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Nintendo Researchers Talk Next-Gen GBA
Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to TotalVideoGames.com's report that initial details of technology for Nintendo's GameBoy Advance successor have been revealed - specifically, the screen design for future Nintendo handhelds. According to the report, Takeshi Kiyuna of Nintendo discussed his research at a recent technology seminar, and "..it's expected that the screen will offer a resolution of [at least] 300x200, supporting a color palette of over 260,000." Additionally, "..comments made later in the seminar suggested that Nintendo were looking into the possibility of implementing an organic electroluminescent (EL) screen, which allows for superior definition screens that require lower power demands on the battery."
Although the gameboy line of products from Nintendo is pretty good, a little competition can't hurt. Sony is now venturing into uncharted waters for them, and Nintendo now has to work a little harder to compete with the new handhelds that came/are coming out.
Considering all the reports you hear about Nintendo having trouble financially and such, they need to do something to distinguish themselves. This may help their cause a bit but Sega had similar issues too. I wonder if Nintendo is doomed to the same fate.
Well, since the next GBA wil probably beat out the PSP, i have to say that it only makes sense... i mean, look at all the sony products. Over priced pieces of crap. Thats my little tuft of steam for today.
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Nintendo currently has a huge dominance in the handheld arena, in large part because of the huge number of games available due to backwards compatibility. However i'm worried that what we're looking at seems really similar to the end of the SNES era.
For better or worse, i think Nintendo is eventually going to have to switch over to optical media, unless the PSP completly bombs, but even then i think it will just delay the inevitable.
If the PSP maanges to get a foot in the door however due to a large amount of third party support, and Nintendo sticks with cartridge format, Nintendo is going to have set themselves up for a fall.
They could continue to stubbornly stick to cartridge format, just like the N64, and they'll slowly see their share start to slip. (Not as quick as with teh N64, because backwards compatibility will still do them some good.) On the other hand, they could decide to follow Sony's lead and switch to an optical disk format, at which point they're going to get slammed because the second generation PSP will presumably be backwards compatible and have a huge library of PSP games to draw on, while the new Nintedo optical handheld will have just lost it's backwards compatibility with the previous cartridge games. Sit back and watch the PS2 vs Gamecube situation happen all over again.
The second best solution to this problem that i can see is for Nintendo to switch over to optical disk format for the GBA2, but make sure that the disks are the same size as the Gamecube's disks. They'll be going head to head against the PSP, each with no backlog of playable games, but it will be better than waiting to make the switch. When the next generation comes out they'll hopefully have improved the design enough such that Gamecube games can be played on it directly. At that point the new GameBoy would have two large sets of games that it was backwards compatible with and hopefully crush the PSP.
The _best_ solution would be to bite the bullet, and spend a lot of money and research figuring out a way to make a system that could play both cartridges and optical disks without costing a fortune. The physics would be simple, at least if they did the intelligent thing like Sony and packaged the optical media in pseudo-cartridges like 3.5 floppy disks. Make the slot wide enough to hold a cartridge the size of a GameCube disk, with a notch cut out of the "bottom" edge to fit a GBA or GB cartridge. The optical media reader would be in the "top", and the cartridge interface would be at the back.
The complicated bit would be reducing the size and cost of having both types of hardware in the same machine.
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Personally, I'm most interested in the sound department. The GameBoy Advance's sound capabilities were underpowered, even by the standards of the time. Even Sonic Advance 2 (fairly recent) has the sound effects stomping on the music.
I'm hoping that they get something up to at least a wavetable type of sound with some decent number of channels. And panning that has something between "hard left", "hard right", and "dead center". And maybe a few effects tossed in... doesn't have to be some sort of full EAX, but you know, some cheap chorusing or reverb.
Both graphics and sound quality are asymptomptic curves to increase quality; the GBA is doing pretty well for its screen size in the graphics department, even in 3D now (it's never going to look like a Playstation 1 at that resolution), but the sound quality is so early 1990's. Giving the sound system 10 or 20 times the power of the GBA would really add a lot to the system, IMHO.
1. Keep the backlight. (Unless you want people hacking your systems again.)
2. Add more buttons.
And.. umm... that's about all I can think of.
