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Nintendo Releases 32-bit Handheld Device
Mad Browser writes "Nintendo announced a new handheld game device that runs on a 32-bit ARM processor. Supposedly available in Japan in August 2000 and the US next Christmas, this thing can also connect to a cell phone to do email and Web browsing.
Check out Nintendo's press release here and some other info here. "
And they finally are catching up to NEC's ancient handheld technology (TurboGraphics-16). Such progress!
I suppose everyone's already heard the news. But did you hear that the defense lawyers are claiming that the killings were unintendo?
Yea, the GBC. And off topic, what's IFRC? The Acronym Finder didn't have it.
problem is as more people submit, its harder for them to get to them. solution: more moderators? [arg, roblimo is bad enuf...]
-- your knees hurt, don't they?
You can also hack GB's to run cool robotics experiments, interface them with IDE hard drives, floppy drives, other chips...the list goes on. I know that's not what Nintendo wants, but it's fun for us hardware hackers.
The current protocol for the GB Link port is not well documented and it would take an enourmous amount of work to use it for anything close to TCP/IP. Now that Nintendo plans to fix that problem, I can get my robot to send data back to my PC at home!
And lastly, we don't have to use assembly tricks anymore to get around the 8-bit "problem" of the current GB processors.
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad
"Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer" - Adolf Hitler
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad
Actually, that was a mistake in the press release/specs. According to Ask Dan
In our excitement about this announcement, we had a slight mis-translation of the Japanese press release. The Game Boy Advance will be able to display 511 simultaneous colors, from a palette of 65,535. However, as developers have shown with Griffey and other Game Boy Color titles, it is possible to create the appearance of more than the 56 colors normally possible by changing the palette during retrace. This makes it possible to show as many as 224 colors simultaneously on Game Boy Color, and the same trick should yield at least 4,096 possible colors on Game Boy Advance.
Actually, the Sega Nomad is the best portable IMHO. Graphics kick the butt of any other portable (not sure how it compares with the Neo Geo pocket though.) I am not sure if it has more games than the game boy, but I am sure it is close. It costs less than a gameboy color, the screen is back lit, and the games are easy (and cheap) to find. So what if new games aren't coming out, it is the number of games you can get, not the new ones coming out that are important to me. If it weren't for the large carts and low battery life, there would be no need to buy another portable.
It doesn't actually say anything about _browsing_ in the press release - just Internet connectivity.
I maybe be a bit picky here, but this annoys me every time I see it. There is not a Nintendo of Japan. We have Nintendo Co., Ltd. of Kyoto, Japan, and their American subsidiary Nintendo of America Inc.
;)
That is all. Have a nice day
there's something I have to wonder about... Is this actually going to be released, or is this just another piece of vaporware? (like the SuperNES Cd-rom drive and stuff like that)
--- Something is not right here...
hey, i watched some tv last saturday morning and saw this show called Digimon. it was almost exactly like Pokemon. is this related to Pokemon at all, or is it just a knock-off trying to cash in on the Pokemon phenomenon?
you seem to be confusing ... with a line break ;)
It would make your posts a lot easier to read.
I bought a GameBoy Color for plane rides and connecting flights when I didn't feel like reading. I didn't get any of the new innovative games, just Tetris (Needs no intro.), Super Mario Bro's DX (nice!) and Pokemon (Cool at first, but eventually tedious, and then offensive when I realized what a scam it was). Smaller than my lap top, fits in a pocket, and the translucent case and color display appealled to my lust for gadgets. Now I just have to figure out what I can use the IR port and link ports for and I'll be so happy.
Blar.
It's a knockoff trying to cash in on the phenomenon.
The GameBoy Light has thus far only been released in Japan, but it does exist. It uses a backlight similar to those found in certain Timex watches. See http://www.nintendo.co. jp/n02/dmg/hardware/light/index.html for more information (in Japanese) and photos (language independant).
Imported units are available in the U.S., you just need to search a bit. For instance, I've seen them listed in National Console Support's product pages.
I've no idea if Nintendo intends to release a U.S. version.
"Be Happy or Die." -- AoN
try dividing by zero...
Large print giveth, and the small print taketh away
Actually the Gameboy Color can display a lot more than 224 colors at once. The Hi Colour demo by Icarus Productions can display over 2000 colors simultaneously. Unfortuantly this takes up too much time during h and v blank (when the video memory can be accessed) to make it practical for use in games, but it is still very impressive. AFAIK no emulator can run this demo properly, but it is worth downloading if you have a flash cart and a real Gameboy Color.
Yikes! I wouldn't trust my life to Linux; never mind Windows NT -- give me a custom written realtime OS for anything like that (or just straight assembler) thankyouverymuch.
