Gizmondo lives!

As comebacks go, this would trump Lazarus, Led Zeppelin and Liverpool in the 2005 Champions League final combined: Gizmondo is coming back.

Well, maybe. The much-derided gaming handheld was seemingly dead as a dodo when its parent company went bankrupt in 2006.

Former Gizmondo Europe boss Carl Freer has given a Swedish interview promising to relaunch a widescreen Gizmondo this year, while British firm Plextek has confirmed that it's working with Freer on the project.

"The product has been recovered from the liquidators and we are bringing it back to market," Plextek technical director Ian Murphy told Eurogamer. "The only reason Gizmondo was not a success last time round was it was not fully brought into the market."

Well, that and the small matter of a crippling lack of games; Gizmondo directors' reportedly dodgy mafia connections; payments to their own companies and wives; the decision to buy a model agency rather than market the device; lawsuits from former partners MTV and Jordan Grand Prix; spending £175,000 a year on a deserted store in Regent's Street; and losing more than £150 million in little under two years of operation.

Other than that, it went swimmingly.

At least, it did until company boss Stefan Eriksson's Ferrari Enzo crashed while doing healthy triple figures on a Californian highway, with Eriksson blaming a mysterious German called Dietrich who'd been driving, then fled the scene. Police never did find him. And it turned out the Enzo wasn't technically Eriksson's. And it was on the road illegally.

We can't help feeling that Plextek is onto a loser with any relaunch of the Gizmondo – both in terms of persuading gamers to give the device another try, and in building any sort of credibility within the mobile game industry.

Still, we'll certainly be watching events with interest to see if the device really can make a comeback.