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Gamepark Holdings Officially Announces the WIZ Handheld

Posted by timothy on Tue Aug 26, 2008 12:15 PM
from the no-more-aa-goodness dept.
Handhelds Portables (Games) Wireless Networking Hardware
Croakyvoice writes "Gamepark Holdings, the makers of the GP2X Console, have today announced the successor, which is called the WIZ. The new GBA Micro-sized console features a touchscreen, Linux OS, an Arm9 533MHZ 3D processor with 64MB of ram and will have commercial games on sale at launch in October. Best of all for fans of homebrew and emulation on the GP2X, all that needs to be done is recompiling of sourcecode."
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[+] Hardware: The Portable Linux Based GP2X is Here 232 comments
An anonymous reader writes "Today sees the opening of the Official GP2X Site where you can see the new console from Gamepark.com, who last brought you the GP32 a fantastic console for homebrew developers. This console is a major step up with Dual 200Mhz cpus and is basically a Portable Linux handheld that can easily do ports like Quake, Doom and Emulators like Mame. Its Open Source SDK gives all amateur and commercial Developers the ablity to release software on a brand new console like the old Amiga/Commodore 64 days. More screenshots of the GP2X can be found at GP2x news."
Submission: The Wiz Officially Announced by Croakyvoice (986312)
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Gamepark Holdings Officially Announces the WIZ Handheld 50 Comments More /

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  • Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)

    by bigtallmofo (695287) * on Tuesday August 26 2008, @12:18PM (#24753309)
    ...I heard that nobody beats it!

    • Thank you for getting that out of the way early. :)

      • ...I heard that nobody beats it!

        Thank you for getting that out of the way early. :)

        I always beat it to get it out of the way early, but won't you know it, twenty minutes later, there it is again.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by jo42 (227475)

      Wot's up with naming things after urinating? First the Wii, then the Wiz. Wot's next? The P33?

  • Additional Info (Score:5, Interesting)

    by eldavojohn (898314) * <my/.username@@@gmail.com> on Tuesday August 26 2008, @12:21PM (#24753347) Homepage Journal
    From what specifics I could find [dcemu.co.uk] on it, they are planning on supporting Flash 7.0 and I think this means one could play swfs on it (of which I know several addictive games online).

    As for other support, I'm kind of disappointed that they went far enough to support Lyrics (Lyc) files but they only support TXT for their E-Books. I would be nice to see Plucker [gutenberg.org] supported by default so that all the Project Gutenberg books would be readily accessible in something better than just plain text. But, I suppose that's just a matter of recompiling [plkr.org] for the targeted architecture. I wonder if proprietary e-Book formats will ever be supported on devices like this? That's probably just wishful thinking--why would Amazon divert sales of the Kindle to something like this?

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by AKAImBatman (238306) *

      they are planning on supporting Flash 7.0 and I think this means one could play swfs on it (of which I know several addictive games online).

      Flash 7 is pretty ancient tech at this point. The vast majority of Flash games are Flash 8 with many of the new ones being made in Flash 9. However, the Nintendo Wii has the same limitation, so you may find Wii gaming sites [wiicade.com] to be useful on the device.

      • Parent is correct. The GP2X is a nice product, but it's not everything that GPH's marketing said about it on day one. For instance, I think at one point they were talking about WMA support, which I don't think happened but it was a long time before they stopped saying it had it. A lot of features and fixes were picked up over time from the community (which nobody objected to...in fact, the main gripe was that they could have done more to incorporate fixes that originated with the scene).

  • emulation (Score:5, Funny)

    by flynt (248848) on Tuesday August 26 2008, @12:23PM (#24753375)

    Can someone write an emulator so that we can we WIZ on our Wiis?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by AdamThor (995520)

      Emulators are inefficient, and the Wii is not the most powerful of the current gen:

      WIZ might make Wiis wheeze...

  • The Pandora (Score:5, Informative)

    by ledow (319597) on Tuesday August 26 2008, @12:29PM (#24753441) Homepage

    Although the Wiz is the "official" successor, the successor in spirit (and with a much more open development process, and much more likely to actually get up-to-date source code published - the GP2X firmware versions aren't always open-sourced properly) is the Pandora... www.openpandora.org - which is due out at roughly the same time as the Wiz.

    Most of the developers for the GP2X are actually putting their weight behind the Pandora first - I know, I'm a GP2X software porter of things like Simon Tatham's (of PuTTY fame) Portable Puzzle Collection... (Blatant advert: http://www.ledow.org.uk/gp2x/ [ledow.org.uk] for that particular one). This is mainly because GPH are notorious for poor information and stock-status. Most countries had trouble importing the GP2X before it was EOL'd anyway, and you don't get anything useful out of the company at all.

    Forget the Wiz, open the box....

