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 con ...

and

portable media player A portable media player (PMP) or digital audio player (DAP) is a portable consumer electronics device capable of storing and playing digital media such as audio, images, and video files. Normally they refer to small, Electric battery, batter ...

developed by

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

n company GamePark Holdings running a

Linux kernel The Linux kernel is a Free and open-source software, free and open source Unix-like kernel (operating system), kernel that is used in many computer systems worldwide. The kernel was created by Linus Torvalds in 1991 and was soon adopted as the k ...

-based embedded operating system. GP2X Wiz was released in May 2009, and was the first console from both Game Park and Game Park Holdings to also be released outside South Korea. It was announced by GamePark Holdings in August 2008, and succeeded the GP2X, featuring a slimmer profile and enhanced capabilities including a 533 MHz CPU (overclockable to 900 MHz), 1 GB NAND

flash memory Flash memory is an Integrated circuit, electronic Non-volatile memory, non-volatile computer memory storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. The two main types of flash memory, NOR flash and NAND flash, are named for t ...

, 64 MB RAM, and a 2.8-inch

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 electroluminescence, electroluminescent materi ...

touchscreen A touchscreen (or touch screen) is a type of electronic visual display, display that can detect touch input from a user. It consists of both an input device (a touch panel) and an output device (a visual display). The touch panel is typically l ...

. Distinguished from its predecessor by a more consistent release of games and a focus on both commercial and homebrew development, the Wiz targeted the open-source community. It supports various multimedia formats and comes with pre-installed games and applications, with an online application store launched in August 2009. Official accessories and the introduction of

Flash Player Adobe Flash Player (known in Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Google Chrome as Shockwave Flash) is a discontinuedExcept in China, where it continues to be used, as well as Harman for enterprise users. computer program for viewing multimedia c ...

8 enhanced its appeal.

History

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 Secure Digital (SD) is a proprietary, non-volatile, flash memory card format developed by the SD Association (SDA). Owing to their compact size, SD cards have been widely adopted in a variety of portable consumer electronics, including dig ...

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), often referred to by his initials MB, is a South Korean businessman and politician who served as the tenth president of South Korea from 2008 to 2013. Before his presidency, he was the CEO of Hyundai Engi ...

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 (SoC) is an integrated circuit that combines most or all key components of a computer or electronic system onto a single microchip. Typically, an SoC includes a central processing unit (CPU) with memory, input/output, and dat ...

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 Flash memory is an electronic non-volatile computer memory storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. The two main types of flash memory, NOR flash and NAND flash, are named for the NOR and NAND logic gates. Both use ...

: 1 GB * RAM: 64 MB of 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 ...

* Operating System: Linux-based OS * Storage:

(

SDHC Secure Digital (SD) is a proprietary, non-volatile, flash memory card format developed by the SD Association (SDA). Owing to their compact size, SD cards have been widely adopted in a variety of portable consumer electronics, including digi ...

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

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-accelerate ...

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), also known as organic electroluminescent (organic EL) diode, is a type of light-emitting diode (LED) in which the emissive electroluminescent layer is an organic compound film that emits light in respon ...

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

Multimedia support

Video

* Container files: AVI * Video formats:

DivX DIVX (Digital Video Express) is a discontinued digital video format. Created in part by Circuit City, it was an unsuccessful attempt to create an alternative to video rental in the United States. The format's poor reception from consumers resu ...

, XviD, MPEG4, AVI 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 under the lead of Karlheinz Brandenburg. It was designed to greatly reduce the amount ...

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

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 (mean ...

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 ::

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 Discontinued handheld game consoles Seventh-generation video game consoles Linux-based handheld game consoles