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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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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
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.
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.