UK-designed handheld games console Gizmondo will be formally launched on 29 October, the maker's parent company, Tiger Telematics, announced today.[br][br]Sources close to the company have, in the past, told us that once the console is launched it will ship "within a week or so", indicating that consumers will be able to get their mitts on the machine in the first week of November.[br][br]Gizmondo has also signed up digital music distributor OD2/Loudeye to supply the company with downloadable Windows Media-encoded songs to sell on its web site, said sources told us.[br][br]The GPS, GSM/GPRS-enabled handheld will be manufactured by Flextronics. It will ship in the UK first, with US, European and Australasian roll-outs taking place through 2005.[br][br]Like Tapwave's Zodiac handheld console, which will also ship in the UK in the run up to Christmas, Gizmondo is being pitched a well-heeled gamers looking not only for on-the-move gaming but mobile multimedia facilities too - music and video, along with photos. That sets the machines not only against today's games machines, but attempts to position them against pricier but more capacious hard drive-based products like Apple's iPod and Creative's Zen PMC, which uses Microsoft Portable Media Center platform.[br][br]Both the Zodiac and Gizmondo use Fathammer's X-Forge 2 games engine in addition to their own OS-specific APIs.