Nintendo Gameboy Advance, In Advance

IEEE1394 writes "The Gameboy Advance is due to be released in North America on June 11, 2001. Many reviews of the Japanese units have been done, but I haven't seen one of the North American unit. Futurelooks has snagged a unit and some games recently and has done a thorough review of the unit. Hopefully this will help some of you folks figure out if you should run to your closest Circuit City in the U.S., or Futureshop in Canada to buy it. For a hundred bucks, it's a steal, so you know I'm there! Check it out!" Now if only that screen was touch sensitive;)

Comments

Few other bad things ...

[Anonymous Coward]

You cannot simply 'add' a backlight. A backlight is BUILT-IN to the display BEHIND it, so it gives a very nice lighted display. What you need to buy is simply a LIGHT, which if anyones played with a regular color game boy is TERRIBLE. They cause glare all over the screens and you're usually left there not playing the thing at all until you're in the perfect lighting condition, or doing odd controtions with your head to get the right angle to view it. A very very bad move on Nintendos part here. While it may eat up batteries, they could have had a button to turn the light on and off, and it also has an AC adaptor which you can just run it out of the wall anyways (This is how everyone I knew played their gameboys anyhows.. )

Also, they dont seem to have a VIDEO OUT on the thing anywhere! Everyone would LOVE to be playing these new 2d games on their TVs rather than on a dinky screen. Nintendo doesn't realize that their market is capturing 2D side scrolling game fans that are SICK of todays 3D blandness. We're foaming at the mouth for another 2d color Zelda, Metroid, Kid Icarus, Mario, Mega Man, Castlevania etc ..! We don't want a 3D system! We want another 2D system! And this is a step UP from the SNES, so it's all good in our books!

Good job on having it backward compatible with old gameboy games, though! The price is pretty cheap too, but i'd gladly fork out another $50-100 for a special backlit version and TV OUT..

Re:Gameboy? Hope it pays off...

[GeorgeH]

I respectfully disagree. As far as the market for portable consoles goes, Gameboy has been a bigger success than anyone anticipated. It was introduced in 1990, and shortly after it had competition from Sega and Turbografix, neither of which sold well despite having color screens.

The Gameboy has survived for 10 years with only one upgrade (color) since it was introduced. That's better than any console in the history of video games. I think this says something fundamental about the handheld console market - people don't always want the best hardware as long as they can play games with high replay value (I suspect bundling Tetris with the Gameboy had a lot to do with its early success).

If all people want is a game that they can play riding in the car, or between classes, or sitting in a doctor's office, they don't want to carry around 3d goggles, custom input devices, etc. They want to carry as few items as possible and buy stuff like light guns and goggles for their powerful home console.

You suggest that the GameBoy will lose the market if they don't provide these add-ons. I'm curious who you think they'll lose the market to: Sony or Microsoft? The Gameboy's marketshare makes Windows look like it's at death's door. If the GBA doesn't catch on, it won't be because of competition providing a better product, it'll be because people don't want the GBA.
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Demo's at Best Buy

[dman6666]

I was able to preview one w/ the Super Mario game at Best Buy. The unit looks heavier than it feels. Even with the security cage and wire on it it felt VERY light in my hands.)

Standing there, under the warehouse high Flor. Lights the display was viewable and playable but it lacked contrast. I guess at that pricepoint, what can you expect. Maybe GameBoy Advanced TfT is in our future? With LithIon Batteries... hmmm... an organizer cartridge and some flashram... :-)

As for the game itself, Super Mario was definitely NES / SNES Quality. So, step back in time and enjoy the 2D Graphics and Gameplay as you remembered them.

I did NOT like the placement of the DPAD controls and buttons in relation to the display. I only used it for a few minutes, but maybe they'd grow on me after a while. The problem was holding the unit at the right angle to light/see the display made the buttons seem out of place (and vice versa).

Controller for GameCube

[Corrado]

I think this thing will be excellent as a GameCube controller. That's the most exciting thing about it.

• Sports - Pick your play without anyone seeing you
• RPG - Cast a spell or choose a weapon without having to wait for everyone else to do the same
• Driving - Rear view mirror? Pit stop choices?