3. Add optical link 4. ??? 5. PROFIT!!!!! It's a dirty job, but somebody's gotta do it, right?
They claim it will cost about as much as the GBA. Obviously if it's as large as a GameCube it won't sell. However if it were say, 25% bigger than the original GBA, would you turn down a device that could play movies, music, and PSX games for the price of a Gameboy Advance just because of that?
Regardless, i'm sure they know size is an issue and are doing their best to squeeze it down, we'll have to wait for more specific information to be sure.
I hope not. The optical disc will not automatically yield better games.
Sadly i agree with you on this one. In my opinion FF7 and FF8 didn't measure up to FF4-6 at all, and there are a lot of other games for which i can make that comparison. I've been getting a lot of use out of my GBA as the last bastion of 2D gaming.
However time stands still for no man. As the PSX and other newer consoles have shown, my opinion of 2D vs. 3D games is not reflected by the majority of the marketplace. They didn't stop making 3D games because i liked 2D games better. And if Nintendo sticks with a Cartridge based format that's best suited for 2D games, my support alone will not keep it going if Sony convinces everyone that 3D handheld games are the wave of the future.
I'd rather have a living 3D system for which i can hope for the occasional 2D game being made, rather than a 2D system that dies after a year or two and i never see another game for it again.
(And yes, i'm simplifying the issue, but there is a strong correlation between 2D games vs. 3D games and cartridge format vs. optical format)
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I predict that its spiritual successor will be Nokia's new handheld gaming device + cell phone, the N-gage... although I guess no matter who wins, it'll be the "Big N", hehe
The chip in the GBA is 8-bit, and requires you do a lot more with software mixing before handing it off to the sound DSP. This is why most of the GBA titles sound like ass, even though there are a few that sound great. Those that do sound great are still limited by the fact that it uses 8-bit sound sampling, which is why games like Metroid Fusion are a joke (auditory wise) compared to master pieces like Super Metroid.
Nintendo was hoping developers would use the amazing ARM CPU to do wicked sound processing, but in the end it didn't work. I hope they use something like the sound DSP in the SNES. Full 16-bit wavetable, proper sound fonts, etc.
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Discs are great at storing large amounts of data cheaply. However, there's plenty of feasible reasons to opt for cartriges.
1)Bulk. With a optical disc you have a rotational engine, a laser reader, the disc itself, and some way of removing and inserting the disc. On the other hand, a cartrige only needs a bus connector.
2)Laser. Adding a laser complicates the system, since many countrys have regulations on the usage and protection from lasers. For example, in the US, they must be completely contained for use in electonical devices.
3)Batteries. Nintendo has repeatedly chosen longevity over performance. The longer batteries last the more likely your customers are to continue playing and maintain interest in your other game products. Optical media spins, thanks to a small engine. This rates among the largest consumers of power, just like regular hard drives. You can add in some hardware to help predict and cache the disc, and you can instruct developers on how to organize the disc so that latency and spin times are reduced, but hardware means more bulk and cost, and developers are typically focused on time to market and overhead costs (thus not likely to spend much effort reducing battery consumption).
4) Current investments. Probably the most compelling reason for Nintendo to select cartridge format is a current investment in cartriges. Its become less of an issue with the investment in optical media they made with the gamecube. You might also consider backwards compatibility as a current investment, something which Nintendo should be wary to break. Every dollar Nintendo spends it plans to recoup from the consumer, which counts hardware costs and research and development fees. Believe it or not, Nintendo is making money from GBA sales alone. Its not as high margin as their software, but its still profit.
5) Latency and throughput. Its a hard balancing act between load times and power consumption when you choose optical, and "Loading" screens are often a liability. The current GBA cartridge is designed to minimize latency and maximize throughput, without such a huge hit on power consumption. It takes like 4 cycles to give it an address, and every subsequent poll advances the address 1 while returning data.
There seems to be a vocal yet very small group of people clamoring for 3d geometry and optical media, but honsetly, I don't think there's a need, or even much use. Camera issues have always been a liability rather than a feature; until developers can figure out how to make the camera emphasize rather than detract from the gameplay, I doubt it will see much popularity in the handheld.
