The GP2X Wiz is a

handheld game console A handheld game console, or simply handheld console, is a small, portable self-contained video game console with a built-in screen, game controls and speakers. Handheld game consoles are smaller than home video game consoles and contain the co ...

and

portable media player A portable media player (PMP) (also including the related digital audio player (DAP)) is a portable consumer electronics device capable of storing and playing digital media such as audio, images, and video files. The data is typically stored o ...

developed by

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

n company GamePark Holdings running a

Linux kernel The Linux kernel is a free and open-source, monolithic, modular, multitasking, Unix-like operating system kernel. It was originally authored in 1991 by Linus Torvalds for his i386-based PC, and it was soon adopted as the kernel for the GNU ...

-based embedded operating system. It was released on May 12, 2009, and was also the first console from both Game Park and Game Park Holdings to be also released outside South Korea. It is the successor to the GP2X.

Overview

An image of the Wiz system was first leaked on the web in late July 2008. Rumors had been circulating that GamePark Holdings was in the process of making a new handheld, since they had abruptly discontinued production of its first handheld, the GP2X, in late June/early July. Prior to the official announcement, this handheld was sometimes referred to as the GP3X. On August 26, 2008, GamePark Holdings announced that it was planning to release a new handheld, named the Wiz. Along with the announcement, a brochure detailing a great amount of launch information was released, complete with the system's specs. The brochure stated that new games would be released every month for the system; This is a deviation from the GP2X, which did not have many commercial games. However, the Wiz still appears to be primarily advertised as an open-source system, meant for homebrew development of games and emulators. On September 2, 2008, it was reported that the GP2X Wiz's button layout was to be revised, and the second D-Pad on the right-hand side of the system was to be removed. In order to make these design changes, the release of the system was to be pushed back to November 2008. Around the last week of April 2009, GamePark shipped test units of the GP2X Wiz. These are thought to be the final hardware revision before the actual product launch. Retailers for the GP2X Wiz stated that they planned to begin shipping the GP2X Wiz as soon as October 8, 2008. , retailers are listing the price of the Wiz at US$179.99. The GP2X Wiz started shipping as of May 13, 2009. An online application store was set to launch in August of 2009. Official accessories for the GP2X Wiz include the Accessory Kit (which comes with an SD card case, a wrist strap, and a spare stylus), a screen protector, and a Genuine Leather Case. The successor of GP2X Wiz is GP2X Caanoo.

Myungtendo

In February 2009, South Korean president

Lee Myung-bak Lee Myung-bak (; ; ; born 19 December 1941) is a South Korean businessman and politician who served as the 10th president of South Korea from 2008 to 2013. Before his presidency, he was the CEO of Hyundai Engineering and Construction, and the m ...

had stated that "Korea needs to develop a video game console like a Nintendo DS". This statement was parodied with the "Myungtendo MB", an obvious rip-off of the Nintendo DS. While completely unrelated to the Myungtendo incident, the GP2X Wiz is often nicknamed as the "Myungtendo", due to its release shortly after the statement.

Hardware

Specifications

* Chipset: MagicEyes Pollux

System-on-a-Chip A system on a chip or system-on-chip (SoC ; pl. ''SoCs'' ) is an integrated circuit that integrates most or all components of a computer or other electronic system. These components almost always include a central processing unit (CPU), memory ...

VR3520F * CPU: 533 MHz

ARM9 ARM9 is a group of 32-bit RISC ARM processor cores licensed by ARM Holdings for microcontroller use. The ARM9 core family consists of ARM9TDMI, ARM940T, ARM9E-S, ARM966E-S, ARM920T, ARM922T, ARM946E-S, ARM9EJ-S, ARM926EJ-S, ARM968E-S, ARM99 ...

26TEJ ( overclockable to 900 MHz, however the system can become unstable over 750 MHz) * NAND Flash Memory: 1 GB * RAM: DDR

SDRAM Synchronous dynamic random-access memory (synchronous dynamic RAM or SDRAM) is any DRAM where the operation of its external pin interface is coordinated by an externally supplied clock signal. DRAM integrated circuits (ICs) produced from the ...

64 MB * Operating System: Linux-based OS * Storage: SD Card (

SDHC Secure Digital, officially abbreviated as SD, is a proprietary non-volatile flash memory card format developed by the SD Association (SDA) for use in portable devices. The standard was introduced in August 1999 by joint efforts between SanDis ...

support) * Connection to PC: USB 2.0 High Speed * USB Host: USB 1.1 * Power: Internal 2000mAh Lithium Polymer Battery (approx. 7 hours game/video playback) * Display: 320x240

AMOLED AMOLED (active-matrix organic light-emitting diode, ) is a type of OLED display device technology. OLED describes a specific type of thin-film-display technology in which organic compounds form the electroluminescent material, and active matrix ...