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
The Gameboys made my Nintindo have nevered used backlight. While granted this did make them lighter and use up fewer battires, the trade off for this is too high. The trade off is not being able to see the screen in all places. I've all ways hated having to sit just right and tilt the lights. And basic feel light I was the lighting guy a moive set to get it so that I could the screen well. And while you can buy little addons that put on the screen for you. Those use up battiers and make the thing more heavy. So I saw why not just add it to begin with.
Changing the palette during retrace??? Yow! Holy Hold-And-Modify Mode, Batman!
Sounds like the new GameBoy is using the old Commodore Amiga graphics chipset.
Time to start spreading the rumors....
*grin*
--
Clear, Dark Skies
Since this is Gameboy, wouldn't it be more appropriatly named:
Boy'owouf Cluster?
Do not read this
I bought two new cell phones (*) last week, one for my wife and one for me, and was quite surprised to see them equiped with calculator, calendar function and.. games!
It is even possible to play the class snake game from phone to phone via the infrared port.
Wouldn't be surprised if I could program these things myself. I submitted a question on this subject to "Ask Slashdot" but got now entry yet
(*) cell phones: Nokia 6150, a $75 if bought with 2 years phone contract
A number of people here have posted that it would be cool to install the ARM port of Linux on the thing. People hoping to be able to do this should be prepared for a bitter, uphill fight.
Nintendo has been extremely hostile to open development on their platforms since day one. If you aren't a major software house, they won't even acknowledge you exist, much less allow you to sign their incredibly draconian non-disclosure and distribution agreements, which you must do before they will let you anywhere near their system specs.
And even if you manage to get that far, Nintendo can simply refuse to publish your product.
Nintendo makes their money from usurious margins on their cartridges and publishing fees. A company with this kind of track record is not about to open the machine to all comers, no matter how cool it may be. In fact, expect them to sue you if you attempt to write software on "their" platform without their "permission."
Not worth the headache, IMHO.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
oh my god.. its no longer based on everybodys favorite 8-bit CPU that even cant handle multiplications.
:)
Would it feel the same as the old gameboy and NES?
Sorry, im just being nostalgic
They talk about everything but what MEDIA the new GB will use... Guessing by the backwards compatibly there going to offer it'll be the old GB cart ... but then that limits the space that new games can be and if they go with cart that also means it'll cost a lot more to buy a game... All the CPU Power but the crappy carts will kill it
First Off, the title and such was ALL WRONG, its more about the next evolution of the gameboy (Now going to be called The Gameboy Advaced) which I wrote in to slashdot.org but this was choisen over it... grip grip grip.
Heres the real specs:
Gameboy Advanced
Avalible: Japan: August 2000 ; USA & Europe: X-Mas 2000
Price: Has to be less than 150, rough estimate by me
Fetures: 32-Bit ARM Microprocesor
Planed avaliblity to connect to devices like Digital Cameras and Cell Phones
Planed to connect to the future Dolphin console, with the ability to trade stats, characters, and games. Konami is partining with Nintendo and forming a company to do only this.
Planed backwords compatiblity with all existing GB, GB Colour (For the British), and GB Color games.
IFRC is the idiots typing wrong way of saying IIRC..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
Ya, and added HDMA (allowing the changes of display properties individually on each scanline), doubled the cpu speed, added new features such as better background tile flipping, and more.
Trust me, the GBC has a lot more improvements over the normal GB than is hyped.
BTW, I'm a GBC developer, and believe me when I tell you GBC lets us do stuff we couldn't on normal GB.
All I would use it for is the email/web, and playing tetris (the original, none of the fancy crap)
Opinionated Law Student Strikes Again!
If the beeper collar hasn't be patented already.
original post got a -1
response got a 2
this will get a karma -20
Majesco (famous for coming out with the genesis 3) bought the rights to the games gear and are going to rerelease it. No new games, but the old games are going to be available again. Not as many games as the gameboy, but still a lot of grat games. I wonder if they will come out with a new tv tuner?
The gameboy, game gear, coleco vision, sega master and many clasic arcades all used the z80. Sega even used the z80 as the graphics cpu in the genesis/mega drive/nomad. The nes used the 6502. This chip was almost identical to the chip in the atari 2600 btw. And the SNES used a 16 bit version of the same chip. If there are any more consoles that people know of that used a z80, please post them here :)
The N64 flopped in Japan, and is only doing so so in the rest of the world. The Saturned flopped in the rest of the world, but at least it kicked butt in Japan :) Anyway, the dolphin is coming out at about the same time as the psx2, so nintendo doesn't have the time advantage sega does. Everyone talks about how badly the 32x flopped, doesn't anyone remember the virtual boy? Nintendo has been known to screw things up big time too. If it weren't for pokemon, nintendo would be worse of than Sega. At least Sega is going to be the top dog in next gen consoles for at least a year. Now with the neo geo pocket coming out, there is a chance (small chance)_that SNK might finally give the gameboy some competition. It will be interesting to see what happens.
