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MP3 for Gameboy
sluggo140 writes: "Cnet has an article regarding a new startup called SongPro that is devloping an add-on for Gameboy and Gameboy Advance. The add-on will play various music formats including MP3."
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I see two and a half proprietary file formats in there and zero non-proprietary (read: Ogg Vorbis) formats there. Not to carp on xiph.org or any other developers or marketers for Ogg Vorbis, but this is the kind of platform and opportunity that could help to make a free-as-in-beer, open source audio codec like Ogg Vorbis a player in the portable audio world.
Hey, it's not like it isn't possible. This thing can do multiple file formats. Why not another with Ogg Vorbis?
It's going to do the same thing as MP3 players for Palm units I'd imagine. All the processing and hardware will be offboard and the only thing the gameboy will provide is the interface.
I can't see that it's any great advantage over a standalone MP3 player - the majority of the price point of portable players seems to be the amount of memory included which is hard to work around, no matter which platform you're on.
Small standalone players like the Samsung YEPP are tiny, can run for hours on one AAA battery, and are slowly decreasing in price.
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
The Gameboy Advance has two 8-bit PCM channels. You might as well be listening to MP3s through an old SoundBlaster card! It isn't going to sound anywhere near as good as even the lowest-end portable MP3 player.
Can you say "waste of time?" Yeah, I knew you could.
Nathan
As long as it doesn't display ads on my own music I rip, I think this is a very good idea. A way to get free music to listen to while "paying" for it at the same time. Just hope that format is of decent quality.
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Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
Do they have a chance of making a well-distributed product, or will this just be offered on some catalogs and bought by geeks?
Of course this will probably remain more of a tech-toy than a mass-market attactor, but if it gets kids (and who else is going to use a GBA as an MP3 player rather than just buying the real deal), into working with technology and specifically computing, BOOH YAH!
I have a kid sister, who has consistently anoyed me for the past 12 years or so with requests for assistance with one PC issue or another. Yesterday I went back to the folks place for a visit and found her sitting at a table playing with those new cell-phone mods. Totally geeked out, little screwdrivers all around, cell bits scatered over about a square meter of table space. Suddenly my heart swelled with joy, and I forgot how much I hated nokia for all those stupid little mods.. they get people teched out. Anything, Everything, that introduces folk young and old to the idea that it is Okay to go into the gutts of their machine and muck around, is better for the tech world in the long run.
Though maybe not for geek salaries.. hmmm
-GiH
This is your mind, This is your mind roasting on the back of a Celeron overclocked to 1.3 gigahertz. Any Questions?
Am I missing the point? They want 99 bucks for the device, on top of the 99 (or whatever the current price is) for the Game Boy Advance, plus the cost of a memory card. Hmmmm, or I can just spend 99 bucks a get a Rio or other MP3 player that gets better battery mileage then my GBA.
Since it's a company developing this, it's "Wow what a waste of time" and "Why bother?" etc.. but if it were some independent hacker the responses would be "Nice hack!" and "Cool!" etc. etc.
You're thinking the iPAQ with its little speaker inside the directional pad. Oh, wait, the iPAQ has a headphone out. Hmm... if only the GB had a headphone jack... oh wait, it does! Hmm... if only it had 16-bit sound. Well, the GBA does. So that's most of the problem solved.
The only sound quality problem I see here is with the original game boy and game boy color, assuming they implement their MP3 player for it. I see mention of the game boy color, but may have overlooked any mention of the MP3 device supporting it (I'm not sure if it mentions it). In any case, since the GBA can play everything back to the original game boy games, and since it's more attractive, lighter (than the older, larger ones) and is becoming fairly cheap, I can't see there being as much of a market for it. I see the GBA one taking a chunk, but not so much the GBC and original GB. My guess is if anyone's going to go out and buy an MP3 player, or even an MP3 add-on, they'll likely buy a full-fledged player, or they'll already have a GBA.