Touch Screen * Stereo audio DAC: Cirrus Logic 43L22 * Embedded Microphone * Physical size: * Weight: 98 g (without battery), 136 g (with battery) * 3D Acceleration (GPU embedded on Pollux) * Chipset supports

OpenGL ES OpenGL for Embedded Systems (OpenGL ES or GLES) is a subset of the OpenGL computer graphics rendering application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D computer graphics such as those used by video games, typically hardware-accele ...

1.1 * 133M Texel/sec, 1.33M Polygon/sec. Based on the specs released by GamePark Holdings, the Wiz appears to have a considerably more slim and compact form factor than that of the GP2X. The Wiz also has a fairly large amount of built in flash memory, which GamePark has stated will be used to hold games that will be included with the system.

OLED An organic light-emitting diode (OLED or organic LED), also known as organic electroluminescent (organic EL) diode, is a light-emitting diode (LED) in which the emissive electroluminescent layer is a film of organic compound that emits light i ...

screens have much better contrast ratios than LCD screens, particularly because, unlike LCDs, they can display true black.

Multimedia support

Video

* Container files:

AVI Avi is a given name, usually masculine, often a diminutive of Avram, Avraham, etc. It is sometimes feminine and a diminutive of the Hebrew spelling of Abigail. People with the given name include: * Avi (born 1937), Newbery award-winning Americ ...

* Video formats: DivX,

XviD Xvid (formerly "XviD") is a video codec library following the MPEG-4 video coding standard, specifically MPEG-4 Part 2 Advanced Simple Profile (ASP). It uses ASP features such as b-frames, global and quarter pixel motion compensation, lumi m ...

MPEG4 MPEG-4 is a group of international standards for the compression of digital audio and visual data, multimedia systems, and file storage formats. It was originally introduced in late 1998 as a group of audio and video coding formats and related te ...

and others via software: flv, mp4, mkv... * Audio formats:

MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...

, WAV and others via software. * Maximum Resolution: 640*480 * Maximum Frame Rate: 30 frame/s * Maximum Video Bitrate: 2500kbit/s * Maximum Audio Bitrate: 384kbit/s * Captions: SMI

Audio

* Audio formats: MP3, Ogg Vorbis, WAV (more via software) * Channels: Stereo * Frequency Range: 20 Hz - 20 kHz * Power output: 100 mW * Sample Resolution/Rate: 16bit/8–48 kHz, in 8bit/22 kHz

Photos

* Supports JPG, PNG, GIF, BMP File Formats (more via software)

Flash Player

The system was initially supposed to ship with Flash Player 7. The Wiz also has

Flash Player Adobe Flash Player (known in Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Google Chrome as Shockwave Flash) is computer software for viewing multimedia contents, executing rich Internet applications, and streaming audio and video content created on the ...

8 with

ActionScript ActionScript is an object-oriented programming language originally developed by Macromedia Inc. (later acquired by Adobe). It is influenced by HyperTalk, the scripting language for HyperCard. It is now an implementation of ECMAScript (meaning ...

2.0 support, allowing it to play flash games from the Internet.

Games

The Wiz had only four commercial retail games, these are: ::*''Deicide 3: Distorted Existence'' ::*''Propis'' ::*''Redemption: Liar'' ::*''Rhythmos'' The Wiz can run many emulators, freeware games, flash games, and applications. The GP2X Wiz comes pre-installed with a number of games on the NAND. :IQ Jump ::This is a collection of 5 brain training style games. ::*Look for the same pictures ::*Look for the missing number ::*Addition and Subtraction ::*Look for the coin in the saving pocket ::*Crisis Ladder :*Animatch by Ruckage :*Square Tower Defence by Alex :*Wiztern by Chemaris :*Myriad by Clare Jonsson :*Tail Tale by Rerofumi :*Boomshine2x by Peter Roberts :*Space Varments by Ruckage : Originally a game called Snake on Dope was shipped with the unit, and may have been removed due to copyright issues relating to the music. :Upcoming Games in 2011 :*SORR (Streets of Rage Remake) A fan made tribute to all SOR Games developed by BomberGames took 8 years to make and was released in June 2011 as freeware. (SEGA Blocked its release *See Below*) News for Nov. 11th, 2009
, ''Bombergames.net'', retrieved at 2013-09-21 ::''Sega are in current negotiations with BomberGames. For the time being SEGA has blocked the game's release, BomberGames are looking for a speedy resolution''

References

External links

Wiz File Archive

Emuboards Wiz News

PDRoms Wiz News

Wiz Files

Blog Site Covering GP2X Wiz

Wiz News & Development (French/français)

Open-source gaming goes commercial with Wiz handheld
27 August 2008, Frank Caron, ''Ars Technica'' {{Seventh generation game consoles ARM-based video game consoles Seventh-generation video game consoles Linux-based video game consoles Handheld game consoles