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Portable GameCube
Bodero writes: "After Slashdot ran a story about the Portable N64 over a month ago, many of us have been enlightened to the idea of portable home console systems. The Portable N64 was more of a novelty item whose cost and development factor outweighed its feasibility. However, IGN Cube is running a hardware review on the Interact Mobile Monitor 5.4, a 5.4" LCD that hooks up to your gamecube, providing a screen and power from either AC or an included car adapter. All that for only $150. For only $50 more, Interact sells an optional battery pack, which IGN claims can power the GameCube and monitor for up to three hours."
I think I got it....not the portable....
I still want the ps2 w/ the flat panel
you a winna , ha ha ha
Now I'll get run off the road by some guy playing Luigi's castle instead of reading his morning paper? Isn't progress grand?
I already have one, it's called my palm pilot. I can play the latest games on it, mine sweeper, whel of fortune, hangman. What else would someone need?
As if you can really get into a good game of Quake on a small device like that.
More components to perform more functions... the problem with this is there are more points of failure for your mobile gaming experience. If one component gets (broken / lost / stolen), you're out of luck. ::shrugs::
-Justin
That's enough posting for now lads, there're trolls afoot.
In my opinion, GameCubes were designed for portability. They're light, their discs are easy to carry (they fit in my CD holder), and they're small.
I would venture to say this is the kind of thing Nintendo intended for the GCN.
I knew about the LCD display, but not the 3Hr battery! Now I can take my GameCube anywhere - see if something like this for the damned XBox ever comes out!
...$400 and it becomes portable for 3 hours of play. (Game cube retail $199 + 150 screen + $50 battery pack.)
This is getting into used laptop territory. Why would I want this GB setup when I can buy a used laptop with 10.4 inch active matrix screen and 5 hours of gameplay?
I think their price point is a little high. Maybe for $250 it would be sweet. At $400 it is for the rich kid that has everything and needs one more thing for the closet.
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Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
Sheesh, Interact's Mobile Monitor has been available for the PSone for maybe a year or so now. And Sony just came out with their own.
Hate to be an ass, but that's SO five minutes ago!
Over at Emugaming.com they have a short but informative article on IGN's portable GameCube. Includes some nice pictures.
What do you think of MusicCity now?
Here's the original article that this one's based on.
You die too easily.
I used to work for InterAct Accessories, Inc.
;) In conclusion, I wouldn't purchase this product, it's most likely produced by STD, and will probably break for you in the not so near future.
First off, let me tell you that Interact has a very close business relationship with IGN. IGN/Snowball now hosts their website. In turn GameShark provides them exclusive codes, and other perks. So I don't trust this review very well to begin with.
I no longer work for them now, but I can tell you this, InterAct products are not of good quality. In fact InterAct makes no actual products. They are outsourced from two major companies, one, STD based in China, and Datel based in the UK. Datel makes semi-decent products (eg, GameShark), but STD makes shit products. For example, STD produced a Lightgun for the Dreamcast, not only was the Lightgun made of poor housing materials, but the aim wasn't accurate. It would shoot about an inch to the upper left of where you actually were targetting. When Interact gave STD a call to ask what was up about the lightguns, STD's response was merely, "Sorry, we're not very good at making lightguns." I'm glad I didn't work in customer service, because they god a beating all the time. Nintendo 64 GameSharks will fry randomly. Interact really didn't bother pressure Datel to figure out why, and just kept making them.
Secondly, InterAct/Datel has violated the GPL multiple times. Anyone that's listening, the GameShark that was produced for the PC (another horrible product, and has been discontinued), includes an MP3 player. The MP3 player is not of their own creation, but merely a hacked up version of FreeAmp, which they sold and never released the source too. As you can see I have a lot of greif with this company, so my views are a bit slanted myself
..There's a-dooin's a-transpirin'
natural progression of technology via miniaturisation and improvements in power consumption. We've already witnessed essentially the SNES being shrunk into the Gameboy Advance. The next handheld will surely be a shrunken version of the N64, and so on.
We're only really up to the second generation of portable consoles, so these things are naturally surprising to us. Not that I'm putting it down - I think we'll see a lot more power in portable gaming/computing units in future. I think the issue that needs to be addressed now is battery life.
Perhaps combining those technologies that provide power from body movement (eg, rapidly moving thumbs) with these handhelds is the answer...
Reading (tm) can last an infinite amount of time, and is supported on a variety of platfroms (eg, the Book, the Magizine, the Newspaper). Expect the source code to be realesed soon.
I'm a repairman in an imperfect world.
