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Gamepark Releases the GP2X Wiz
Craig writes "Gamepark have officially released the follow-up to its successful Linux handheld, the GP2X. The GP2X Wiz is a 533Mhz Linux-based handheld that's a similar size to the GBA Micro, with a touchscreen and 12 games preloaded into memory, many of which are demos of commercial games. The system comes with 1GB of flash memory, which can be expanded with SD cards. The Homebrew Community have already released ports of games such as Quake, Wolfenstein 3D, Warcraft and emulators for SNES, Genesis, Commodore 64 and the arcade emulator Mame."
I was under the impression that this was launched long ago, as I remember them (Gamepark Holdings) advertising it for sale at least a year ago. Doing a bit of research, I guess they thought it would be launched far sooner than they really could. I remember they had pricing available and everything.
Screw the rules, I have green hair!
Describing it as "successful" is quite generous, considering I am a gaming fan and have never heard of it..
Looks like it would cause a bad case of dual Nintendo Thumb. Also, where is the wireless? Am I missing this in the product description?
It has a touchscreen. That's a sort of analog control, I guess. If it isn't, then you could say the exact same thing about the Nintendo DS.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Does anyone know if this can/will run android?
I'm beginning to think that android should be on every portable, and for something like this that runs linux, one would imagine it's either doable at worst, or officially supported at best.
Any thoughts?
-Taylor
Worldwide Military budgets: $2100 billion. Worldwide Space Exploration budgets: $38 billion. Really, world? Really?
Wikipedia is your friend
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
If you're going to be pedantic, they both use a capital 'G'. GB vs. Gb, not GB vs. gb. So the use of "gb" is ambiguous. Of course, since storage is traditionally measured in bytes, it's obviously GB. I'd only consider Gb as a possibility when talking about network bandwidth or the like.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
According to the article it can do e-books, video and music, so not strictly game-only.
is that NOBODY beats the Wiz!
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
I'll remember this the next time I see you holding a device with two joysticks to your head...
I got bitten by the crappy hardware of the first GP2X (4-contact digital "fake analog" stick so about 75% of the movable area was "dead zone", and diagonals were almost impossible), lousy battery life, tendency to blow capacitors...
I'll wait until this thing has some solid reviews on it...
... 12 games preloaded into memory many of which are demos of commercial games
No, if you read the announcement - they are demos of games currently in development. It appears there are no games available now except for what's pre-loaded onto the device itself.
Not sure why you'd buy this now...
#DeleteChrome
I've been hoping somebody would release something like this for a while. I tried to crack the firmware on my psp so I could run some homebrew stuff on it. That failed miserably.
These people will get my hard earned money if their console does what they say it can.
And that was the last Terry Fox run I ever participated in.
I let that be as Gamepark is a European company - and different dialects of English take different approaches. The Brits (IIRC) treat companies as a plural entity, whereas us 'muricans treat them as singular entities.
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. - Albert Einstein
http://openpandora.org/ this is made by some of the same people that were on the first GP2X team i believe. from what i've read it seems more promising.
I wanna use my Atari to play E.L.U.M.
The PSP has one analog stick and the upcoming Pandora (if it ever gets released) is supposed to have two of them.
Mada mada dane.
Something I haven't seen really, and would like to see in handhelds is a strain gauge under the buttons to measure downward button pressure.
I can imagine dozens of ways to use that force intuitively in games, from throwing objects in sports games to modulating throttle, brake and steering control in car racing games.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
Now imagine a Beowulf cluster of these.
Gamepark (GPH) is Korean.
* Powered by a 533Mhz 3D accelerator plus flash engine
What's this in geek?
Why are they pointing to some web forum instead of the manufacturer, anyway?
* The new console boasts a 533MHz ARM9 CPU with 3D acceleration.
That's better, I think.
Something I haven't seen really, and would like to see in handhelds is a strain gauge under the buttons to measure downward button pressure.
You mean like the buttons with area-sensitive underlying contacts in the Dual Shock 2 and the area-sensitive touch screen in the DS, neither of which got used by a lot of games?
The pandora is getting mighty close to completion; the last few boxes will be ticked in the next couple of weeks before mass production begins.
When this thing was announced, there was no iPhone, Android, etc. Are handheld game-only units still relevant at this point?
They are if you don't want to spend $70/mo on another phone contract. Consider that Apple still sells iPod products, including the iPod Touch PDA, even after the introduction of the iPhone.
I'm sorry but the author of that sentence has never even seen or held a Game Boy Micro in person.
From the specifications alone, you can see that the GP2x Wiz is 50% bigger and 70% heavier than a GameBoy Micro:
Game Boy Micro:
- 50Ã--101Ã--17.2 mm (86860 mm3)
- 80 grams (built-in battery)
GP2x Wiz:
- 121x61x18 mm (132858 mm3, 50% bigger)
- 136 g (with battery)
As far as processing power goes, however, the GP2x Wiz wins. No debate there.
