niyahraditer: Gamestop And The Wikipad - Video Game Blog, Video Game Reviews

Though it was announced over year ago at CES, few are still aware of the soon-to-be-released gaming tablet device known as ?The Wikipad?. Independently developed by Wikipad Inc., the device doesn?t appear to be much more than regular tablet computer (and not much of good one either), however it has attracted attention lately due to a mysterious controller-attachment that sports a full suit of sensors, dual analogue sticks, a directional pad, standard 4-button input pad, and 4 shoulder buttons (two on the left and two on the right). However what is most intriguing about the Wikipad is its partnership with game-streaming service Gaikai. For those of you unfamiliar with Gaikai, just imagine if your friend had a high-powered computer and he could load a game on it, but you control it from your computer and the game itself is streamed to your monitor. This would essentially allow the Wikipad to play the most graphic and processor intensive games on the market, despite being a tablet with 1 Gigabyte of internal memory.

So what is this noise about Gamestop, then? It would seem that Wikipad Inc. plans to sell their product exclusively to Gamestop. By clicking the pre-order link on Wikipad.com, you?re taken to Gamestop?s online store, and greeted with a frightening price tag of $500. This presents two rather large problems for the Wikipad, right from the get-go.

For one, consider the fact that Gamestop makes most of its profit in selling used games, meaning its core customer group doesn?t like to spend large amounts of money on new products, they shop at Gamestop for cheap, used devices, not some new tablet-gaming-whatever for $500, and we don?t even know if that?s where it ends- Gaikai may very well charge separate rates for its streaming services (which it probably will), piling on greater and greater expenses. Those looking to buy it as a tablet computing device would most likely go with something like Google?s Nexus 7 which doesn?t even cost half as much as the Wikipad.

For two, consider the competition. For instance, why buy a Wikipad when you can buy a new Playstation Vita with a 3G access bundle and?8new games (considering the average price is about $27), or even a brand new Nintendo 3DS with 9 games? The fact that it is a tablet computer doesn?t matter much in the grand scheme of things, considering you can either of the previous systems along with an actually decent tablet computer and still have at least $100 left. Having a tablet and a gaming device in one shell also matters very little because any portability of the actual computer is lost to the bulk of the attachable controller shell for gaming.

With $500, you could buy a new Playstation Vita, with HD Remakes of Metal Gear Solid 2 & 3, Gravity Rush, Resistance: Burning Skies, Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Little Big Planet, Lollipop Chainsaw, and Assassins Creed 3. But if you would really rather spend all of that on a Wikipad, it hits shelves in Gamestops on October 31st of this year.

Article from Gamersyndrome.com