Na, wireless
You thought cell phones were bad?! :)
I dont see how well this could really work. Outside of using it for the once a year trips to somewhere, little jimmy would have no use for this. I doubt that it would even work that well on a road trip, how do you balance a cube that has a 5.3 inch screen sitting on top of it? It might work fine on a desk, but i dont see how you could play it in a car where there would be no sturdy surface to rest it on.
This sounds like a fun device for those plane rides. I would think that the GameCube and the LCD screen don't put out enough RF to really interfere with the plane. I could get three hours of Rogue Squadron or Super Smash Brothers lovin'! That would make the ride THAT much more bearable. Of course, you'd also have about a dozen little kids clamoring all over your seat trying to play. You could then charge admission or something and make back your plane fare. :)
Where the wind blows, the tumbleweed goes.
You will renew your glasses perscription for the first time in years after discovering the joys of small flatpanels.
...in bed.
In a couple of years, when the components have shrunk, become cheaper and less power hungry, we have the instant Gameboy Advance successor selling for $100 a pop, with a nice library of games on small, portable media.
Nintendo is the king of portables, and I think they intend to stay that way.
I bought the Nintendo GameCube the night it was released. I went to my local Walmart at 11:00 p.m. and waited for them to start selling them at midnight. I bought the GameCube, a memory card, an extra controller, and 2 games, Luigis Mansion and Super Monkey Ball. Since then I have also purchased Waverace Bluestorm, Pikmin, Super Smash Brothers Melee, Tarzan, and Tony Hawk 3. I've also rented Star Wars Rogue Leader, Madden Football, Crazi Taxi, and Batman.
Luigis Mansion
This game had "good" graphics (which are complete shit compared to computer graphics but are good for a television screen) and it was interesting to play. Unfortunately the game is very short. You can beat it in about 10 hours, which by the way is about how long it will take you to get good at aiming the vacuum cleaner.
Super Monkey Ball
Lame, borring, stupid... nuff said.
Waverace Bluestorm
Hard to control and borring to play.
Tarzan
OK this game is clearly for young kids but at least it's easy to control your character (which seems to be a rarity with GameCube games).
Tony Hawk 3
If riding around on a skateboard doing tricks is your idea of good time, this game's for you. Otherwise it's completely borring. There's nothing to do. It's easy to control though.
Pikmin
Extremely difficult to control. This game seems like it was designed to work with a mouse, not a joystick. I have no idea if the game is fun or not (I'm guessing not) because after 30 minutes of fighting the control stick I through it down and said screw it.
Super Smash Brothers Melee
Easy to control, impossible to know what's going on. Move your control stick around and frantically hit your buttons. Then "GAME" appears and you either won, or lost. You're guess is as good as mine.
Crazi Taxi
Completely pointless. You're an insane taxi driver who drives around looking for people to pick up. You pick them up, take them to their destination, get paid and go find someone else. Sound interesting? Didn't think so...
Madden Football
I shouldn't have even bothered with this game. I hate sports. But since there are only a few games available for the GC right now, I wanted to check it out. I played it for about 10 minutes and shut it off.
Batman
Relatively easy to control, as long as you manage to keep the camera view on Batman. The camera constantly swings around behind objects which block your view and you can't see what's going on. And the camera angle switches to akward viewing angles. I thought it sucked. Your milage may vary.
Star Wars Rogue Leader
Disclaimer: I've never seen Star Wars and I basically hate all things "Star [insert name here]". However, to my suprise, this game wasn't bad. I should have bought this one instead of any of the others I got and ended up hating. But after renting it, I didn't think I would like it enough to pay for it.
Almost makes me wish I had bought an XBox. *shudder*
I agree with you. I have a feeling Nintendo designed not just a powerful home system, but their next portable system in the next 5 years.
Think about that... by the time it launches you have a library of 500 or so games. Heck, by then they might even have an 802.11 adapter for it. Imagine the LAN Party you could have then? Everybody brings their GBA sized GCN and their Network cards, somebody sets up a cheap $100 wireless hub, and everybody sits around an apartment playing a cool game.
Heck.. have the party at StarBuck's or something. Heh.
"Derp de derp."
One other possibility could be to use it for an in car movie/GPS etc dislay when hooked up to a PC in the trunk?
A journey of a thousand miles starts with a brutal anal raping at airport security
heh, I'd like to see them do this for an xbox.
the product has an adapter for a car - I can only imagine what such a setup would do to the battery!
An LCD that size must use a fair amount of batteries and be reasonably large.
If you really want to make you're GameCube or PS2 portable ( Xbox's themselves aren't portable so I'll skip them ) you can get a pair of Sony Glasstrons. These are glasses that do TV resolution. Unfortunately they have been discontinued.
You can pick them up on Ebay for ~$350. I've used these things once or twice and I was quite impressed. Has anyone else used them for any length of time ?
