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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.
Here's a link to a photo from the Japanese announcement.
Now all someone needs to do is port Linux to it, and it'll make a nice little PDA.
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Bah, for years us gamers have been asking for a backlit system like the Gamegear.... It's taken Nintendo what, 6 years to answer this simple request? I have to support them on the price tag however, it's the same price as the GBA was when it was origionally released, and much better looking. I do wonder if this thing will accept the "backup" cartridges floating around, or if they've built in copy protection of some sort... any thoughts? Maybe I'll hold out just a little longer, the Gameboy Color just isn't cutting it these days :)
... as provided by Gamespot
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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!)
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Due March 23rd? Of this year? That's less than a quarter away. I'm not some industry insider, but I try to keep up with the new gadgets like this and I've not heard a word about this device.
Could this be some cheap, quick alternative for those of use that have complained so loudly about the shortcommings of the GBA (like the lack of some kind of lighting)?
The design is somewhat different to the previous two models, but looks pretty snazzy. I'd quite like a tiny computer/PDA that looks like that, just stick a keyboard on instead of the D-Pad and buttons :)
I Wonder if it will have an IP stack, bluetooth/3G/WiFi games anyone? that would be cool
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I wonder how long till the GameBoy XP comes out?
It will run old games in GameBoy9x mode.
Seriously, have they not learned from M$ that staying compatible with older stuff limits you?
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It look to me that these are designed for adults. It looks a lot slimmer and inconspicuous. Could this mean Nintendo is moving toward a more adult audience?
Wonder how many kids will snap the clamshell hinge? I remember my first Motorola Startac phone and the problems I had with that...
Does look cute though. And thank God it has a lit screen.
Does it have the same specs as the GBA? (Wasn't clear to me).
-psy
This is great and all, but it is still frontlit. When will Nintendo realize that people want a backlit, colour LCD display. They're cheaper than ever nowadays, and Sega had such a beast in the early 90's (or was it even the late 80's?) with the GameGear.
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The GBA was a very nice size, it was comfortable to hold and all the buttons were easily accesible. Now, if I were 6, I wouldnt have a problem with a smaller design, but I am not 6, and my main reason for upgrading past the GBA is the backlight, but if I cant get to the shoulder buttons (judging from screenshots, no hard facts obviously) then its worthless. Smaller is not necessarily better if functionality is lost as a result.
Still, this IS nintendo we're talking about, and I've gotten used to all their controllers so far, so I guess we'll see. Of course, the controllers have kinda gotten bigger as I've gotten older, so that might be a reason why they are always comfy...
The backlit sure sounds nice, though. =)
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
Did you ever use one?
It has four, not two. (The two by the pad, two on the back)
I modded my daughters GBA.. and now it's amazing. and it gave her the edge in school as NOBODY else has a backlit GBA.
If nintendo would simply pull their heads out of their arse and just put the backlight mod on the existing product it would increase sales on it's own.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
FRONT LIT?!?!
Words fail me. I hope it works better than I think it might. It's ugly, probably going to cramp my hands up worst than the GBA does, and the fucking thing isn't even backlit?
From a business standpoint it makes no sense either. Cell phones are big in Japan. Why not make a combo cell-phone/gba (and make it backlit of course).
ARGH!!!! WHAT ARE THEY THINKING? IT'S UGLY!!!
No, wait, must recover... remember, Nintendo good, do no wrong....
*Remembers virtua-boy*
*explodes*
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Nintendo updates GBA ...
...
... conditions. Partly to offset the demands of the internal light, Nintendo ...
Much as sources including reputed UK gaming mag Edge have been speculating over
the last few months, the GBA SP boasts an updated clamshell design, improved
Nintendo announces Backlit GBA
Dubbed GBA SP, the new model comes in a redesigned clamshell case with
a screen that flips up (think cellphone) to reveal the control pad.
New Game Boy Advance revealed
has added rechargeable batteries to the GBA SP. And to
The Next Game Boy Is Here
Nintendo to sell premium model of Game Boy Advance
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
i wonder how this thing 'feels' in your hand, meaning - it has a hinge, and a portion of the weight is hanging off at an angle - will it get too heavy, or at least awkward, after a while?
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).
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The buttons have two states, so it's 4*2^4
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I just got one! And they didn't say any mainstream word about it until a quarter before it comes out? I own a Nintendo everything (well, except a "Virtual Boy," that is if anyone remembers it). Still, the GBA is a little too small for my hands, and if you look at the new one, I don't think I could even hold it.
