SEGA Classics heading to Gizmondo

Judging by the volume of announcements emanating from last week's Consumer Electronics Show, visitors to the Las Vegas event were showered in Gizmondo related excitement - including this, the news that Tiger Telematics has signed a letter of intent with Digital Media Cartridge Ltd (DMC) to produce a compilation of classic SEGA games for the handheld.

Those games being discussed include Sonic the Hedgehog, OutRun, Golden Axe, Altered Beast and Shinobi, and while we'd question Tiger's assertion that those five are "every bit as entertaining as when they first appeared in the arcades," together they certainly represent a good few solid hours of entertainment. Particularly Sonic.

Plus, as Gizmondo Europe COO Steven Law points out, "These games hold a special attraction to the traditional early adopter, but equally represent entirely new territory for those that missed the 16-bit revolution."

And fortunately, although the Gizmondo handheld is very much geared towards new ideas like MPEG-4 movie playback, multimedia messaging, MP3s, digital photography and GPRS and Bluetooth network link-up, the company hasn't been tempted to meddle with the components of its "SEGA Classics" arcade pack, stating that "The pin-sharp screen of the Gizmondo will give this SEGA Classics pack a youthful facelift, but the games themselves will be left as nature intended."