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Listen To Your Game Boy Advance

Posted by timothy on from the uncumbrance dept.

filmsmith writes "It looks like Nintendo may be interested in using the GBA to enter the PDA market and even considering itself competition for the Apple iPod. It smells of DMCA pandering, though. 'It looks like protection will be in place to ensure that even content recorded by users (through the use of a special adapter) will not be able to be shared with other users.' Planet Gamecube has the article here."

19 of 171 comments (clear)

  1. Again... by Slashdot+Insider · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I know it makes for good headlines, but nowhere does it say Nintendo is endorsing this.

  2. Two questions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    1. Does it run Linux
    2. Does it play OGG?

  3. Nooooo by Kirby-meister · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I just want games.

    I don't care if my PS2 can run Linux, or my Xbox can be turned into some media center. I don't care that my Gameboy Advance will soon try to take the place of my iPod.

    I just want games. I am a gamer. MAME for Xbox, or DreamSNES or other emulators for Dreamcast (play NES/SNES/Genesis games on your Dreamcast), or the new e-card reader for the Gameboy Advance I know some people would rather do the opposite of what I just said, but I only care about the games. Smash Bros, Panzer Dragoon, Radiant Silvergun, Gunstar Heroes, Super Mario Bros, Final Fantasy Tactics...not Red Hat, MPlayer, X server, Xvid, ogg....

    Besides, I have my computer for all that other stuff. My 19" CRT is a much better choice for video due to the better clarity compared to my 20" JVC from 1995.

    1. Re:Nooooo by ShadowDrake · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Convergence is, by and large, a good thing. It means fewer devices to pack, learn, and keep fed. The CPU power and memory is already paid for, and the system is presumably designed to remain running fairly continuously, so why not only require users to carry one box and keep one set of batteries charged?

      --
      It's just like a fascist dictatorship, without the punctual rail service!
    2. Re:Nooooo by WaKall · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The more a device tries to do, the more likely it will have trouble and/or fall short. There's a lot to be said for custom hardware/firmware, instead of solving everything in software.

      Convergence is a good way to solve some problems - cell phone + pager + PDA, for example. However, a functional laptop will never fit in your pocket, and a phone will never display enough to substitute for your laptop. So you'll have both and use/carry when appropriate.

      I like having a separate device for games (aka, my GBA with afterburner). If it gets outdated, I replace it, and keep my phone. Likewise for the phone, I can replace it at will.

      I imagine the market would get pretty saturated if you made every permutation of convergence devices for sale, and you'd still have to address the problems of battery power as you throw more processor to do things in software, or just add more hardware into a device and make it larger.

      Then there's 8 year olds with GBAs - they probably don't need/want a cell phone and PDA.

    3. Re:Nooooo by Chris+Canfield · · Score: 2, Insightful

      In theory, yes, convergence can be good. In practice in the Gaming industry, convergence has generally meant trying to force a console to buy and sell stocks over a proprietary network or edit documents on the worst text editor known to man. Consoles are optimized for playing games, which means they do sprite manipulation, polygon manipulation, texturing, and backgrounds particularly well, and everything else absolutely horribly. If you look up homebrew code to get the GBA to display text, you will find it would make a miserable PDA. Absolutely nothing is optimized for text insertion, highlighting, etc... And this is markedly worse than your average PDA, as they are intended to be general computing devices. Even the TI-8x calculator series has more generalized routines.

      Convergence comes up so often in the gaming world that it has become a hated word. Convergence means that somebody doesn't get it. Somebody doesn't feel that gaming alone is worth having a console for, and so they must go and make a sub-par printer attachment or Saturn-Based e-mail client or Trackball with encyclopedia sets or Markie Mark make-your-own-video game... Convergence means more Hollywood types are on the prowl, and that is never a good thing.

      Convergence can be a good thing, when it extends naturally from the course of developing good dedicated hardware. PS2 DVD playback is a good thing. XBOX MP3 playback is a good thing. A GBA digital video entertainment hub borders on the asinine.

      --
      This Sig is a mnemonic device designed to allow you to recognize this author in the future.
  4. -1 Exagerated by kweg · · Score: 4, Insightful

    from the article -
    "32MB SmartMedia card can hold up to 24 minutes of video, and 5 hours of audio."

    That's some pretty low quality.

  5. What format is this? by Arcaeris · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "A 32MB SmartMedia card can hold up to 24 minutes of video, and 5 hours of audio."

    Holy God, compression are they using? On the audio side, a 128 kbps mp3 runs at about 1 MB/min, and that sounds like crap to the discerning ear. I guess on the Gameboy speakers it won't really matter: all you'll hear are pops and cracks.

    As for the video, 24 minutes? I guess if the screen is small and the resolution bad, but who wants to watch porn on their Gameboy anyway? I never dreamed of the day I'd see GameBoy Pocket Pool.

  6. Re:this is normal for nintendo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They have never been much for sharing, even their old games. They can still profit from them and so still want to sell everything to users.