You can get an old Mattel Football game on Ebay for around $20. That's about $400 less than the (NCube + Madden 2002 + PortaScreen).
I also think the screen is slightly bigger, although I haven't actually measured.
That'll free up more than enough cash to buy yourself a GeForce3, processor, and giant bag of Doritos. Morpheus will happily meet your software needs.
This sounds like a fun device for those plane rides. I would think that the GameCube and the LCD screen don't put out enough RF to really interfere with the plane. I could get three hours of Rogue Squadron or Super Smash Brothers lovin'! That would make the ride THAT much more bearable. Of course, you'd also have about a dozen little kids clamoring all over your seat trying to play. You could then charge admission or something and make back your plane fare. :)
You die too easily.
I can't wait for the Xbox version, complete with diesel generator and trailer.
This is a neat toy, but I'd say save your money.
Most people get a gameboy to hush up their kids, to play on car trips/plane trips, or to play at a boring desk job. Where gameboy is well suited for this because of its high portablity and battery life, gamecube is not.
This thing is a $400 investment which can be easily damaged if dropped. It only lasts for 3 hours and it has many cords that could easily get tangled. The controller aspect alone is enough to not warrent the trouble. The only use I see for this is if you want to bring it to work to play during your lunch break (Hey smash brothers is really cool, might be a good way to make friends). That makes it only worth buying more as a small TV than as a portable toy.
If you're board during work and can get away with a small display, go for this. Otherwise, get a gameboy.
Rob
Wow, now that I think about it that really does make sense. I mean why else would they have gone with such small sized media (those mini dvd-rom things).
Doesn't really make since to cut the size of your game discs down so much, especially when your last gaming system was flamed so much for having cartridges that were lacking in space. They must be doing it so when they come out with the portable game cube all the games will still work fine.
Interesting.
FiGZ.COM - A waste of perfectly good web space
You left the part out about the Xbox version which will be out soon. The battery pack can power an Xbox for up to 4 hours along with the 4.5" LCD screen that snaps right onto the ample acreage of the Xbox controller itself. Further, there is some extra juice left over to power the Linux box sitting over on the side so you can actually use the ethernet connection to play with your friends online. As if that weren't enough, it comes in an enclosure no larger than 5 Xboxes and has a sporty green Xbox logo on the side so that everyone knows you are a gamer with a flair and style unmatched by your peers.
At the jaw-droppingly low price of $450 for all the extra hardware (Xbox and games not included), it can be yours.
And you have to admit, it is really quite amazing what they can do now with four car batteries, 20 pounds of wire, and a huge metal cart (required for portability).
Yeah, so brand me a troll. I am, after all, tired and cranky and sitting under a bridge. How about tossing me a Scooby snack while you're at it?
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
I want a battery I can carry on my back.
A battery whose half-life is guaranteed for over 3000 years.
A battery that is not environmentally safe or even a good idea to carry around.
A battery that doubles as a flamethrower and ghost-catching device.
I WANT A PROTON PACK!
Seriously...I don't mind toting a batterey that weighs 20 pounds and is approximately half the size of my laptop/portable device. Then maybe I'd get a good 10 hours of use out of it. Am I alone? I think that would solve a lot of the battery problems.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
I know the GameCube is small, but it's not nearly small enough for this purpose, IMO. Plus, it's a cube--not flat like the PSOne...
Call me a pessimist, but I just don't see this as being all that worthwhile...
What's a sig?
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
One portability cancels out another, this Mobile Screen covers up the carrying handle.
Is Anyone Not A Dumbass, by chance?
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
I'd just like to say I'm shocked and appalled that not one single /.er has said anything about using one in conjuction with (insert whatever game machine is currently booting Linux) and using it to hack on the kernel source in the back of the car. Oh, yeah, and usb wireless nics will allow them to surf the net through the chain of all the wireless nics in all the cars. Hey! A beowolf cluster! rotflmoa, I slay me...
jred
I'm not a mechanic but I play one in my garage...
I fear purchasing one so my girlfriend doesn't think I'm gay.
This is cool, because it makes it much easier to haul a complete system to a LAN party.
No lugging a huge seperate TV for networked console games.
All you need then is a room and power outlets to plug into and you're up and racing!
the reason that i read was so nintendo could hold off the pirates for a few years. withing a 18 months to a year, dvd-r's will be pretty common, so copying ps2 and xbox games will start up.
since they probably wont sell blank mini-dvds, the gamecube is safe
Well, I don't have an exact number on the amount of data that can be stored on the little dvds, but it is still quite substantial for a game. Somewhere around 1.5 Gigs should be plenty for a majority of games out there for the near future. The only thing that takes up tons of space is FMV, and if you want a game with tons of that, put it on a couple little dvds. They can't cost that much.
