Korean company GamePark Holdings have finally released the GP2x Wiz portable games console, the successor to the popular, but abruptly end-of-life'd, GP2x. What makes these portable devices special is that they run Linux, and are more or less aimed at the enthusiast and homebrew markets.
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Member since:2009-04-05
Software sells hardware. If they can get big developers like Bandai Namce, Square Enix, Capcom and Konami to support it, I can see it succeed as a platform.
Respectfully, I disagree. These emulating devices are seen as more of a threat to these large game corps because people can play their game by pirating. Why one earth would a greedy company who closed down a fan made Chrono Trigger 2 project be open minded to this.
These devices are not built as a competition to the large corps like Nintendo. It is to appeal to a niche of people, usually for gamers who are nostalgia about classic games or people who like to develop their own game if the device is open source. Currently only a couple thousanands unit of the Pandora is set to be produced, Nintendo and PSP sell hundred millions of their portable devices. I believe there is a different business model to these devices that are made to do many things, as opossed to multibillion corps who don't sell devices that are too open in features, limiting the features and selling new products is how they make money.
Edited 2009-05-15 11:29 UTC
Member since:2006-05-29
What you and a lot of people do not get about this class of hardware (and about linux) is, that it does not need to compete with the big market. It will play the classics and a few open source games and that is all it needs to do.
I don't want an DS or PSP where i have to hack around with the firmware to get the things running that i want to run. I don't want to spend a couple of thousand Dollars on an sdk to roll my own.
Furthermore, there isn't going a too big investment into the hardware. The base is usually a standard setup which is meant to go into PDAs or Cellphones, so they don't need to sell 100 000 units to get even, it's an nice little busyness if they can sell a few thousand which they likely will.
Member since:2006-05-30
I don't want an DS or PSP where i have to hack around with the firmware to get the things running that i want to run.
-- Hi there. I'd like to introduce you to the Acekard 2 Nintendo DS flash cart.
http://www.iso420.org/nds/acekard2/index.htm
-- I understand "not wanting to hack around with firmware" (read: PSP), but if you're wanting to play homebrew or emulate old games (including SNES, many of which play at full speed) -- A Nintendo DS lite + flash card doesn't get any easier, and is pretty cheap. Especially if you already have a NDS and a MicroSD card laying around.
Admittedly it's not Linux-based (though a friend of mine HAS run Linux on his NDS with a memory expansion card), but it's still pretty neat.
Member since:
2008-11-22
Too bad no developer will take it seriously and it'll be used mainly to emulate older systems.
Software sells hardware. If they can get big developers like Bandai Namce, Square Enix, Capcom and Konami to support it, I can see it succeed as a platform.