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."

Comments

DRM: Permission denied

[qwerpoiu]

To play this MP3, you must complete Bonza Land level 3 or get 350 gold coins.

Not the first time

[boa13]

... such announces are made. I remember such an product being announced for the Neogeo Pocket Color. Does anybody know if the maker of this one has a significant financial backing? Do they have a chance of making a well-distributed product, or will this just be offered on some catalogs and bought by geeks?

Interesting, but...

[Nogami_Saeko]

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.

Whence the content?

[casio282]

It does say there's a USB interface for file transfer, but also mentions in the "about the company" section that...

...users will have access to thousands of SongPro enhanced files on our website, partner sites, and Digital Docking Stations. Nintendo® Game Boy® users will be able to download multimedia content to their SongPro(TM) players from stations located in airports, retail stores, entertainment centers, hotels, and other locations...

Has anyone seen any of these reputed SongPro stations?

MP3 under GameBoy emulator

[rickthewizkid]

Hmm...

Run this under GameBoy Advance - then run the Gameboy Advance Emulator under Windows - then run Windows under VMWare - hmmm......

It's a hall of mirrors!! :)

-Rick

Yuck.

[CaffeineAddict2001]

First you convert music to digital information that is an approximation of the original sound and you say "No, it's still good!" Then compress and stream the music and it's like "No, it's still good!" Now you are playing Digital Compressed Music through Gameboy speakers? What's the point? This is like taking a painting and then running a guassian blur filter on it.

Re:Yuck.

[T3kno]

First you take five guys who can't sing, and have them sing a song by someone who cant write. Then you pass it through thousands of digital filters, mixers and other doohickey whatsits and arive at something that someone with a gameboy would call music. It really doesn't matter that it's being played out of a speaker the size of a quarter with a range of about 12Hz, it's not music in the first place. Your anology should read "This is like taking a polaroid of a painting, photocopying it onto thermal fax paper , and then running a guassian blur filter on it." You can't call velveeta food.

Re:Yuck.

[silvaran]

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.

Processing power

[gpinzone]

There's no way a GameBoy has the processing power to decode MP3s natively. This thing has got to be an Rio with a GameBoy program to display the status on the GameBoy rather than have it's own LCD.

Whoopdie dooo.

Here's a better option:

Amazon has the SP90 player at $85 - $5 coupon CHNKBKAMZNLT - $20 rebate = $60 shipped. There's a simple way to hack it and upgrade the firmware.

• Plays standard audio CDs as well as MP3 + WMA
• Electronic shock protection up to 120 seconds
• Supports ID3 tags and audio CD title display (CD Text)

GB Karaoke?

[gatekeep]

This seems to me to have the potential to be HUGE in Japan. From what they're saying it'll allow the ability to display lyrics on screen, presumably in synch with the music. From what I've read, the Japanese are nuts about Karaoke, and also about Gameboys. There could be a huge market for this thing over there, probably less so in the US.

That said, how does one go about loading the songs on the unit, and what will it's capacity be? Those are the key things I consider in a portable MP3 player. So far, I've found nothing rivaling the iPod (pause for Nomad and Rio users to chime in). At the $99 price point I'm guessing there's not much storage there.

Cost?!?!?

[jsimon12]

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.

Re:link request & loose thoughts

[uebernewby]

There was this product awhile back that was kind of an integrated low-level sound synth and sequencer/drum machine for the normal, 4-color gameboy. It was only available in europe, and you could make these REALLY funky tiny little techno tunes on it. Very aphexy. Does anyone remember the name of this, or have a link?

I think you're referring to Nanoloop, which can be found here.