Game Park
Game Park is a Korean company responsible for creating the GP32 and XGP.
History
Foundation
Founded in 1996 in Korea, Game Park entered the industry with the idea of creating a portable video game console. The GP32 (Game Park 32-bit), their first system, was then in design. Several iterations of it were developed, including a metallic look, and a style issued from the original GameBoy design, a flat panel with a screen on the upper part and buttons on the lower part. After 4 years of development, Game Parkended up opting for a more plastic look, a lot like the Game Boy Advance.
Launch
The GP32 originally launched in Korea exclusively. Game Park had opted for a narrow-area market approach so they could better handle the production costs. The result was a small success in Korea. Initially, the GP32 launched with a 3.5 inch screen, 2 buttons, 2 shoulder buttons, 2 function buttons (such as Start or Select) and 2 integrated speakers for stereo sound. It is almost physically the same as the GBA except for the bigger screen, better speakers and more comfortable handling.
Surprising Market
Though the GP32 was planned to be a gaming console, its game selection was not any better in relative quality or in sufficient quantity to compete against the Game Boy Advance. The system's success hinged on being an open source handheld attractive to independent developers and capable of supporting video and audio playback.
DivX
One of the biggest reason to import the GP32 was its capacity to play DivX movies, of course in low resolution and framerate compared to a modern PC, but better than the currently existing GBA video. People would often buy a GP32 only for this feature.
An Intelligent Operating System
Where the intelligence of the GP32 comes is its way of storing media and playing it. When you buy a game, you can either buy the box, or download it. Actually, the game you have in the box comes on a CD. The base principle of this is that the GP32 stores its media on SmartMedia cards varying in size up to 128Mb. This allows the user to store custom media, applications and games on his GP32, including alternative firmware.
When you receive the game CD, you simply put it in your PC, connect your GP32 to your PC by USB and transfer the game from the CD to your SM card. This effectively reduced the price of the games because you weren't paying for cartridges (though you still had to pay for high priced SMCs to store the games later on). Downloading a game online could range from $10 to $30 only.
HomeBrew Friendly
Game Park wanted their system to be powerful and useful, but exceptionally, made for homebrew. When buying a GP32, you could register it on the official website and get a free suite of development tools to create your own games and applications for the GP32, completely free of charge. Moreover, you could even publish them by Internet on their website if they accepted.
Through this strategy, the powerful GP32 at the time (130 MHz and overclocked at 166 MHz and 188 MHz by some people, proving the GP32's quality due to overclock support) was the host of multiple home brew applications and games, even game makers resembling the popular game RPG maker. The various applications made for it ranged from alternative firmware (GUI), games, DivX players, image slideshow, game makers, and the last but not the least, emulators.
Emulators
The system was powerful enough and easy enough to program for that many emulators have been made for it. Likewise, emulators for the system, not from the system. Those allowed gamers to play all their games of Atari, Commodore, or whatever they liked retro on their GP32. Some DOS emulators have even been made to be able to play retro PC games, and there have been several attempts at a Playstation emulator which has never worked. The GP32 was so powerful, it was able to emulate a GBA without a single bug, except with some frameskip (the overclocked version were able to emulate the GBA at full speed). These features convinced even more people to buy the system.
The F.L.U.
The GP32 FLU, (standing for Front Lit Unit) is a GP32 which has been modified to have a front light, much like the GBA SP. The big difference, however, is that the GP32FLU has the exact same mould, buttons, etc., unlike the completely modified in style GBA SP. As you may have guessed, this reduced the cost of the modification, making the full price FLU (which had a now integrated Front Light) exactly like the GBA SP. This system has been released in Korea exclusively again, in 2002.
The frontlight can be switched off to save battery power if you are using the system in bright light.
The B.L.U.
This one has been a huge success. The GP32 BLU (standing for Back Lit Unit) was another iteration of the GP32 (the equivalent of the GameBoy Micro), again having nothing changed in appearance, except for a now back lit screen, much better than the FLU. The BLU gave players a very bright and colorful screen. This unit was introduced in 2004, and later that year they even released it in Italy, France, England and Spain.
The only problem is that without the backlight, the screen is black and cannot be viewed, so unlike the FLU the backlight must run continuously.
Imports
The system has been subject to many imports, especially due to the fact the operating system on it features both Korean and English support, even though it was exclusively published in Korea for a long time.
Competition
Of course, the GP32 was evidently made to compete with the GBA. The GP32 ended up never really competing directly with the GBA because of its rather poor games. Instead, it steadied in the market by proving its multimedia capabilities to be a very good reason to buy it, for example, DivX and most of all, emulators and homebrew. This led Game Park to a rather different approach on the future market.
The Future
Currently, the GP32 is making a small success in Europe, one that is getting smaller and smaller. Unfortunately, North America never saw the GP32 on their market, though doing so would have probably brought Game Park to their demise due to the harsh and costly market of North America, however Lik-sang.com markets it to American customers. The GP32 is overly due for a successor, and after one year of being mashed by the new Nintendo DS and PSP, Game Park has finally announced new systems.
Indeed, Game Park has divided into two different divisions in the beginning of 2005. One is Game Park, developing the new XGP, and the other is the mother company Game Park Holdings (recently bought by Seplus), developing a multimedia system called the GP2X [1].
What Game Park intends to do is to get the XGP closer to the gaming market by directly competing in it, contrary to the GP32. And Game Park Holdings intends to bring the GP32's legendary multimedia capability up front with a multimedia system competing with such portable multimedia devices as the Windows Media Center-based handhelds.