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Additionally, with titles like Four Swords and Pacman Vs. coming out soon, you'll not want to stray from the official Gameboy Player hardware.

I can see the appeal price-wise, but with $10 separating the two devices, I'd stick with the official Nintendo kit. The one place I'd consider going third party though is with the new wireless systems. Nintendo's won't be backwards compatible with older titles. It will be an all-new connection protocol.

Triton Labs, maker of the Afterburner, announced a wireless connector for the gameboy that would emulate the existing link protocol, so all gameboy games would be able to be used wirelessly. This I'd LOVE to see enabled. I'm pretty surprised that Nintendo didn't follow this path for the new wireless support, they have a good history with the gameboy of legacy support.

This is really just another attempt to keep control of the gba market. Triton Labs (of afterburner fame) announced a wireless link kit (stealth link) months ago, but i guess it was only a matter of time before nintendo followed suit. Remember Nintendo wasn't in a rush to release a frontlit gba until the afterburner was released and was successfull, just my 2 cents.

gameboy which can't be upgraded by your common person

This is just a wireless replacement for gba-gba link cables. It won't do anything that a link cable couldn't be used to do. I would like to see a model for the gamecube to eliminate the gba-gcn link cable, or even just an adapter to let you use one of these with your gamecube.

Triton Labs (makers of the afterburner) announced a product very similar to this called the stealth link several months ago. Maybe they showed their hand a little early.

It's interesting that the press release says 5 players. I assume that's a typo. The link cables (and the current software) only support 4 players... unless nintendo has something up its sleeve.

I also don't see this as a reaction to the n-gage at all. Nintendo just sees a market for this add-on. The gameboy's dominance is not remotely threatened, and Nintendo has never been a reactive company.

This is just a wireless replacement for gba-gba link cables. It won't do anything that a link cable couldn't be used to do. I would like to see a model for the gamecube to eliminate the gba-gcn link cable, or even just an adapter to let you use one of these with your gamecube.

Triton Labs (makers of the afterburner) announced a product very similar to this called the stealth link several months ago. Maybe they showed their hand a little early.

It's interesting that the press release says 5 players. I assume that's a typo. The link cables (and the current software) only support 4 players... unless nintendo has something up its sleeve.

I also don't see this as a reaction to the n-gage at all. Nintendo just sees a market for this add-on. The gameboy's dominance is not remotely threatened, and Nintendo has never been a reactive company.

Through all this, I agree with most. I've had all the Nintendo systems with the exception of the red-hazed VirtualBoy. I have over 30 gamecube games. I have the obligatory Zelda, Metroid, Mario, Luigi, even Mario Party (my nephews love it, not to mention my game-hating wife), Godzilla, and even have Hitman2, Matrix, LOTR, Splinter Cell and the like. I've only considered the xbox and ps2 for moments, but quickly realize that there are no "must-have" titles that I can't get on my pc. I have GTA for pc, and will get halo soon.

However, the one thing that most fail to mention, is the GCN's portability. I bought a 5.4" screen battery, and using the included car adapter, played Mortal Kombat for 1200 miles on a trip. Played Matrix it in the train station with the battery pack, and Zelda for the 1200 miles back on a train. I still have a GBA, with a self-installed AfterBurner, but for long trips with a nearby power source, the GCN is the most portable device out there. It's even smaller than a shuttle!

Not to mention it gives me something to do at my Mother-in-law's, and lets me play GCN while my wife watches those awful reality shows.

Rock on Nintendo, what's next?

I know the GBA SP has a frontlight, but I don't think it's an ommission that this is not a backlight. It's a design choice. Look at all the backlit handhelds, and the pile of batteries they used.

Again, the headphone jack was a design choice. Do you use headphones? The first GameBoy had headphones that came with it. Most people don't care that it requires an adaptor. Some people, like myself, and a few other people I know, will go spend the 8$ on the adaptor. Nintendo has saved 8$ * the number of units shipped (2 million SPs so far, IIRC), versus raising the price 8$. For the nearly 2 million people who didn't want headphones, it's not there, and they don't care anyways.

Do you whine about the Xbox and GameCube not coming with 2 controllers? That happened a long, long time ago. Nintendo's just packaging what most people want, with extras available for those who want it. Simple, efficient.

Speaking of addons, TritonLabs has been talking about making bluetooth linkers for the GBA.

Mmm... wireless GBA gaming, from the folks that brought you Afterburner.

I don't want the new AGB. An Afterburner looks just as good as the official frontlight (it's not a backlight, folks.) The battery pack can be bought for $15 as an accessory. The SP is too small for big hands, and has no headphone jack.

I wouldn't buy an original AGB at this point; modding isn't a particularly good answer for many, but this is slashdot, so why throw things away?

Nintendo intentionally released the non-lit GBA first so people would buy two GBA's. I'm happy with my GBA and I certainly don't intend to buy one twice.

Anyone got ideas for what to do with an old GBA

Get the Afterburner. Seriously.

