Sugar_Kane said:
I wonder what wacky quirks GPH will introduce in their next handheld
This sums up exactly why I don't have a Wiz.
Back at the turn of the century, the GP32 was an amazing little device. There was nothing like it, anywhere else. It was pretty well built, and the company that made it understood what they had made. A handheld emulation device (as my mate put it) with an easy-access system which meant that anyone even reasonably proficient in coding could write homebrew for it. I have one, and I love it.
Gamepark split shortly after, and became two separate companies. Gamepark and Gamepark Holdings. Gamepark retained all the design and manufacturing talent, and the marketing all went to Gamepark Holdings. Unfortunately Gamepark went under before their successor to the GP32 (the XGP) came to fruition, and Gamepark Holdings developed the GP2X. The rest is history, unfortunately for us. The design looked great in the photos/renders, but when it came to usability, the GP2X really did suck enormous donkey's testicles. Even so, quite a lot of people bought one.
Then the Wiz was announced, and it was a disaster in the making. The forum screamed at the tops of their voices - the DPad style face buttons were wrong - and GPH ignored them. IIRC it was (almost) entirely down to EvilDragon's negotiations that got that particular bugbear fixed. Still, GPH don't listen or even care about their customers. Where is the wifi dongle? Where are the coding competitions? Where are the enormous amounts of commercial software? Why is the USB system stripped down to the point of almost uselessness for coders? Where is the docking station? All these things were promised, and have yet to come to fruition. And there's a new model in the works... So much for support then.
The screen is lovely, I'll admit. Best I've seen. Shame they had to cut corners with substandard parts though - it's a mobile phone screen rotated through 90 degrees, so we've suffered awful tearing - and GPH only released a solution long after forum devs had determined ways around it. And the pixel plague? You can't say that's just bad luck - not with so many people finding their displays disintegrating before their eyes. I mean, did GPH do
any testing? at all? They can't have done, not with the decisions they made. They just took off-the-shelf parts, slapped them into an off-the-shelf design, and pumped them out to all and sundry.
I'd love to see comparisons of sales figures for the GP32/GP2X and Wiz side by side, I really would.
I bought the GP32, loved it. Bought the GP2X, and wanted to love it, but couldn't in the end. There's no way I'm putting my money into GPH with their track record.
D.
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