Evo Smart Console

[Kamiyama]

I know this may be unrelated to Ubuntu, and I'm sorry if it has been asked before but please help me out if you can. I am interested in the Evo Smart Console by Envizions, but can't seem to find any information about it. After a bunch of web searching all I know is that it was supposedly released in November 2008, and is supposed to sell for around $399. I was interested because the games for it are supposed to be open-source, and wanted to see what a console would be like when its own community supported the games for it. However I have no clue what happened... it seems that the console vanished?

http://www.evo-phase1.com/

^ I think this link is related to the console, but doesn't seem to work.

http://www.envizionsinc.com/smartconsole.html

^ this link goes to envizions website, and they are advertising the console, but they offer no way to buy it, their store only offers software, from what I can tell.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZA2SzooyCM

^ a video of the smart console. It looks awesome, but I have no idea where this guy got it. The video is from a year ago, I wish I could buy one.

http://envizionscorp.com/

^ this link is from the wikipedia page for the Evo Smart Console. Their corporate website is invite only???

Does anyone know if Envizions is still making the Evo? If I do buy one, I would want it new and at sticker price (I refuse to buy resells). So if they aren't making them anymore I guess I wont be buying one. I have no idea why it should be so hard to find information about it... doing web searches for the Evo Smart Console turns up a lot of several-year-old news articles about how awesome it will be, but I just can't find anything recent. Thanks for your help!

[myromance123]

If I'm not wrong there was a limited amount of Evo's produced. Correct me if I'm wrong. From their main site, like you stated, it looks like they are working on something new!
I can't wait to see what it is. The previous Evo could only really play games that Ubuntu could already play. I think they are still lacking any supportive game companies.

My guess is we will just have to wait and see what happens. I hope they don't die out ;)

[portets]

it looks dead to me. and all it is is a normal computer with fedora on it.

i recommend the Pandora. it's a handheld linux game system.

http://www.open-pandora.org/

it's pretty cool and should be out somewhat soon.
people have already ported various games and emulators to it.

[myromance123]

The Pandora is not yet available in a lot of stores - in fact, until we shipped the first batch, we want to sell it exclusively in our own shops.

It's been out for a while. Just not available to the worldwide public. Are there actually any games made just for Pandora? I'm not really interested in playing oldskool pc games on it like Quake 3..

I saw something called psx4pand which allows playstation games to be played on it, that impressed me. It would only really be cool if there was even one game made just for pandora :)

[Kamiyama]

I hope the Evo didn't die out! =(

I actually sent an email to the envizions website and asked them if they still sell them, I hope they get back to me. I would like to have one, even if it doesn't have many games yet, I would be willing to wait. Even if it doesn't pan out I could still use it as a PC.

[Myths]

Actually it would appear that those of us who "snoozed", lost!

According to many of the reliable sources that cover the home game consoles, Envizions only produced 3000 units, which had shipped to fulfill preorders taken on the company's official site.

So few of the systems exist that the press never even got one for purpose of review!

I was hoping to buy a unit myself but hear that the ship has sailed :sad:

Proponents are quick to point out that the hardware was merely a PC with Linux installed and that it would cost far less than the $399 asking price to build a Linux-equipped tower with 2Gigs of RAM and a 120 Gig hard drive installed (of course the controller was merely a wireless Playstation-clone).

I hope the rumors of Envizions being so under-cover because they are working on their next console are true but have to wonder what caused them to completely shut down the Smart Console's ("Phase-One") production after only the initial run of 3000- especially if it is indeed true that all of the preorder options had attracted buyers.

There are a few videos on Youtube of the lucky 3000 who did preorder opening their consoles when they arrived to their doorsteps but sadly no real gameplay vids or, as stated above, professional reviews:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZA2SzooyCM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S6hk1PXrps

And I did locate a clip of one that was disassembled here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5xlyPf5QVA