    • Re:The Pandora (Score:5, Informative)

      by LotsOfPhil (982823) on Tuesday August 26 2008, @12:39PM (#24753625)
      Pandora specs:
      * ARM® Cortex(TM)-A8 600Mhz+ CPU running Linux
      * 430-MHz TMS320C64x+(TM) DSP Core
      * PowerVR SGX OpenGL 2.0 ES compliant 3D hardware
      * 800x480 4.3" 16.7 million colours touchscreen LCD
      * Wifi 802.11b/g, Bluetooth & High Speed USB 2.0 Host
      * Dual SDHC card slots & SVideo TV output
      * Dual Analogue and Digital gaming controls
      * 43 button QWERTY and numeric keypad
      * Around 10+ Hours battery life

          • Re:The Pandora (Score:4, Interesting)

            by Svartalf (2997) on Tuesday August 26 2008, @04:40PM (#24756869) Homepage

            I would not go so far as stating 100 hours. The rather large (for a handheld, that is...) Li-Ion battery they expect to ship it with will give it roughly 10 or so hours of runtime with the power consumption of the components on the bringup board I got. This is at the clock speed of 600MHz. Underclock it and it'll consume a lot less juice and with the DSP core in there, it should be able to play MP3's, etc. with much less juice. Something like 20+ hours, maybe.

    • Since you know a bit about it, what are the must play games native to the GPX2?

      • Before I rattle off a couple I have to point out some things. First a lot of the must-haves are actually ports, but they look awesome on the 320x240 screen and play better on buttons + d-pad than computer keyboard. Cave Story [miraigamer.net] is one example. Ur-Quan masters is another. Second, very little software outside of the emulators is gp2x-only because (a) most of it is done with SDL and the authors typically often PC versions as well, (b) some of it has been ported from the predecessor unit, GP32. But there's quite

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Goaway (82658)

      A qwerty keyboard? Is that some kind of joke?

      That thing is suffering HORRIBLY from feature checklist mentality. Just throw more and more features at it in the hope of attracting people who just read the feature list, without any regard for making a system that makes sense as a whole.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Drasil (580067)
        The feature list of the Pandora is pretty much exactly what I'm looking for when it comes to mobile computing. Small enough to fit in my hip pocket, while having most of the features of a full blown laptop. It makes very good sense to me.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Do you know ANYTHING about the history, community, or purpose behind the GP32, GP2X and Pandora?

        The Pandora is not intended to compete with the likes of the PSP or DS.

        It is intended as the ultimate homebrew/retro-gaming/emulation device. As such, a keyboard has been a highly requested feature; it will be perfect for emulation of things like the C64, Amiga, DOSBOX, etc. Not to mention making it practical as an ultra-mini notebook.

        Believe me, they are not just "throwing features in" to try and attract buyer

    • I just can't see many people expecting to get their 300+ dollars worth with a homebrew-only playing device such as Pandora. PSP, DS, Wii, Gamecube, etc, homebrew is either crap, emus (the use of which almost exclusively involves piracy), ports of Quake and Doom, or crap. Homebrew doesn't have a big enough audience to draw in good developers and/or keep good developers interested in it. A $300 Pandora, while not requiring hacking, still isn't going to make the market any bigger because of its price tag. In f

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by atraintocry (1183485)
      Absolutely. The GP2X is a great little device, and the Wiz improves on a lot of key areas of its design. Essentially it's somewhere between a hardware revision for the '2X and a new product.

      The Pandora, on the other hand, was developed in response to what the GP2X community was interested in, with lots of feedback and every step. As a result we have two fairly different devices on the way: a GP2X "micro" with improvements all around (but an unfortunately lack of regular buttons on the right hand side) and
    • I have a GP2X (in fact 2, and a break out box, and other goodies) and while I wish the Wiz and GPH the best of luck I'll be going with the Pandora myself. GPH have been guilty of some horrendous design decisions (particularly with the break out box), flagrant GPL violations (probably unintentional) and misunderstandings of their customer base (in the west at least). The Pandora project was instigated and is run by the prime movers in the GP2X community and as such I expect it will be of much higher qualit
  • All of the games look like cheezy anime. I am not impressed or amused. This just looks like another hand held disappointment.

  • I can't afford one (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sm62704 (957197) on Tuesday August 26 2008, @12:31PM (#24753483) Journal

    I went to the site, and there was no listed price. "Son, if you have to ask what it costs, you can't afford one". Too bad, It looks like something I would really like.

    Maybe the lack of a price on the "buy it now" button was an oversight; if so, they need to get their heads out of their asses. Very few of us are Bill gates or Larry Ellison; we can't buy things we don't know the price of.

    A lame website makes me think they must have a lame product as well. Be careful with your sites, folks! A good site will sell a bad product, but you can't even sell a good product on a bad site.

  • I can only hope that it is cheaper than the OpenPandora. It's smaller at least.

    At least we'll all be able to port our GP2X games to it. Although running them without recompilation would have been better.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by 4D6963 (933028)

      How could it not be cheaper than the Pandora? The Wiz has a much less powerful SoC, the Pandora has the most powerful SoC out there (TI OMAP 3530), with WiFi, Bluetooth, a keyboard, analog dual nubs on top of the D-pad and the *proper* other buttons (a double D-pad?? What the hell are these guys smoking?). Also a 800x480 screen vs 320x240. Oh and I'm not even talking about the vast battery life in the Pandora. That's the sort of thing that make the difference between just another PMP/console and a cutting e

      • "comparing the two is like comparing an Audi TT with your mom's Volkswagen"

        I'd much rather drive a swank Jetta than a TT. Just saying.