Besides, by doing this, Nintendo is essentially free from piracy.
Here's a link to the 1.5 GB estimate.
Why does it have to be used in a car? That would the most annoying place to use it. Why not on a pinick with your girlfriend? Come on you can't wait til Mario Karts comes out for this system..
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
There is a reason XBox and PS/2 sell at a loss for $300. Anything more and they are too expensive for most consumers, or so Microsoft and Sony believe.
... why not just buy an even better laptop?
The issue is not about buying a used $400 laptop for retro games. It is about people having enough money for a computer that they can use for school/work and some games OR a game machine.
And of course, if you can afford both
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Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
I think luggable would be a more suitable word than portable in this case. You wouldn't walk around carrying the GameCube AND the controller to play it. I really do like the idea of having a display like this so I can pick up the machine and use it in a more comfortable area of my apartment.
I don't know about everybody else, but my apartment has it's fair share of hot and cool spots...
"Derp de derp."
Hmm.. I had an idea I wanted to share. One thing I have always wanted is the ability to watch TV while laying down. I've actually thought about building some kind of contraption that'd allow me to hang a TV, screen down, so I could lay under it and watch TV more comfortably.
I'm afraid to tackle something like this because of how heavy TV's are... I wonder, since this device is LCD, and I imagine it's pretty lightweight, I wonder if I could run an A/V cable to it and maybe hook up my DVD player to it?
It'd be more comfortable playing games, too. It'd be so wonderful to be able to sit down and play a game without being distracted by a sore back. Anybody else feel my pain?
"Derp de derp."
Is you can hook a battery up to anything that uses an AC to DC adapter and Voila instant portable. There's been many a time where i've used a battery powered 5 port hub as a cable tester.
First off... I believe that all the consoles out now are being sold at a very small profit. Perhaps a dollar or so. I've heard that only the Dreamcast was sold at a loss and even then it wasn't a very big loss.
A game console is not a computer. A computer is not a game console. Although one can serve as the other, it cannot do the same things as well. And, of course, if you want to play Pikmin, Halo, or Metal Gear Solid on your PC... uh... well, you can't.
The GC, PS2, and XBox can all pump out better graphics than my $1200 laptop, not neccesarily because the hardware is better, but because the hardware is specialized. The games are written specifically for it and it is designed to do ONE thing (I leave it to your imagination to figure out what that is)
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
Sorry bud, but once ppl start using that, it'll quickly get modded down. Then nobody will see it. What amuses me is that I think the same people who spend too much time 'trolling' here are the same ppl that complain they can't get laid.
"Derp de derp."
Is it open source?
You die too easily.
Dude, for long ski and snowboard trips,as well as tailgate parties, this would be the bomb. Playing games on my laptop is always fun, but cube would allow me to not look like a major geek...just a minor one ;).
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
But the GBA does essentially the same thing. You can plug the GameBoy Advance into a GameCube and use the GBA's screen and controls to play the game.
And, at approximately 60-70 dollars you get quite a better deal. It even has it's own games and everything.
Watch out, or I'll have the penguins eat you.
Oh...and, I'm liquid talent
but cube would allow me to not look like a major geek...just a minor one ;).
I can hear them now.
"Freak boy is playing that monkey game on his purple lunchbox again."
Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
I actually bought got one of these screens 2 days ago and have to send it back. I has an entire line of non-connected pixels and one bad pixel on another line. There's a nice slip of paper inside the box saying that some parts are "recycled" - I can only assume that explains the cheap price and poor quality. Hopefully I'll get one with better system pull parts after returning it.
You can't tell me Halo is easy to control. It's not. It takes a good hour or two to get decent at it and I didn't get really good until after I had nearly beat the game off..
Now that I am good at the controls I think they are bad ass. (I hated them at first)
Some times things have to be setup complex in order to give you more control over the game once you get use to them.
I don't think people know what flamebait means.
I assume someone looked at it, and didn't like it for a reason like:
1. He was trying to be funny, but I didn't laugh
2. XBox isn't portable. Gamecube rules!
3. GROUTY!
4. He was making a point via sarcasm and humor, which is no longer allowed on here.
Don't think this is the place for meta-moderation? Just write some replies!
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
This makes it even more unfortunate that the GC doesn't play DVDs...~$400 is fairly steep for a portable DVD player, but not bad for both DVDs and games on the road.
"Inquisition this, you science dinks!" --The Tick
Microoptical (http://www.microopticalcorp.com/), sells 640x480 monoculars that use half a watt, one of those, combined with a gamecube would be really nifty. Split screen would be out though, unless you were to drop a splitter into the video line and buy a second display.