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Game Boy Advance SP Sells 1.1 Million in U.S.
clu76 writes "An article at Business Wire indicates that Nintendo has sold 1.1 million Game Boy Advance SPs since hitting the shelves less than 10 weeks ago. The article goes on to say, 'The new model has sold at a rate of more than 10 per minute, non-stop, since launch.'
Two new colors of the popular handheld have also been announced: Flame (red) and Onyx (black)." I'd attribute this to the SP being the first Game Boy to have a screen that's viewable in total darkness, as well as not requiring batteries. Anyone got ideas for what to do with an old GBA?
Here's a high-resolution picture of the two new colors. Unfortunately, you won't be able to buy one until September.
For more information, click here.
Get some rechargable batteries and a lamp. Use it. You'll live.
Or use your m4d h4XX0r1ng skilz and get an afterburner lighting kit for it.
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
I read the internet for the articles.
I simply wonder how many they would've sold if they could keep up with the demand. It took me 3 weeks to get a GBA SP, and then I had to get the blue one (I wanted the silver one), or face another 2-3 weeks unless I got lucky (and no, I haven't seen a silver one in the ~1 week since I got mine). The worst part is that everyone I asked pretty much knew what I was going to say by the time I got the words Game Boy out of my mouth, but they had to wait for the SP because they have so many of the old GBAs on the shelf and would love to get rid of them.
Everyone pretty much said that they get a shipment of 12 of them every couple of weeks, 6 of each colour, although sometimes they come in seperate shipments. They also have no idea when they will receive them (except for a couple of the larger retailers like WalMart which gets more regular shipments, though the shipments are the same size).
-PainKilleR-[CE]
The most recent beta versions let you get to everything without the GBA (except for some shiny subgames) although it looks like if you are going to try for 4-player split-screen it's going to get awful crowded if you force it to display stuff on the screen instead of on a GBA.
Combination - fun iPhone puzzling
"Anyone got ideas for what to do with an old GBA?"
Mutter curses while throwing it in the dumpster on your way out to get the newest version, now with Tint Control®. Gotta stay on the bleeding edge you know.
Seriously tho, Toys for Tots or something along those lines would be a nice this to do with "out-dated" game systems, just make sure you pack the games with them.
I've been in Japan since April 1st, and the black GBA SP is all over the place here.
I'm suprised Nintendo is waiting until September to release it in the 'states.
The red one is nice looking though. I'll stick with my silver though.
The GBA has the advantage that it is a very easy machine to do home development on. Grab yourself a flash cart and get going. I should put some references in now.. instead I'll just say any of the top ten links from goodle under "gba development" are good. If you can't be bothered to search for it deving is probably too much hard work for you.
Combination - fun iPhone puzzling
I'd attribute this to the SP being the first Game Boy to have a screen that's viewable in total darkness
What about the Gameboy Light?
I guess this means we're not being left behind again. I've got my black one right here and I'm pretty sure red is available - both since their UK launch.
I haven't felt this honoured since Silent Hill 3 turned up... or when we got the English version of Shenmue II.
Yay, go UK!
[)amien
The original GBA's speaker was far better than the GBC's, though. It's almost as good as the speaker on the original GameBoy! I haven't tried the SP, so I don't know where its speaker stands yet.
And IIRC, Nintendo released a translucent green GameBoy Pocket in Japan that had a light. It was called the GameBoy Light or something similar.
"I'd attribute this to the SP being the first Game Boy to have a screen that's viewable in total darkness"
That is not true, the GameBoy Light was the first GameBoy to work in the dark. It was Monocrome Indiglow screen.
Check it out here:
Well, you've got Golden Sun, which is easily the best handheld RPG that I've ever played. Then there's Metroid Fusion, which is a game worthy of the Metroid name. Last, but not least, Advance Wars, which is the most addictive game that I have ever played.
Any one of those is worth getting at least the original GBA.
You need to buy a $5 headphone adaptor cable that nintendo sells. Yeah it sucks they removed it, but oh well.
Slashdot geeks propably want to run the GBA Web Server on it. :)
There's a review here:h tml?fro mint=1&submit.x=82&submit.y=8
http://gear.ign.com/articles/393/393518p1.
which also has a link to the official site,
http://www.nakiusa.com/
and a bit of comparison to the other set of grips I saw when I was looking at accessories (I bought a crapload of extra junk for next to nothing trying to get a headphone adapter and cases for the gba sp and the games, in most cases it was cheaper to buy a bundle than the individual items, but I didn't find the grips in any of the bundles).
-PainKilleR-[CE]
Try WarioWare - it's not one of thse 10 or 20 hour games, you can complete a game in 5 seconds. Oh, and it's horribly addictive. BestBuy had it on the display GBA and I highly recommend checking it out.
Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
IIRC, the instruction booklet says after 500 recharges, the battery will be 70% effective. So after just 200 the battery should still work like new.
"the fax machine is nothing but a waffle iron with a phone attached to it." - Grandpa Simpson
From an interview with Kenichi Sugino, the guy behind the design of the GBA SP:
Not sure that I buy that but there you go.