ETRI, GamePark to work on handheld game player
2009/04/22 08:52
The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) Korean IT research center and GamePark Holdings have signed a two year deal to create new software for the handheld game player:
Under the agreement, ETRI and GamePark Holdings will collaborate to develop a software development kit, game titles and other software for the company's latest handheld console, ``GP2X Wiz.'' The company's open-source model would allow anybody, including amateur engineers, to participate in developing software, ETRI officials said.
The GP2X Wiz been anointed by the media as the “Myung-tendo” after the Korean president quipped why no Korean firms could compete with Nintendo on making a popular handheld gaming system.
Korea will also have to solve the problem faced by Nintendo and other Korean game firms with rampant piracy of games. In a report from the Yomiuri Shimbun they quantify how bad the problem is:
"DS has gotten devoured by illegal software," says a South Korean manager of a game shop in the Yongsan area of Seoul, which is known as the country's most well-known electronics district.
The store sells only five official Nintendo DS software cartridges per month, but it sells 20 to 50 memory cards that can be used to illegally copy Nintendo software.
JoongAng Daily: Bootleg copies strangling Korean game developers
