Game Park

Founded in 1996 in South Korea, Game Park entered the industry using government money.

To make changes, the South Korean government decided to fund a company that would create a console to compete against the monopolized Japanese market.

Game Park's new handheld also had a major internal hardware upgrade making it more powerful than the GBA.

Game Park had opted for a narrow-area market approach so they could better handle the production costs.

One of its advantage was that in Korea no Japanese electronics were allowed[citation needed], the Game Boy Advance included.

The system's success hinged on being an open source handheld attractive to independent developers and capable of supporting video and audio playback.

In July 2003, GP32News, a French news web site for the GP32 took a personal initiative to show and publicize the GP32 at the Japan Expo in France.

Game Park refused to fund the site, which would have helped give the GP32 a publicity boost.

At the Game Convention event in Germany in August, the GP32 was announced with a European launch for Holiday 2003.

Numerous distributors, to sell the system, as well as the first editors of European games to start development were contacted.

Mitsui then was in charge of distributing the Sony PSP in Europe, after having no communication from Game Park.

Later on, they announced the XGP-Kids, a redesign of the GP32, featuring the same hardware at a lower price for younger players.