"Bad Nintendo! Bad, bad, bad, Nintendo!"
Looks like I'm going to have to have the tattoo of Princess Peach lasered off of my bum in disgust.
Very nice design (I love the square clamshell approach) but I still can't play it as easily as I could play the original Game Boy. I may be one of the only people on the planet that this affects, but there's no way I can use the shoulder buttons on the GBA -- and lo and behold, they've carried over to this new one, despite a generally boxy-flat design.
Shoulder triggers of any kind are very difficult to use for physically disabled gamers, such as LPs or other syndromes which deform the hands. Face buttons, no problem; you brace the controller against a flat surface like a table and you can mash away in Marvel vs. Capcom 2 to your heart's delight.
But when you have to wrap your fingers around to reach the 'ergonomic' buttons, well, then you have problems. Dreamcast controllers gave me all manners of trouble since the triggers were analog, underneath the thing, and in some games unmappable and mandatory. Nintendo 64 controllers were just a joke, with buttons all over the place including a trigger on the bottom of the thing -- even a joypad shaped controller a friend offered me had a trigger UNDER the joypad! Insane!
For portable systems, you have no choice of simply plugging in a new controller that meets your needs. It's an integrated unit. It's not economically feasible to make an alternative unit which has four face buttons instead of two face + two shoulder just to accommodate a small percentage of your gaming audience. Understandable, but it's a shame, really. I'd kill to have Advance Wars and Tony Hawk handy for long trips.
Yahoo Picture
Here is a decent picture of the new unit next to the old unit
Blah Blah Blah.
Yikes the control area of the thing looks tiny! Someone mentioned if Nintendo is going after the adult market due to the more "sophisticated" design. I ask the opposite, is Nintendo potentially alienating their adult market by making the controls too small to use confortably by anyone over the age of 15.
Also, in the shot of it next to the "old" GBA, doesn't it look like it's actually a little bigger when it's opened up? It's probably a lot thinner, but I think it has a bit of a clunky/chunky prototypish look to it.
I'd rather 2 hours on a backlit screen than 8 hours on a non-backlit screen that I can't see anything with. Use recharable batteries anyways. The Game Gear even had a rechargeable battery pack that you snapped onto it.
Somehow the design sets me off, it reminds me of the first cellular handhelds, blocky, and unwieldy. But just my opinion...
"This isn't a study in computer science, its a study in human behavior"
Those shots don't reveal an obvious hand position to me. Where would you hold it? You'd want your left thumb on the direction pad, your right on the buttons...that's quite some contortionist act if you also need to balance the device.
Hmm. Unsure. I think I would've preferred them just adding a decent screen to the current model.
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Ian
And it isn't like they are sticking light bulbs in the thing for their front lit display... it looks like the Afterburner's transparent light-emitting polymer.
As for the size... I was concerned for a bit too, even before i saw the pictures. But then I was reminded that the old Gameboy and Gameboy Color models weren't that hard to hold, and this seems to be a return to that kind of form factor. But those L and R buttons do look hard to press...
Mirosoft announces its foray into the portables with the new X-boy gaming system, allowing users to have all the portability of playing such fast-paced and unconfusing Microsoft favorites like Age of Empires and Flight Simulator with all of the kiddies in the neighborhood.*
*Included in the system is its own rechargeable power supply, backlit screen, co-op cable, and pull cart.
As any GBA owner can tell you, the screen in earlier models sucked pretty terrible.
I think most gameboy owners would disagree with that statement at least partially.
The original Gameboy had bad smearing as the pixels moved, and let's face it, black and white is still black and white no matter how many shades of baby-shit-green you make it.
So here, yes, the Gameboy screen sucked.
But then the Gameboy Pocket moved on to an actual more "black and white" BW screen, with much faster pixel updates and screen visibility was never an issue unless you used the thing in the dark. At this point, the Gameboy screen didn't suck too bad for the time.
The Gameboy Color game along and I couldn't have been happier. It's pixels were big enough that they reflected just enough of the light from the environment that you were in that any well lit area provided plenty of light. Anybody who doesn't know this never had one. This screen didn't suck.
The Gameboy Advance comes along, and using the same type of screen, only larger with higher resolution pixes, and suddenly everyone things the Gameboy Screen is "notorious for shitty screen"? I don't get this. The majority of the Gameboy's life has been spent as the Pocket and Color, not the Classic and Advance. If you ask me, all things considered, the Gameboy has always been an EXCELLENT design, and still is.