How does it compare to the Atari Lynx? ;)
(Y'know, that thing that has been, and still is better than any other handheld game systems to-date
It's probably using the ARM 710 CPU Macrocell, which can be embedded in any ASIC... so it'll be on the same cell as the memory it needs... saves chip space (especially as it'll be cartridge based), but possibly will stop people from adding more memory to it.
C'est la guerre.
(Btw: it could also be using the 7TDMI, or the 7100)
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
I don't think the C64 ever used the 6502. Maybe the Vic-20 did?
The 6510 was a 6502 with some built-in memory mapped I/O capabilities. You controlled the I/O by setting bits in memory locations 0x0000 and 0x0001. Sweet. I liked the Z-80's instruction set much better, but you could play all sorts of games with the 6510 chip and the C64 architecture that you couldn't dream of with a TRS-80.
--
Clear, Dark Skies
Hmm.. Sounds cool 65000 colors
Resolution: 240 x 160 pixels
Maximum colors to be displayed simultaneously: 65,000
240 times 160 is 38400. Why can't marketing guys do math?
You should check out the Game Boy color. I bought one recently to play (gurk) Pokemon with my son. While games that use the color well seem to be rare, but overall it's very slick - the LCD is just amazing compare to the original system.
Besides, I think the Game Boy is a testament to the fact that you don't need to throw mega-hardware at the user to get good games. Instead of upping the specs each year, Nintendo has been reducing the power consumption, system size and manufacturing cost.
--
Clear, Dark Skies
Ummmm.... But wouldn't a bright blue-green backlight kind of ruin the color display?
I can see it now... games done completely in shades of green, blue-green, purple....
--
Clear, Dark Skies
....It was called the Virtual Boy... I'm staring at my ill-fated little red monstrosity of a gaming system right now. The Virtual Boy was 32-bit.... granted it wasn't handheld (lest you had very big hands indeed ;). Anyway... I'm being pissy and nitpicky... but hey! This is slashdot, afterall... ;)
SEGA game gear was much better almosta decade ago. I dont see what the big deal is about color game boy or this thing. I've used only nintendo systems all my life but agme gear is better. Do they stil make games for it?
can it emulate PalmOS so that we can run the GameBoy emulator?
Can your IM do this?
When can I run the ARM port of Linux on it?
ummmmm... Games?
---
Joseph Foley
InCert Software Corp.
Okay, so Dad has got is brand new Psion.
:)
Mom has here PalmPilote
And now Junior can have is own hand held organiser.
Who are the aiming next ?
What about something for the household dog ?
Like a digital collar, that will *beep* the dog, whenever food is wainting for him inside.
Grinnn
Murphy(c)
Calculator with better graphics costs more than gameboys.
Sega Game Gear has less games(are games still released for it? I didn't know it was still supported.)
A 486 laptop is of no use playing games. That is the only use a Gameboy has. It also weighs more and has less battery life. It could probably emulate a Gameboy okay, but not as long or as well.
Why buy a Gameboy? To play games, silly. Unless you don't play games, then no game machine will interest you.
I have a cell phone. I'd like one of these GameBoys. For games. I'd use something else for email, though being able to just finger myself and see who's sent me email is nice(just another fancy pager/beeper like device). Why would anyone waste their money on a Palm Pilot when you have pads of paper(gads, imagine how much paper $260 would get you!)
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
There's a big difference between "announced" and "released"...
I submitted this last week (on the 2nd iirc) and it didn't get posted. I found this story at Next Generation Online. oh well...
BLOCK STRUCTURE breathing apparatus required for special maneuvers!!
My calculator has better graphics and a faster processor than gameboys. My brother's Sega Game Gear has better graphics, and my old 486 laptop is more useful. Why would I want to buy one of these game boys?
I don't think I'm going to be the only one not interested.. the people with the money for a cellphone are going to be using their palm pilots or laptops to get their email, why would they want to waste their money on something with the screen the size of a postage stamp and the processing power of a Dorito?
-=-=-=-=-
-=-=-=-=-
My mom's going to kick you in the face!
FINALLY! It always pissed me off more than to see the GameBoy be sold for 13 years with little change (They made it thinner and gave it a color screen. Whoop-dee-do.) At least this is a step in right direction.
They can add all of that stuff but still not have enough power/space for a backlight. Amazing.
Actually, I believe there was a "Game link" hub that came with the F1 Race game awhile back. Not sure if it'd be compatible with the new-style link cables though.
Nintendo has repeatedly shied away from including backlights for two main reasons. 1) They consume an enormous ammount of power. Remember the 6 AAs it took to run the Game Gear and they only lasted a few hours, and weighed a ton. The new Gameboy runs for 20 hrs with 2 AAs and the reflective LCD they use only needs a minimal ammount of light. 2) Backlights are yet another part that can break, and if it burns out, youre left with a $100 paperweight.
