Nintendo Announces GBA Sales Milestone

Thanks to TotalVideoGames.com for their article highlighting Nintendo's announcement that there have been 15 million GameBoy Advances sold in the U.S., at a rate of "...more than one unit sold every six seconds since the introduction of the Game Boy Advance in June, 2001." Nintendo also officially announced two new colors for the GBA SP, Flame (red) and Onyx (black), and even lay out their reasoning for those picks: "Color psychologists believe that certain hues generate specific, and often very strong responses in people. For example, black can foster strength and encourage independence, while red empowers and can stimulate the mind." Feel empowered yet?

Comments

So what about my old game boy?

[ERJ]

My old game boy was white. White is for purity, chastity....oh crap.

16 bit era strength

[Metroid72]

The popularity of this platform proves that the 16bit era was the golden age of videogames.

Gameplay was king, and that was the primary selling point of the Genesis and SNES.

Hopefully developers will continue to expand it with original ideas, instead of ports of older games.

It still also constitutes a potential entry for the new game programmer.

Re:16 bit era strength

[Acidic_Diarrhea]

You think that if the GBA hardware were offered up in a home console it would have sold 15 million units? There are plenty of games on the XBox/PS2/GC that have great gameplay. If the GBA were up against a platform that had PS2 level graphics, at the same price point, the GBA would get crushed. The fact is that people have a certain idea of how much a handheld should cost - they want the best graphics they can get for that price. Posts like yours are very perplexing - I can't believe people actually believe this type of stuff.

PARODY: You know, back in the great days of the NES - gameplay was king. With the release of the Genesis and SNES, graphics got so much better that people became obsessed with them and didn't care about the gameplay.

Come on...

Re:16 bit era strength

[macrom]

Gameplay was king, and that was the primary selling point of the Genesis and SNES

Wrong. Graphics always were and always will be a primary selling point (from a marketing perspective). It's funny how quickly everyone forgets how the 2 consoles competed on games having better graphics than the other. Sure, we now see how the gameplay was awesome back then, but at the time you didn't see comercials or ads where Nintendo promoted the gameplay of their titles over those of Sega's, and to insinuate so is to show yourself for the fanboy (or girl) you are.

We always look back on a console and it's games for the fun titles, but make no mistake that companies promote the graphic prowess of their systems when trying to sell to gamers.

Work Order

[Rudy Rodarte]

I put in the Work Order to my wife for a the GBA SP several times, but it has been rejected over and over again. Maybe I can pick up a used one somewhere.
Sightly OT, I'm planning on picking up the new Konami Arcade hits pretty soon. I do wish they included Contra and Life Force from the NES, too.

Da ansa is simpl

[Jahf]

RED UNS GO FASTA!

Green

[Michael.Forman]

"Color psychologists believe that certain hues generate specific, and often very strong responses in people. For example, black can foster strength and encourage independence, while red empowers and can stimulate the mind."

Strange. Red always makes me skeptical of the pseudoscientific claims of "color psychologists". :P

Michael.

Well then

[Phexro]

"Nintendo also officially announced two new colors for the GBA SP, Flame (red) and Onyx (black), and even lay out their reasoning for those picks..."

The fact that those colors have been available in Japan since the launch of the SP had nothing to do with it.

Right.

Re:Well then

[scot4875]

Nevermind that those *could* have been the reasons that they were available in Japan since launch to begin with.

--Jeremy

THAT explains it

[Snowmit]

Color psychologists believe that certain hues generate specific, and often very strong responses in people. For example, black can foster strength and encourage independence, while red empowers and can stimulate the mind."

I've always assumed that the delight I got from splattering blood all over the place was due to some primal rage. Now I know that it's because it makes me smarter.

Non-silver Gameboy SP

[MyDixieWrecked]

Are those actually released in the US, yet? I heard they were going to be released in August, but I haven't heard anything since.

I picked up a Japanese GBASP off half.com that's black, and I was still under the impression that I was special, especially since I haven't seen anyone else with one that's not silver. I also get the occasional comment from these 9 year-olds as they walk by "Wow! that guy has a black gameboy!"

It's always nice to have children be fascinated by you gaming device. ;)

That's silly.

[Inoshiro]

"I was refuting this by saying that if a handheld were released where all others things were equal but the graphic capabilities of this new handheld were equal to the PS2, the more capable model would sell well."

Besides that being a complete crap statement because it would not exist in real life (being that there would be no way that two such systems could exist differening only in graphics capability and not in cost or availability), the fact of the matter is games are the only measure of a system. I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it until you retards understand it. I don't play the Dolby Digital on an Xbox any more than I play the PS2 DVD movie feature -- they're just features, entirely tangental to wether there are games worth playing on the damn console!

You can make a SuperDuperGameWhiz9000 which claims 7.1 audio, ultraD mega-defitition cornea vision graphics, and pants-shittingly good controllers that also have the ability to bend time -- but without a game to play on it that's worth anything, your console will sell nowhere near as well as the original NES because people buy game consoles to play games, not to wank off to a set of static features in a brochure.

I also reassert: if Nintendo ever went to the trouble of putting TV out and a power adapter in with the GBA player + a controller and sold it for ~100$ CDN, it would sell. Parents would have no problem buying it for the kids, because it would be inexpensive and judged to be easier for the younger ones. When you make your coke-head examples where market forces like these don't exist, you only prove your ignorance of the game market.