If you don't like the Advance screen? Use a GB color. They still sell them. Definately want those ADVANCE games? Get a Afterburner modified Advance from YourHappyPlace. It's around $150 shipped to you with the lighting and the dimmer chip installed, but it's an excellent investment and the screen looks great.
I'm sorry, I just can't agree that the Gameboy screen has always sucked. I just think Nintendo made a pretty bad mistake not lighting the GBA themselves.
As for this new Clamshell design, I hope that's a prototype, because rumors have been talking for a while about 4 face buttons, and that one still only has two.
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Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
As any GBA owner can tell you, the screen in earlier models sucked pretty terrible.
Well, as a GBA owner, I can tell you the screen only sucks for 13 year olds trying to play their GBA under the covers past their bed time. For everyone else able to use their GBA in proper lighting, the screen is just fine. I love my GBA and have no plans to buy a new one because of the screen.
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I want to play text adventures on that thing!
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Yeah, it did. The Game Boy had infinitely better battery life and a much larger selection of games. While better in the A/V department, the Game Gears still sucked juice from batteries so fast it wasn't funny.
I love my GBA, but I still completely fail to understand why Nintendo built this system, launched it with a number of SNES ports, continues to port SNES games to it, and still gave us fewer buttons than the SNES controller.
How hard would it have been to add the X and Y buttons? Front-lit or not, there's no way I'm buying another GBA until it comes with more buttons.
A new GBA?
Does the new one still cut through a tomato and exorcise Daemons? Also, I need to be sure that the new one still won't cause leprosy and blindness.
The only thing I'm worried about is the size, I mean, maybe they took the problems people had with the GBA into consideration when they made this one and there's some nifty ergonomics that make it fit perfectly, but it's like they don't realize Americans have bigger hands. I know Nintendo makes a killing in Japan with every system, especially recently with consoles: N64 sales in Japan is what kept them afloat-- scratcth that, not entirely true, I'm pretty sure they have large enough cash reserves to weather a bad console launch, no link tho' cause I'm lazy, let's say it kept them profitable. Same with the GameCube, it may not be doing well in the States, but it sells very well in Japan.
Does the same hold true for GBA sales as well? Is the US that big a market for Nintendo or do not even need to please us to make a tidy profit? I supposed this is all a crazy rant until we get to play with it, it just looks kinda cramped. I can't wait until my local $elecStore has this out for people to play with,
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!
psxndc
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In regards to the portables from the last ten years (Lynx, Game Gear, etc.)
I always thought that the Turbo Express was a well designed device. They just chug on batteries pretty fast. I always wanted one when I was growing up, in the early '90s. Finally, about two years ago, I ordered one from http://www.tzd.com/
. You can still buy brand new games from them (though the selection gets thinner and thinner after 10 years), and up until 2001 they still did system repairs.
Still. It is probably one of the crown jewels of my videogame collection. It's a fabulously designed, backlit portable with a great selection of import and domestic games. Even to this day, it still tops the GBA in many ways.
they're still games I played a DECADE ago.
And they're still fun, too. Nintendo games tend to have excellent replay value. Plus, there is a whole new generation of gamers that might not have played these games yet and it gives them a chance to experience yesterdays great games.
Some of us are fanatical about games in general, and since we carry our Gameboys with us everywhere, toting around many cartridges is a chore...
Now, there are devices out there such as the Game Wallet and the Flash Advance, devices which essentially let you copy Gameboy Advance games. But more importantly, they let you consolodate your games onto a single cartridge, and yes it works really well.
What I've been wondering is does this new Gameboy detect such carts and prevent them from working? I was giving it some thought and one of my basic problems with the Flash Advance is the fact that it will mostly be used for piracy. That's something of a shame too because Gameboy cartridges are dirt cheap at most used game shops. I picked up a handful of great games not long ago for about $25 total. Still, Nintendo needs to protect their system and the 3rd party developers so I'm wondering, do the Flash Advance cards WORK with the Gameboy Advance SP? (GASP hah hah)
Hmmm.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
Looks kind of like my Platinum GameCube. I'm guessing it's plastic. Not to mention magnesium wouldn't come cheap.
Anyone else pissed off that they got a GBA for Xmas and Nintendo releases this news the week after?
Pretty slimy tactic if you ask me.
The only time you should have to replace a console is when it breaks. It should have been designed properly the first time. What do we do with our *old* GBAs now?
