Monty's Gaming and Wireless Outlook - Issue 181

It has been a most excellent week for car chases and car smashes. First it was banned Austrian skiing coach Walter Mayer who did a runner after a raid on the Austrian Olympic team. After a chase and slalom through the mountains outside Turin, he was arrested and put into a psychiatric hospital after trying to ram a roadblock and assaulting a police officer.

Secondly, and even more gloriously, Stefan Eriksson, the drunken boss of failed handheld gaming company Gizmondo, wiped out his Enzo Ferrari at 120mph on the Pacific Coast highway. Although he was spotted crawling out of the wreckage and jumping into a canyon, Eriksson blamed his imaginary friend 'Dietrich' for causing the crash. Bad, Dietrich, bad, bad, bad.

Naturally, the fact there was blood on his lip and the driver's airbag and none on the passenger's side had anything to do with it. But maybe it was Dietrich and Dietrich is very sorry for wiping out one of the most beautiful cars ever made.

You couldn't make it up. But the evanescent Dietrich is no more of an illusion than the idea that Gizmondo would ever be a success. Touted as the mobile Xbox, the device was originally called Gametrac until the company was caught in a legal dispute with Formula 1 team Jordan and forced to change its name.

So... they decided to call it Gizmondo. Are you having a laugh? Gizmondo? The name sounded more like a randy dinosaur than a gaming device and now it has gone the same way as the dinosaurs after burning through £180 million in less than a year.

Consequently, Eriksson's crash just outside Malibu is a fitting end to a fabulous farce. The Ferrari was about to be repossessed by The Bank of Scotland and there's nothing like going out in a blaze of glory. Let's hope they don't put do a Herman Mayer and put Eriksson in a psychiatric hospital. We need people like him among us.