Maurcio Wagner 9 Jan 2009 at 4:37 pm PST
I have a friend that worked with Tectoy (Brazil) and s/he said there's poor planning and management, bad marketing strategies, and not that great support from Qualcomm on the project. The project was far behind schedule and that it was like no one really had any idea what to do with it, which I think you see from this interview. S/he also said Tectoy laid off some employees related to the project.

In Brazil the console is going to run with the mobile provider Claro and Tectoy will pay all costs for the connection for users. I don't know how long that can last and still be profitable especially if it does become popular and they add online gaming. Also 3G isn't that big in Brazil yet and even in big cities like São Paulo the connection can be really bad.

The price they said during news of the release in November was US$250. That's expensive for their target market and is more than the very popular hacked PS2. You have to understand that in Brazil Tectoy is kind of a joke. Hardcore gamers don't take it seriously and casual poor gamers have much cheaper console options. They've got a good idea with this but I really don't think they understand the market and I don't think they can execute it right. My friend really thinks it's going to be a big failure.

You have to understand that in Brazil Tectoy is kind of a joke.

It's pretty much designed for an SD set up, right? Not high definition?

JR: In fact, it's really more designed for the cheapest, most resilient TVs you can find. [laughter]