New Gameboy Announced

Xenex writes "From Planet GameCube: Nintendo today announced a US March 23rd release date for their Game Boy Advanced SP system. The GBA SP features a clamshell design that when folded is 3-inch square and an inch thick. The unit will also be also front lit, and totally backwards compatible with all previous Game Boy software." As any GBA owner can tell you, the screen in earlier models sucked pretty terrible. I'm looking forward to trying this one out.

Comments

Link

[BJH]

Here's a link to a photo from the Japanese announcement.

Re:Link

[SmasKenS]

Some more images. Image. Page. Front, buttons, ports.

Pictures of the new GBA

[TheWickedKingJeremy]

... as provided by Gamespot

Re:Pictures of the new GBA

[TheWickedKingJeremy]

What are the ports on the back? They appear to be RJ11 and RJ45 connections, which would imply phone and/or ethernet. Could this actually be the world's smallest laptop?

... I am no expert, but I know the current GBA has ports on the back of it, too. One of them I use to connect my GBA to my Gamecube... And I know GBAs are capable of being linked together via a cable, so that probably explains it. I pretty sure there is no added functionality to this new GBA in terms of network/internet capability.

Re:Pictures of the new GBA

[Jace of Fuse!]

Actually, you're partially correct. There is no ADDED functionality, but there are link cables for Gameboy Advances to allow them interconnectivity with Cellphones in Japan. This was a huge selling point for the GBA when it was first introduced, but as I understand it game developers never really warmed up to it so it's something of a dud.

I would provide links, but searching Japanese sites is kind of hard for me, not being a Japanese speaker. Still, Google search does find several kind of relevent links, and then there was this photo.

More to come...

[GweeDo]

There is another press conference coming in NY between 9am-11am EST. It isn't know at this time what they are announcing. It is believed that the GBA SP will be announced for the US (since this conference is being held by NOA). Hopefully we hear more than just about GBASP (though I can't wait to buy one of um!)

A quick analysis looking over it

[Dark Paladin]

The Good:

"Backlit" screen - it's really more like the Afterburner, but probably of a higher/clearer quality (without the "blue tint" the Afterburner sometimes gives - not trying to knock the Afterburner, it's a great hack).
Long battery life - 10 hour with light on, 18 with light off.
Clamshell - as someone who games "on the go" and with a 9 month old son who likes to eat Daddy's GBA, this is a good thing.

The Bad:

Rechargeable batteries - would be nice if we could put AA as a "backup" or something. But Nintendo was against a rock and a hard place - if they allow any third party rechargeable batteries to be put in, there could be compatibility issues (really a non-issue except from a legal "we won't support it if it breaks" kind of thing - kind of like some MP3 players that have their own brand of AA rechargeables).

Form factor: Hm. I'm not sure on how comfortable this will be. Once nice thing about the GBA is while it's a little too small for my 1.5 octave spanning hands, the shape is more forgiving. Here, we have...a square shape. Looking at it, I'm not sold on "long hours with Metroid Fusion without finger cramping". We'll see.

Otherwise, for $90 ($100 after taxes, etc), it looks like a nice evolution for the GBA. Remember your history - Nintendo made several changes to the original GameBoy over it's 10 year life (colors, slimmer, one backlit system, color screen), and Nintendo still has around 50% of the software console market sales locked down (at least when you include that nice sized 35%-40% hold the Gameboy/Gameboy Advance has).

A decent picture comparison

[phoenix_orb]

Yahoo Picture

Here is a decent picture of the new unit next to the old unit

Re:Front lit?

[iapetus]

Actually, some hands on impressions have said that the L/R buttons are actually more comfortable than those on the original GBA. From the EDGE forums, posted by ste_EDGE:

"I'm not sure about the shoulder buttons yet. First impression - on seeing it - was that they're going to be useless. Second impression, on playing it, was significantly better. I find the ones on the GBA at the moment very uncomfortable, and the fact that these are on the corner means you can press them with the bottom of your finger, rather than the tip, and it seemed OK. But I was playing Advance Wars, really, so it wasn't like it got a work out."

Re:When will Nintendo catch up with the 90's?

[radish]

Afterburner is a frontlight, not a backlight.