Yes, it'll make the screen a little washed out.
Yes, during installation, the installer will probably catch some dust in it that will ALWAYS be visible whenever you use it.
Yes, it costs another 25 bucks.

But without it, the GBA (sans SP) is unplayable, so you may as well buy one. Metroid Fusion alone makes it worth it.

I hate Nintendo. I've bought almost every Gameboy released in the U.S. since its inception: The original Gameboy in 1989, the colored Gameboy (NOT the GB Color!) in 1995, the thin Gameboy in 1998, the Gameboy Color in 2000, and the GBA Advance in 2001, for which I even bought the Afterburner for $35 (it's now $25). Now Nintendo releases a Gameboy with a clamshell design, a built-in lighting system, and a rechargable battery, and again I am awash in gadget envy. Well, at least I can take solace in the fact that I'm not a total idiot, I didn't buy the Virtual Gameboy!

Since I installed my Afterburner GameBoy light kit many many many months ago for practically nothing, I have no need for a barely improved piece of gaming hardware that doesn't really offer me anything more for the cost.

What a waste.

This will finally allow me to play the Castlevania games without fusing my naked retina to the screen.

Or, if you're feeling particularly ambitious, you can install Triton Labs' Afterburner lighting kit.

Sure, you'll have to open up your GBA and do some (very easy) soldering, but if you're reading Slashdot, chances are that you either
A) Can solder in your sleep
B) Are smart enough to find someone who can solder if you're not up to the challenge, rather than fuck up your GBA by trying anyway.

The end result is worth it. Clear visibility in any lighting, even complete darkness! Sure, there's a modest drain on the batteries, but you'd get the same drain using an (inferior) external lighting solution. Plus, you can opt to install the potentiometer (included) to allow you to dim or turn off the light when not needed.

Sure, you can buy the attachment to play GBA games on the GC, but why? The main reason to buy a Gameboy is portability. If you want to play the games on a large screen, get an emulator.

A company should be allowed to charge whatever it want's for it's products. No one is forced to buy.

Nintendo has an effective monopoly on sub-$100 handheld video game systems (a Pocket PC currently doesn't count because it's at least three times as expensive as a GBA) in the United States, and this monopoly drove the development of the Afterburner light kit from Triton Labs.

The following doesn't exactly apply to Nintendo Co Ltd and its worldwide subsidiaries, but try owning a home in an industrialized country for three months without paying a local utility monopoly such as the electric power company. Pretty much the most prominent people to pull this off are the Amish.

the GBA was the second best investment.. the BEST investment was the frontlight I got here: Tritonlabs.com

Ha Ha Ha!

I've got the afterburner backlight so I can actually see my screen!

I've got the 256Mbit flash cartridge so I can load roms onto it!

I've got PocketNES v7a NES emulator with over 100 of my favorite NES games installed!

It all cost $69 (GBA) + $35 (afterburner) + $159 (256mbit flash) + $45 (linker for copying roms to flash) = about $300! Hey, that's kinda expensive. BUT WORTH IT.

HA HA HA!

Why not just get a real gaming system? Or better yet, a PC?

I already have a PC (Acer TravelMate 721TX, 333 MHz PII with 128 MB RAM, which I bought when I entered college three years ago). It's just barely fast enough to run VisualBoyAdvance at a semi-playable speed. And it's a lot heavier than a Game Boy Advance system. And $200 rechargeable battery packs don't seem to live very long.

The cradle to copy Game Boy Advance cartridges into your PC (so that you can run them in VisualBoyAdvance) costs $45. For only $65 more, you can get a real Game Boy Advance system with a real Afterburner light.

No silly. When Sony released the PSOne version of the original PSX, they also released a 4-5 inch LCD screen that attaches to the back of the PSOne. It's meant to be a travel system, something you plug into the lighter in your minivan to keep the kids quiet on the way to Grandma's house. Check the link, and you'll see.

Honestly, this mod would kill pretty much all battery life in the GBA. Running two screens at once, one of them 50% bigger then power specs are meant for, plus backlighting, ugh. Go to TritonLabs (http://www.tritonlabs.com) for a more elegant backlighting mod.

It does invalidate your warranty, but the pictures on this page show you how impressive it is. Those of you with a PPC will know what the lighting is like.

It claims to get 10 hours gameplay with the light on, which isn't bad in the slightest.

It does invalidate your warranty, but the pictures on this page show you how impressive it is. Those of you with a PPC will know what the lighting is like.

It claims to get 10 hours gameplay with the light on, which isn't bad in the slightest.

Hmm, how long has the Gameboy had a black and white screen until they used color?

People who consider the Nintendo Game Boy inferior tend to ignore the fact that its backlit color competitors (Game Gear, Atari Lynx, and Genesis Nomad) were much larger and ran about four to five hours on a set of six AA batteries. The original GB ran 20 to 30 hours on a set of four. The current GBA with the Afterburner internal frontlight runs 10 to 15 hours on two AA batteries.

In the 6 months that I've been doing GBA development, the biggest problem I've run into has been the audio system's complete lack of response below 400 Hz. Thus my jungle tracks become drum and ... silence.