You might not have heard of the GP2X before – Gamepark’s marketing budget doesn’t extend to much beyond a full page advert in Retro Gamer. The fact that you can’t simply pop down to Gamestation and buy one doesn’t help the publicity side of things either.
For those not in the know it’s a neat little handheld that has gone down a storm with homebrew coders. Indeed many – if not all – of its best games have been knocked together by small bedroom-based teams. Perhaps the main selling point, though, is the number of emulators available. That, and the fact that it can be hooked up to a TV – an idea that Sony recently borrowed for the new PSP Slim & Lite.
After selling 30,000 of the open-source consoles since 2007, a new model has been announced – the GP2X-F200. Mmm, Catchy. It’s due out in mid-October for £119.99, and includes an improved D-pad and a touch screen. It’s backwards compatible with software for the previous models, and comes with five bundled games. There’s no word on which ones, but we reckon the port of the Game Boy Advance GTA-alike Payback is one of them. But who knows – it could end up being five different variants of Pong.
GP2x.co.uk is the site to visit for more info on the new system, or to see what games are available then head over here.