I feel like the Linux Handhelds made by GPH in the 2000s are a nowadays almost forgotten piece of history, even though they were in some ways the predecessor to today's Steam Deck. So I wanted to create a bit of an appreciation post for this chapter in Linux Gaming history. Did any of you use a GP2X back in the day as well? For me, it wasn't just my introduction to Linux gaming, but also game development, as I programmed my first games for it using GLBasic. It was a fantastic machine for emulation as well, got introduced to many old games from the 80s and 90s through it.
Game Park thrived because South Korea's history with Japan led to import restrictions that made Nintendo, Sega, and Sony almost irrelevant. They had a captive audience, which expanded internationally once buying stuff online became commonplace. Aaand then the whole thing went to shit when Korea ended those restrictions and this family of niche gizmos had to compete against the DS Lite and jailbroken PSPs.