In a similar vain, optical media is best at storing large amounts of data, yet the demand for data is minimal. Successful portable games are designed to be fun at 5min+. If you've got at least five minutes, the game will be fun. The mario series with its short levels is excellent for this, and Nintendo has recognized this, by offering a save mechanism. If you're required to sit and watch a video for 3 minutes, that video better be fun. The other use for large amounts of storage space is 3d geometry and textures. Each polygon takes at least 9 numbers, probably more. And each polygon will need at least some sort of palleting, and probably a texture. Probably the largest problem with 3d is the small screen size. Until Nintendo ramps up the resolution, high quality textures are mostly irrelevant.
More importantly, the GBA (and presumably successors) allready feature scaling and rotations that allow for reasonable 3d. Look at Golden Sun's battle presentation. Its completely turn based, but its an immediate cinematic hook. The camera system is dynamic and the characters and enemies look fine (compared to a SNES or PS1 polygon title).
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Sorry, Nintendo doesn't make a back-lit GBA. The GBA SP is technically front-lit, and it shows. If you want to see how crisp a back-lit handheld system looks, pick up something like a GameGear, and marvel at the difference... ...then curse at yourself for picking up something that chews through 6 batteries faster than a FRIST POST! troll can refresh /. =P
Definately agree with you on the buttons though.
I would see this as the biggest limiter as far as technology goes. if they decide to play the cartrige game again, they'11 screw themselves as badly as they did on the N64 against a Sony PSP sporting mini DVD technology.
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What about all the rumors of wifi implementation and wireless connectivity in in a GameBoy? Bluetooth adapters are getting cheaper all the time and how hot would it be if I could get my Pokemon battle just be seeing the WAN (a la Apple's fabulous Rendezvous) The progression of the screen has been a staple in the GameBoy evolution but thats more or less the only major change for the past 15 years or so. Sure color screens and backlit count for something but this is NINTENDO, why not give us something that'll change the way we play games on handhelds. Are you listening NINTENDO? Give us something more than just a shiney screen but something that compells us to play games in a totally new manner!
I'm excited by the big battery life and hot screens tho, bout time
IMHO, Sony completely BLEW it by not using MiniDiscs for their upcoming portable. They're small, have shells... perfect for the type of thing they're attempting to do... small & portable optical.
Nintendo should go with an optical format much like MD.
If Nintendo use an optical drive for their 'GBA2' it will most likely still be backwards compatable with the GB library of games. The simple reason is that they will still need some way to save game progress, the easiest (and cheapest) way would be to take a GBA or similar cartridge and turn it into a blank memory card.
This would allow them to open up the 'GBA2' to all the features of the PSP and still have the tremendous back library the Nintendo needs to maintain the hold on the portable market.
The next-gen GBA emulator appeared on IRC 10 minutes after the Nintendo researchers finished talking.
If they make the screen 320x240 (rather than 300x200) just think of all the old crap that would be trivial to port. I bet the talentless games company executives are salavating at the idea of using cheaper factory-floor labour to convert old IP rather than the higher-paid and annoying talented designers.
Still, I honestly beleive that the GBA SP has a LOT of untapped life still left in it. Look at how long they supported the 8 bit line of Game Boy's and all the stuff coming out of it right up until the GBA came out.
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Ummm... maybe you aren't familiar with non RAM memories. I'm not sure if these carts use it or not, but they could be using some form of EEPROM. Which is what a memory card uses. It seems to me that a small amount of EEPROM in a gba cart would be inexpensive and last nearly forver (at least as long as the transistors hold out).
But, that's just my electrical engineering knowledge talking. And once again, I've no idea if they do or don't use this system. Obviously the NES did not. These days, I'd say they probably do make use of EEPROM's though.
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This would completely not work. For one, it would be a costly extension. Can you imagine the work it would take to get that to interface properly? Also, it would be bulky. It would be pretty darn hard to get that to fit into a cartridge slot without wasting a lot of space. This would also make it ugly.
Basically, it would be a better solution to have one slot for a cartridge and one for a mini-cd. And even this would be pretty stupid.
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