Slashdot Mirror
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.
absolutely. My favorite game is still F-zero, and you absolutely *need* the L/R buttons on the top of the unit. Even if this new GBA has these buttons, the width of the unit is going to make accessing them awkward.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
People want a backlit colour LCD? So that'll be why the Gameboy was a huge success, and the GameGear and Atari Lynx failed, despite both being technically superior, and having some great games.
Do you suppose this might have had something to do with battery life? As I recall, you were lucky to get a couple of hours out of the GameGear.
It should be pointed out that the Gameboy Advance does some trickery to accomplish Gameboy Classic compatibility. It's both a software and hardware based backfall, and it's not perfect but it works well enough to cover the vast majority of the games.
;)
Still, if for some reason you feel the need to EMULATE a Gameboy Classic on a Gameboy Advance without resorting to it's built in capability then feel free to put your roms on a Flash Advance cartridge and run those Gameboy roms under GBonGBA. It's still slow and beta, and there's some question as to if it will ever run full screen, but then -- on future Gameboys, it just might.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
What's wrong with frontlit? My PDA is a frontlit colour screen (like most these days) and it looks fine, and is easily readable in all but the most extreme circumstances. It also lasts much longer than it would if backlit.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
Glad that this was rumored for quite a while, so I didn't get a GBA yet. But I read something that kinda annoys me:
That is evil. Is the link port the one you use to connect to the GameCube, or the one you use to play against others?
Hank! White!
"When will Nintendo realize that people want a backlit, colour LCD display."
What people want is a small game system that runs for hours on a couple of batteries with plenty of games. Backlit color LCD displays are only a consideration when the first goals are met.
Game Gear: Crappy color screen. Decent library. Not very portable and 6 AA's got you 3 hours of game play. System failed.
Atari Lynx: Crappy color screen. Not much in terms of games. Not very portable and 6 AA's got you a whopping 3 hours of game play. System failed.
Turbo Express: Best color screen ever on a portable. Good library of games. TV Tuner. High price. 6 AA's got you a whopping 3 hours of game play. System failed.
Neo Geo Pocket... Dare I continue?
Nintendo, the only company that has been successful with two portable systems is unaware of what people want?