Panasonic Q discontinued

Impress Game Watch reports that the Panasonic Q has been discontinued. Apart from a few stragglers left in retail channels, you can't buy it any more and Panasonic has stopped making it.

Never heard of the Q? That wouldn't be terribly surprising. When the GameCube originally launched, Panasonic - as one of Nintendo's technology partners on the console - decided to make their own Cube hybrid machine which would play DVD movies as well as GameCube games, and so the Q was born, but it never made it out of Japan officially and was prohibitively priced amongst importers.

But although it cost considerably more than the Cube, it struck a chord with collectors and its sleek Apple-like design drew many an admiring stare. After it was successfully modified to play any region DVDs and Cube games from both Japan and the US, it became an even bigger success amongst hardcore types.

And now it looks set to make them rather rich. Give it a year and imagine the sort of money these will make on eBay...