Gizmondo, the handheld console which seems to have been offered considerable Microsoft backing, confirmed pre-order figures following the first TV teaser campaign, which began airing on terrestrial, satellite and cable across Europe in the last couple of weeks.

Over 560,000 pre-orders have been recorded since the new official website went live on 29th October. The majority of pre-orders originated from outside the UK, apparently from early adopters trying to purchase units ahead of the US and pan-European roll outs, scheduled for Q1 2005 - further evidence of mounting anticipation across the globe.

Niclas Hermansson, Ogilvy Interactive, says: Online activity has been increasing. We're now recording over 250,000 unique sessions a week on the website, and have had up to 500,000 hits a day. There were over 40,000 unique sessions recorded within two minutes of the first TV ad being aired.

Carl Freer, Managing Director of Gizmondo said We believe that realistically at least a half of these pre-orders will move to retail sales as availability in the stores ramps up in each territory. Nevertheless, these numbers bode extremely well for Gizmondo.

The Gizmondo device and its games are currently launching in the UK during the fourth quarter 2004, and in Continental Europe and North American markets during the first quarter 2005. The Company cannot project the ultimate number of orders it may receive for the device.

The Gizmondo is powered by a Microsoft Windows CE.net platform, boasts a 2.8-inch TFT colour screen with a Samsung ARM9 400Mhz processor and incorporates the GoForce 3D 4500 Nvidia graphics accelerator. It provides cutting-edge gaming, multimedia messaging, an MP3 music player, Mpeg4 movie playing capability, a digital camera and a GPRS network link to allow wide-area network gaming. Additionally, it contains a GPS chip for location based services, is equipped with Bluetooth for use in multi-player gaming and accepts MMC card accessories.