  • Might be a bit too little, too late though, with the Pandora coming out within a few months. Maybe this will work as a small, cheaper alternative in the open handheld market.

  • This [youtube.com] is the only Whiz I'll use!

  • I was an early adopter for the GP2X. It was disappointing. The community was great. The device itself was lackluster. Bad screens, worse joysticks, power issues, bricking risks... the best part was the emulators, and those are on the PSP now with Dark Alex's stuff.

    And the fact that it cost as much as 2 GBA SPs... I'm sure these new ones are even more.

    • I was an early adopter for the GP2X. It was disappointing. The community was great. The device itself was lackluster. Bad screens, worse joysticks, power issues, bricking risks... the best part was the emulators, and those are on the PSP now with Dark Alex's stuff.

      And the fact that it cost as much as 2 GBA SPs... I'm sure these new ones are even more.

      Same here. I was seriously disappointed with what I got for the GP2X cost. The newest hardware revision seems to be much more robust, but man, what a waste of money. The joystick issues with early versions made it almost unusable for gameplay.

      And now we have a split in the open source micros community between the Wiz and the OpenPandora. The OpenPandora seems to be a greatly superior machine, but at a rather high cost for essentially a portable game machine.

      I would probably rather get a cheap EEE PC o

  • Judging from the pics on the site, it's about the same width as a regular GBA but not as tall.

    Has a 2.8" VGA screen, 8 buttons (including volume and menu ones). It looks pretty nice but it's lacking buttons for emulation
    • I think it will have shoulder buttons too. But yeah nowhere near GBA-micro size. Just shorter in height than the gp2x and has that nice curve to it.

  • I noticed that this article, a previous article it refers to, as well as the DCEMU all refer to this hand-held system as a "console." To me, the word "console" implies something that hooks up to a TV or monitor -- something immobile and even relatively large -- not a hand-held system. Is that true for anyone else?

  • Just think: if Nintendo replaced the DS with this, you could choose to play with your Wii or your Wiz.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Drooling Iguana (61479)

      I've transcribed the first section of the specs from the brochure:

      Product Name: GP2X Wiz
      CPU ARM9 533MHz, 3D Accelerator
      RAM: 64MB
      NAND Flash Memory: 1GB
      Size: 121(w) * 61(h) * 18(d)mm
      Wwight Approx. 93g (Without battery) / Approx. 136g (Including battery)
      External Storage: SD Card
      USB Function: 2.0 High Speed
      O/S: Linux
      Battery: 2000mAh Lithium Polymer
      Buttons: Up / Down / Left / Right, A/B/X/Y, HOME/SELECT, Volume Up/Down, Power On/Off/Hold
      Display: 71.12mm(2.8inch) OLED Touch Screen Panel
      Resolution: 320x240 (QVGA)
      E

        • Diablo 1 ran in 640x480 (so did Diablo 2 without the expansion pack), so a 'simplistic diablo type game' should be able to have a 'rich gaming experience' in 600x400. The original required a 60MHz CPU and 8MB of RAM. This has a 533MHz CPU and 64MB of RAM.
            • If by Starcraft-type games you mean games where you need a full keyboard and mouse to comfortably control them then I wouldn't say handhelds are crying out for that. Even so, the Pandora's got it covered :D

        • although I can't think how a rich gaming experience can be created in under 600x400 resolution.

          Yeah, nobody ever enjoyed a game before PCs with VGA hardware!

            • Yes, the kind that people have been playing on ASCII terminals for decades?

                • (you *did* read my post, right?).

                  The one that said "I'm thinking of creating simplistic diablo type games"? Yes.

                  If you honestly think that resolution is that big a barrier to "game experience", you don't really know much about game design.

      • Assuming it will be handled like the GP2X, you'd be buying it from a distributor. Here is a list of gp2x distributors [gp2x.org] that should be fairly recent. For other info, the largest english-speaking GP2X forum (and maybe the largest in general?) is located at www.gp32x.com, and sometimes there are threads about who has the best price for a specific region.

        Since the announcement was just made, the info in the forums is still kind of fresh regarding the Wiz and I haven't seen anyone say specifically which distros
        • Who talked about piracy? That's as if you went "iPods play MP3s? OMG piracy!!". Nothing inherently illegal about emulators.

            • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

              by atraintocry (1183485)
              • Reverse engineering is legal, at least in the US. Most tech companies would be out of business if it wasn't.
              • Reverse engineering has nothing to do with copyright or copy-protection. I can't figure out if you're talking about the DMCA or what, but you definitely are confusing things, perhaps on purpose.
              • Emulators aren't illegal. End of story. NES hardware clones have nothing to do with emulation. Again, you're either confused or purposefully being confusing.
              • This isn't the music industry. Nobody's "targeting"

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