    Imagine that. A company wants to profit from the product they create. Fuckers.

    They currently still sell even their ancient NES games as playable on the GBA through the use of the e-card reader.

    Thus, the ancient NES games are playable. If the makers of the game can turn a profit, why shouldn't they be allowed to do so? That's what they were made for in the first place.

    Or should NES games enter the public domain after 10 years, because you want to play an emulator? Come on. It's not abandonware. Nintendo has all the right in the world to prevent the illegal copying of their games.

    Just because Nintendo has a great line of games and (in my opinion) a great line of consoles, doesn't mean they are a morally correct company.

    Bunk. It's like you listen to Lessig but you're not really hearing him. The creators of the work have the right to be compensated for their work, for a reasonable window of time.

    They have done everything from price fixing to scamming the government...

    This I know nothing about, but I'd be curious to read more if you've got links.

    Sorry. It sounds like I'm picking on you here, which is not the intent. I'm just bothered by your sense of entitlement.

  7. bah... already got 11 & 1/2 hours in my pocket by skermit · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Nobody talks about MP3/CD players. My new iRiver SlimX 400 has about 11 and a half hours at 128kbps, with full track titles, 23 hour battery life, and even an FM tuner. Plus if you get bored, you can play snake (nibbles, etc.) on the smart remote it comes with. It's thinner than a AA battery on the side, and looks like 5 CDs stacked on top of one another. Not to mention I don't have to worry about taking an hour of my favorite music, I just burn 700mb at a time and take what I want, where I want. Plus iRiver actually puts a lot of support behind their products, and if you check out the firmware site, they update around every couple months, adding new features, and even increasing batterylife by use of intelligent buffering techniques. Oh... did I mention there's 6 minutes of anti-shock? Hah... GBA audio lame... Overpriced mp3 harddrive players lame... Expensive smart media/flash mp3 players lame...

    --
    -Christopher Wu
    http://www.christopherwu.net/
  8. Re:Protection?? Nah... by Exiler · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Um, the GBA has a 3.5 mm headphone jack right? 20 seconds.

    --
    Banaaaana!
  9. Oh, sure, let me jump right on this bandwagon. by Glytch · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Instead of spending $150 for a low-end Clie, or spending $50 on a clearance-sale Visor Deluxe (thanks for the boxing day sale, Staples! :) ), someone will go right out and spend $100 for a GBA, plus $40 for the adaptor so that they can use a substandard PDA.

    I know by the time I press "Submit" everyone else will have made the same point, but it had to be said.

  10. PDA? I think not. by Latrommi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It looks like Nintendo may be interested in using the GBA to enter the PDA market

    And how many other successful PDA's can you name that have no touchscreen or keyboard (other than the control pad and a couple buttons). Or are they going to come out with the GBA keyboard? Seriously now, the thing isn't even backlit!

  11. Re:this is normal for nintendo by Moridineas · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Out of curiosity why should Nintendo "share" their old games..ESPECIALLY if people are willing to buy them? I just don't get the logic that would make you think "oh, well because they are old, they should be free"

    That said, yeah, other aspects of Nintendo's operations have been..less than clean.

  12. Re:Expansion Again by The+Notorious+ASP · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm not even sure where to begin. To me, this falls under the "sure, it can be done, but... um... why?"

    I mean, really, I could modify my $0.89 bic lighter into a gas grill of some sort, maybe cook up some food in a really shoddy fashion, but is that really a solution?

    Why don't we just let these devices stick to what they really are. A Game Boy is a Game Boy, not a PDA. Want a PDA? Drop the money on a PDA. Can't afford a PDA? Then you probably don't actually need a PDA, you just want a PDA.

    Just my .02. I really do understand having fun with this stuff, I hack around on useless crap all the time, I just don't see the point in saying there's a lot of real good use to this. Let's call it geeky fun and be done with it! ;)

  13. Re:Too bad... by llamaluvr · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ummm...yeah...after every other Game Boy has included that on-board, I was kinda expecting the same thing for the SP. I don't appreciate having to pay $10-15 extra just to have the ability to actually hear the game.

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  14. Re: overpriced jukeboxes? by bmerlin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'd say that $199 is overpriced for a CD-MP3 player. I'd rather just fork out the extra $100 and get a nice 5 gig iPod, complete with near-instantaneous (esp. compared to CD burning) file transfer and complete integration with my music software. That, or there are plenty of other jukeboxes available right in your price range.

  15. Remember the Songboy? by farfisa69 · · Score: 3, Insightful


    Does anyone remember the songboy ?

    --
    Meat is murder, I eat chicken.
  16. Just what my boss wants to see... by micq · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ... me bringing the gameboy back into the meeting room. After last time, I don't think the fact that it can do PDA functions is going to keep him from flying off the handle.

    I'll just have to stick with playing games on my PDA... he think's I'm sooo productive then.

    --
    Snooze and you lose your sushi.