I'd like to see you do that on a SNES without a fancy FX chip.
The GBA is a nice system, it's at least as powerfull as the old SuperNintendo therefore all the good old games are being ported. Where Nintendo screwed up isn't the physical look/size of the GBA, but the fact that they left out the X and Y buttons. This is only a problem due to the number of ports being made, such as the port of SuperMario world. The ability to bail off of Yoshi's back easily mid jump was one of the best tactics Mario had, the GBA kinda lacks that. I don't see why the new version couldn't have included them for furture ports. The older GBAs would still be able to play the games but like the old Sega Genesis when it went to six button controls from three they wouldn't have quite the same functionality. Nintendo are you listening? Not to late to stop the manufacture.
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For those of you who don't follow the gaming industry, Nintendo will be launching (in May, I believe) an adapter that will let you plug GBA cartridges into the Gamecube. Wide-screen GBA, using either the Gamecube controller or a GBA controller.
It's quite smart of Nintendo - design and market a new design of the GBA without the shortcomings of the predecessor. Build the new GBA and support that as your primary handheld. Use the old GBA boards that you're stuck with in the new hardware that also enhances the GBA games.
The cross pad has a pin in the middle such that you can have at most two contacts closed at one time
Pretty good hands on review of the GBA SP at GameSpot, includes reports on the backlight (looks good from almost any angle), the comfort-level of it (more comfortable than they were expecting, including the shoulder buttons).
Just figure this is interesting since I think some people are jumping too quickly to conclusions just based on photos, and it helps to consider the difference between how something looks and how it actually feels.
-Tom
Would it have been so hard to make the case like the origonal GBA?
:P
And can we poor sightless bastards who squinted at the origonal GBA screen get credit for a trade-in?
The problem with the GBA screen is not so much that it wasn't lit (unless you play in the dark of course) it was that the front window was built like a mirror so your face would be brighter than the screen behind it. I think if they could have reduced the glare the screen would have been much better right off the bat.
The GBC screen works great if you have *direct* sunlight on it or if you're no more than two feet away from a light bulb shining at it, but in any other situation, forget it. You may be able to see some of the screen but forget about any kind of vibrant colors. Believe me, I know--I've spent many a cramped hour trying to worm myself into an angle where I can see what the hell I'm doing in Zelda. I have a wormlight but it only seems to work in near darkness; it's essentially useless on a cloudy day or with ambient lighting.
This screen sucked.
Omnes arx vestrum sunt adiuncta nobis.
From the looks of it, other than the new look, it's still just a GBA. The difference between this and the old GBA are like the differences between the original Game Boy and Game Boy Pocket. Shiny new shell, slightly different button layout, a light, but nothing terribly exciting beyond that. No new color capabilities, no new polygon-pushing hardware, just the same ol' same ol'.
I'm going to save my money for the GBA Player for GCN instead. The GCN controller fits more comfortably in my hand (I miss the size of the original Game Boy), and my TV screen is over 20 inches.
but the most obvious is sound (it cannot play the same number of instruments as the SNES could)
The Super NES could mix eight channels in stereo. Most TVs of the era were mono, and few people connected their consoles to a stereo system. Therefore, we might as well consider Super NES sound mono.
I am a GBA developer. I have written a mixer that, for eight mono channels, takes about 16% of the CPU. In addition, for another 1% of the CPU, I can use the four tone generators from the Game Boy side to add even more voices to the music. A good composer can make nice sounding music with four PCM channels and four GBC channels.
But the nice thing about the GBA sound hardware vs. Super NES sound is that because the samples fed to the GBA hardware are uncompressed 8-bit signed PCM, it's possible to generate samples in real time. Applications include tightly compressed voice and drumloop samples and realtime synthesis such as TB303 emulation.
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On a slight tangent, I think the people who are going to be hit the worst when this thing comes out are the third-party accessory folks like Interact and MadCatz. This GBA already has integrated lighting, a rechargeable battery and even screen protection. That knocks out 80% of the accessory market leaving only the market that Nintendo already controls - link cables, card reader, etc. Consider: I paid $60 for my GBA; I then bought a rechargeable battery for $20; finally, I bought the Afterburner kit for $35. That's $115, $55 of which didn't go to Nintendo (maybe a little less if the battery was done under license). With the new $90 box, Nintendo gets $30 more and the other two companies get bupkis...
Damn, Nintendo is SMART! :)