The list goes on and on... Why doesn't Sony have something like this for the PS 2?!?!?

--
Later...

Carts vs. CDs

[wunderhorn1]

You can criticize Nintendo for not going with a optical or other format for their games

I sure wouldn't. Having to stick a CD player on the back would make it a lot bulkier and decrease the battery life.
Although having it double as a CD player (or even VCDs or -dare I say?- DVDs?) would be kinda cool, I think backwards compatibility with old Gameboy games is a nice touch. I still have fond memories of playing that Legend of Zelda game where he gets stuck on the island...

Actually, it just occurred to me that what would be *really* cool would be if Nintendo released "memory stick"-type cartridges that you could load with mp3s. Now THAT I would put down $100 for!

GBA-TV out

[�laC|n]

I see some of you (and the reviewer too) complain about GBA having no TV out...
But, you may be wrong.. this quote is from IGNpocket:

"Best of the batch is a GBA to TV adapter. This is not a TV Adapter -- at least one developer was showing a TV Tuner behind closed doors -- but instead a unit for playing GBA games on your television. Honey, I enlarged my GBA, they say, and supposedly they did. Unfortunately, it's not playable, which doesn't bode well for a unit supposedly due in July. But Yobo Gameware says it works and works well, and if the output is anywhere near the quality of the Wideboy Advance (which blew us away? we NEED to get one of these things), it should be a good thing to have. Even if not, the Wideboy Advance costs several hundred dollars and cred with Nintendo, so chances are, you'd be willing to settle for less. The unit plugs into the GBA Link Cable and outputs 240x160 on the TV (probably won't zoom like the Wideboy, but it's a pretty simple unit). The faux mock-up shows a cable running from the GBA to AV cables without any box or accessories? we're assuming that's part of the mock up and not the real unit. However, if this is how it works, it cuts out the N64 emulation from the process, which is good since the Wideboy Advance showed some sorting errors. Yobo says it wasn't shown because the prototype went back into the works to include a four-player port on the cable, so we'll see when they start showing it around how successful this interesting project is. "

( http://pocket.ign.com/news/34950.html )

This topic have been discussed in the GBADev mailing list, too. According to one of the posters who had talked to one of this guys, the price tag would be 20$-40$!

Now THAT is cool!

__
Greets, Øyvind Berg ~ ËlaC|n

Re:Packaged Game?

[Kingfox]

For a month or two now Electronics Boutique has had a special offer for preordering the GBA. "We don't want your money, we just want your business" or some tagline like that.

Instead of the usual $10 deposit for a game/system, you just signed up that you'ld like a GBA, a rechargable battery pack, and three games of your choice from the launch titles. So they got dozens of people 'signed up' for pre-orders.

The reason they're doing it without charging, from what I've read, is because Nintendo's trying their usual 'supply issues' speech like they've done with every system.

GBA, aka Guided Missle CPU.

[derrickh]

Iraq has already ordered 1500 GBAdvances.

D

Mad Scientists with too much time on thier hands

You gotta love Nintendo...

[ictatha]

This will probably be said several times here, but I'll say it anyway. Nintendo may not have the highest game count, but the games they do have are always great with good replay value. Take F-Zero for instance, I was considering buy a SNES from eBay just to play this game again (and a few others). For the GB Advance, they just made it portable (F-Zero : Maximum Velocity or something like that). A game that is what, 10 years old? They didn't have to spice it up or add guns and blood, they just shrunk it down for their new system. That's why Nintendo rules.

Anyway, for some good eye candy (both GBA and Game Cube), check out Nintendo's E3 site:

http://e3.nintendo.com

-ictatha

And SDKs?

[MSBob]

What I want is for nintendo to lower the barrier to entry for individual developers and small software shops. It's stil an extremely painful process to acquire a license for developing gb/gba games together with the SDK. If there was a handheld gaming console with a lower barrier to entry maybe we would see a lot more Open Source 2d games and lots more small game shops specialising in games for handhelds. I think Nintendo are stifling the market by making it so hard for enthusiasts to develop and distribute games on their platforms.