I'm also not a fan of what seems to be a dual-gamepad setup, even if the pad on the right is supposed to be used as "buttons" (and even if the pad is split in four equal parts, it's still a gamepad). Weird, to say the least.
Can anyone actually confirm that anything electronic isn't made in China these days?
To somewhat quote Armageddon: "PSP, iPod touch, Nintendo DSi... all made in China."
If you look at specifications for things like RAM and Flash chips, it's always in bits. I'm talking about manufacturers here, not end-user products.
gamepark and gamepark holdings are two different companies last I checked.
Skiffy is Spiffy, but Ort is tort.
The original GP2X(the predecessor to the Wiz) had an analog stick, although it was quite rubbish and got changed to a D-Pad in the later version(F-200). The pandora is almost complete and has dual analog controls of their own design (as well as a d-pad).
one of its selling points is that it is cheap. Part of that low price comes from less-than-great quality components. But really, I wish they'd produce a software compatible high-end version too. Developing on the gp2x is very fun and easy. I ported gojo to it.
Skiffy is Spiffy, but Ort is tort.
They are if you want proper gaming controls.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
The original GP2X(the predecessor to the Wiz) had an analog stick
Actually, it wasn't analog. It was digital and had a very bad contact layout, which is why it had such lousy diagonals.
Im not sure the wiz is going to be as successful as their previous attempts. They are getting very strong competition from a bunch of chinese manufacturers releasing units all based off of ingenic processors. They all have comparable speed and specs to a wiz, with a few less features, but they are all half the price and already come with fully functioning emulators. The big one out now is the A320 dingoo. Theres a growing dev group behind it that have almost completed porting linux to it, but the unit already comes with emulators so its already fully functional out of the box. All this for 80$, half the price of the wiz.
You mean like the buttons with area-sensitive underlying contacts in the Dual Shock 2 and the area-sensitive touch screen in the DS, neither of which got used by a lot of games?
And when they were used, it was invariably BADLY.
Damn AK47 in MGS2...
Gamepark Holdings is the one releasing the Wiz.
Neither is North Korea ;)
Now whenever friends, family, or even complete strangers ask me what I'm doing, I can cheerfully reply that I'm playing with my Wiz.
The problem I have with the current state of homebrew console developement and open source game developement is, that the game developement pipeline, i.e. the pipeline for developing (and deploying) anything beyond a non-trivial CLI or GUI app is a huge fuss, even compared to the old days of the Commodore and Atari plattorms. The bizar mess even the most humble modders and hobby gamedevs have to go through to develop across FOSS platforms (BSD, Linux, OpenSolaris, whatever) is a slap in the face to anybody who wants to bring game innovations to FOSS. And the modders *are* the forefront of game innovation - that's a fact.
Open Source / Homebrew needs a proper working one-stop zero-fuss developement pipeline for non-trivial grapical and multimedia apps. And I am *not* talking about the latest and greatest in 3D GFX and effects. I'm talking about a simple, OpenGL & Sound supporting IDE + compiler + generator + x-plattform OpenGL and sound support. Not even video would be required.
Give me a MonoDevelop or a KDevelop or Erics python IDE from which I can compile and deploy for an standardised x-plattform multimedia enviroment (video is not even needed) and I'll be on my way to develop the first game for all these devices including the regular Linux desktop. The problem is that it isn't even possible to get consistent coherent information on how to develop for these things. The only half-way resonable tool I can find for these is some shoddy closed-source windows-only GL Basic IDE that looks like it came from 1989.
What the f*ck do I have to worry about compiling my toolkit when l'll be busy for well over a year building the libs and components for my game. Constantly compiling against moving targets in Linux's equivalent of DLL hell? No sir. Get your shit together and build a multimedia enviroment and pipeline that stays consistent for a few years - than we can talk business.
As long as the absolute minimum in this regard isn't delivered the modders will stay with Windows, their free (beer) Steam Engine and Softimage licences. ... And I will continue to develop Games in Flash. I can hardly believe I'm writing this, but x-plattform multimedia deployment - even to FOSS - isn't half the hassle with those Adobe crooks than it is with FOSS tools, kits and pipelines. That's the bitter truth.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Why no widescreen ? Just interested, most other devices aim for a wider display. So did the next gen gamepark hints.
Thanks
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Some things are made in Taiwan...
Long live SDL. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zEQhhaJsU4&feature=fvst
I'm reasonably sure (I haven't investigated this, but I doubt I need to) that most "analog button" designs like you're talking about are patented.
While there may be a novel way to do it, there aren't too many other ways of doing this that don't require huge tracts of land on the PCB to implement. Sadly.