Gamepark Inc. started as Daehyeong Works, the developer of what could have been Korea's first (online) FPS, the unreleased Survival Online1. Afterwards Gamepark was involved with the development of military simulation software in cooperation with Taff System2, before reforming as Gamepark and starting R&D for a wireless network game handheld June 19983. After a few failed concepts (at a time the handheld was supposed to be called Bing-Go and come with a Starcraft-clone called "Mini-Craft")2, first prototypes of the GP32 were shown at E3 and KAMEX (Korea Amuse World Game Expo) in 20004. On November 23, 2001 the device was finally released and became the first somewhat wide-spread open source gaming handheld. The selection of official titles was sparse, compared to more mainstream handhelds. GamePark managed to publish more than two dozen commercial games—first boxed on memory cards, from early 2003 onwards predominantly sold as downloads through the portal MegaGP5—but the strength of the system was the homebrew sector. Ports like Doom and Beats of Rage were offered for free by Gamepark, but many more games and emulators are freely available on the web. There were at least 7 more announced commercial games in development that got canceled6.

Originally released without any light source for the screen, a front-lit variant (dubbed FLU) was introduced in 2002, and a back-lit unit (BLU) in 2004. The latter actually was first released in Europe, mainly through the Spanish company Virginplay (after plans for a European release had been getting delayed since summer 2003), and became available in Korea afterwards.7. All seemed to be going well, until Gamepark started getting into trouble when Samsung halted the production of the screen used for the GP32. The company shifted to a taiwanese-produced backlit screen for the BLU, which ended up causing compatibility problems. Those were eventually resolved, but the stream of commercial software had already begun to dry up8. Soon a split occured at the company, from which Gamepark Holdings emerged under the leadership of the former marketing division chief Yi Beomhong, engaging in direct competition with their former coworkers with the GP2X9.

The old Gamepark in the meantime made plans for a successor to their handheld, but spread their budget thin by introducing three models with different hardware specifications, without ever releasing any of them. The web shop for the GP32 closed on September 16, 200610, and Gamepark finally filed for bancruptcy on December 3111. Key staff of the defunct company went on to found Gambros, which showed a new handheld (although at least the shell made it look like it was based on the scrapped Gamepark XGP kids model) called Dinkii in July 200712, and the nXGP in 200913, but neither saw the light of day. Gambros' homepage is still online, but the company now seems to deal with networking technology.

Gamepark Holdings (renamed to GPH on April 8, 2010) was more successful to put out their devices, although there initially wasn't much of an effort in terms of software—or at least games, as the three iterations of the GP2X that were released between 2005 and early 2009 were soon bundled with the English language trainer software Voca Master14. Exclusive games shouldn't appear until the fourth model, dubbed Wiz. Besides remakes of old Korean PC titles by Bitmage, GPH also acquired a 1st party studio for original games, Dogma-G, in March 200915 to push the hardware. However, both combined made it to no more than three released titles (two of which were bundled together in one package, including five licensed emulated arcade oldies), while the homebrew scene thrived once again.

That was supposed to change with the Caanoo, GPH's fifth and final piece of hardware. GPH was aiming high: In the "Dream of 1%" campaign, the company declared its commitment to conquer exactly that share of the world-wide game handheld market16. Advertising the hardware together with the new online shop FunGP, GPH now bet on digital distribution, which led to a significantly more steady flow of official software. But the lack of software compatibility with the Wiz at almost identical hardware specs (save for a tilt sensor and a proper USB connector for wireless LAN support) only helped to split and confuse the target group between the devices, and a few questionable design decisions (the display frame covered some of the pixels) hurt the popularity even more. Without any official announcements, both FunGP and the company homepage disappeared in spring 2011. According to an European distributor, GPH had already given up hardware development by February that year17. On March 23, 2013, GPH officially closed18.

Rally Pop! (GP32)

Little Wizard (GP32)

Rally Pop! (GP32)

Treasure Island (GP32)

Propis (GP2X Wiz)

Rhythmos (Caanoo)