had a hilarious time hearing about the CEO paying his wife for marketing consultancy and paying us out of his own pocket when funds were low. Especially when we then later read headlines like "Former Gizmondo executive's mafia convictions revealed"! Of course any news we heard about the company's finances ended up on the internet long before we were told anything.
As for the games, I think the only game I really enjoyed playing was SSX which is probably better on every other platform anyway. It's a shame they never got chance to release the augmented reality games using the camera cause they were ace. Or you know... finishing their flagship game Colours might have helped their sales a bit. Everyone likes GTA clones!
Also please say hi to all the great people from Gizmondo QA who all read this site religiously!
Keep me anonymous please, I'm not sure what I can still be sued for...
Anyone who used to work in the shop, particularly the people who said they remember the day we came in to take our photos and are apparently blaming UKR for killing the console. Anyone who used to post on the official Gizmondo forum - to this day we remain convinced you were all paid employees embarking upon rudimentary "viral marketing". Anyone else who got bummed by the Gizmondo scam. Bulletproof anonymity assured.
A site about games and game paraphernalia and how nothing's as good as we remember it, probably because we used to inhabit a FANTASY WORLD.
MICRO-BLOG
What are we half-heartedly skimming RIGHT NOW? RECENTLY...
Each post .02% worse than the last. EVEN OUR OWN POPUPS ARE TAKING THE PISS OUT OF US ... "WE GOT SHITFACED AND LEFT THE DS STYLUS IN THE PU... THE "H" TO THE "H" TO THE "G" TO THE "L" AND SO ON... GIZMONDO SHOP BOARDED UP AS GOD INTENDED NOW'S AS GOOD A TIME AS ANY TO LAUNCH OUR PS3 LIES... DO WE LIKE JAPAN OR NOT THIS WEEK? OUTRUN 2006 COAST TO COAST INTERVIEW -- IN WHICH W... IN WHAT ORDER ARE WE GOING TO EAT THE BODY PARTS O... THE FUTURE OF HOME ENTERTAINMENT HAS ARRIVED! *EXC... CONFERENCES WE'RE THINKING OF ORGANISING THE HTML ERAS
When men used to till the pages by hand. |
SHOPS
Use our Play or Amazon Shops to buy those shit Wii games you secretly like, helping the effort. ARCHIVES
12 years of wheat and chaff in one vast and impenetrable mass. |
Some updates weren't universally hated by the entire world within seconds of being uploaded.
1. The Animal Crossing Wild World mega-feature and public-service review
2. Sonic CD - screenshot parade
3. Cream The Rabbit sexual diagrams
4. OutRun2 screenshot-taking guide for the benefit of inept journalists
5. The personal UKR SEGA Toys Homestar planetarium review
6. Trying to buy an Xbox 360 in London
7. (STILL) THE MOST AMAZING PROMOTIONAL PHOTOGRAPH OF ALL TIME
8. A trip to GamesMaster (in Peckham)
Links to that blog of yours you started up and were excited about for a whole weekend.
FRIENDS
Some people we might've MET. Or at least seen in a room and been near. One Thousand Tiny Things I Hate "LIFESTYLE"
Other sites we are happy to officially endorse without requiring Adwords spend. PRIVACY POLICY
Having one is compulsory, apparently. Ours is here. It is not meant to be funny. |
ACQUAINTANCES
People off the internet. Quality and commitment levels may vary. |
It came with the template. Maybe in 2014 we'll jump on board the Twitter train and put that in here. Or a radio. That'd be nice.
what a nice car
"Of course I was speeding! I've drunk 10 pints!!"
You may have to move and get those French docs to give youa new face Zorg.
i cant say anything more though.
I know who the poster of this message is. Being a close friend and all.
I can fully vouch for the comments made here and I look back with teary eyes when I think of all the japes we had at gizmondo.
Although I worked for Gizmondo for almost 200 lifetimes (atleast that what it feels like) I never really felt that I was doing a real job. The games that would occasionally fin their way on to my desk would be half heartedly looked at for a few minutes and then tossed to one side. It was quite unbelievable just how bad the software for that machine was. Even the 3DO had samurai showdown and the jaguar had tempest 2000. What did Gizmondo have? was it supposed to be colors? fuck knows.
Well, to sum up, I am gobsmacked that gizmondo lasted as long as it did. On a positive note, I can't wait to see the Gizmondo 2! hopefully my old job will still be open.
Do you drive? The ex-boss has already crashed twice...coincidence??
Comm. Zorg-the Ian Hislop for our generation!
Or not.
Yes, please show us the unfinished games, so we can see "what could've been."