Panasonic Shelves Jungle Portable Gaming Unit

While I was at CES 2011 this January I stopped by the Panasonic booth to see the Jungle. It went something like this:

Me: Hello, I’m Christophor Rick from Gamers Daily News, who can I speak with about seeing the Jungle.

Woman at Panasonic Info Desk: The what?

Me: The Jungle, your portable gaming unit that is in development.

Second Woman: Oh the handheld game thingy?

Me: Yes that would be it.

First woman: The what?

Second woman: It’s a handheld video game thing. Go talk to someone at the other information desk.

So I did, and that story went:

Me: I was told I could schedule an appointment to see the Jungle at this desk.

Woman at Desk 2: The what?

I was basically told that it didn’t exist and so I gave up.

Well now Panasonic has confirmed that they are no longer working on that particular product. Earlier in the week Reuters reported that Panasonic has shelved it.

"Panasonic decided to suspend further development due to changes in the market and in our own strategic direction," the company said in a statement.

Perhaps that was the release of the 3DS and the upcoming NGP and Experia Play from Sony. Or perhaps they realized that there was no way they were going to succeed.

What they might have considered was hooking up with Microsoft and making it some sort of Xbox portable. However, that doesn’t seem likely as MS now has Windows 7 which is offering a LIVE experience with games. So the mobile game space could become a three horse race just like the home console market is, but it won’t be due to Panasonic.