Excuse me? The original Game Boy runs on 4 AAs.
"Well kids, you tried your best, and you failed. The lesson is, never try."
While playing over phone sounds very interresting, I wonder what the target group is. Even though mobile phones will be very common next year, at least in Japan and Europe, it will be still be too expensive for the usual gameboy target group, the kids. And even for the grown-ups it is too expensive IMHO. In Germany, the cheapest rates for mobile phones are usually 0.15$ per minute (when you call a number of the same network in the evening), thats $9 per hour. I pay $0.20 per minute in the evening, and when you call someone in a different network, it will be more like 0.5$ per minute in the evening and $1 at other times.
That's a lot of money, especially for a kid, and think it is unlikely that it will be much cheaper next year when they launch the new Gameboy.
Then explain how Palm does it. EL (electro-luminescent [sic?]) powered backlights ala Indiglo don't consume *that* much power and I find it extremely useful in some situations. When used judiciously, I find battery life not to be a problem at all.
>I thought the GameBoy was already in the grave. :)
EXTREMELLY far from it. The GBC is selling like hot cakes, thanks to the Pokemon phenomon. I know you techie slashdoters wouldn't really think about it, but Pokemon is A LOT bigger than you think. Ask anyone between 5-13 and I guarenttee they'll know what Pokemon are, and chances are, they either have one of the games or play the trading card game. The GB is THE best selling system ever, and Nintendo has made buttload's of money off of it. Trust me, the GB, GBP, GBC, and now the GBA are far far from being dead.
with it's dimensions. It's considerably smaller than the original Gameboy. I'm not impressed with the screen though. The Gameboy's screen was pretty small and this one's is too. I'd settle for less displayable colours if the screen was just larger. I'd also like to see it come with a FlashROM inside with a game (Tetris would be nice) and organizer software. The fact that it's bcakwards compatible with all previous Gameboy games is a boon but I sold or gave my games away years ago. Recently I've been thinking about a Gameboy Color but it's still alot more than I'm willing to pay. The Gameboy Advanced might catch my eye if I could see the screen easier and wouldn't have to plug in a cartrige to play a game all the time.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Didn't hear about that, whats the story?
The NeoGeo Pocket color has a 16bit CPU, nice color graphics and can run 40 hours on its batteries.
I saw it at ECTS, it was nice to play with and I prefer its format over the Gamboy's.
More info at http://www2.neogeo.co.jp/en/
This disturbing trend of products that shouldn't have email capability suddenly acquiring email capability isn't the most exciting direction for technology to be headed in.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Call me insane, but they list this thing as having 2 AAA bateries, with a 20 hour life. Doesn't this seem a VERY long time? Or is that '20 hours, on pause, with no sound, in -40 degree temp..'
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
Where can be found information regarding screen quality. New GameBoy Color has a very cheap passive screen. Did exist any picture with new GameBoy console?
aside from the obvious fact that the headline is wrong (this device hasn't been released in any sense of the word).... this is basically just a logic step in the evolution of the gameboy....nintendo waited on this for quite a while....they didn't want to make an advanced device like this until it was possible to do something that would get good battery life and still be cheap... yes, the gameboy wasn't updated for a longtime, but that's because for nintendo to do a worthwhile upgrade before this, they couldn't have made an under $100 device. i think people are missing the point of the cellphone....this isn't supposed to be a replacement for a cellphone...what is cool about this is that it means you can have a handheld device you could play almost anywhere and still play multiplayer games...that's pretty big. regarding the comment about running the PalmOS so you could use a gameboy emulator, that won't be necessary... nintendo has said that this will be backwards compatible with gameboy and gameboy color games....presumably that means they will use the same cartridge format (or if not, provide some sort of adaptor to be able to plug-in gameboy games)... this is a smart move, and its the same reason sony is making the playstation 2 backwards compatible with the original psx games.... you can have the most technically incredible machine out there, but without a good software library, it won't matter... the sega saturn was a superior machine to the psx...you can see this by looking at various games made available for both the psx and saturn....but the saturn never had the really great and diverse software library the psx had... this is the same thing with the gameboy....the gameboy was a very basic system....the atari lynx, sega game gear, sega nomad, turbographix xpress, etc. were all more advanced....the lynx and turbographix handhelds were in particular. but the gameboy has a massive, unstoppable software library.....what is especially good is diversity...for the most part, there are at least two are three excellent games of almost any type you can imagine....in some cases there are a lot of good games in certain categories... and with the gameboy color, you're starting to see good games in categories that weren't traditionally good....some of the new baseball, basketball and football gameboy color games are really pretty impressive.. the other thing that is nice is that a lot of classic NES games can be ported to the gameboy color.....super mario bros. dx is already out, and it is an incredible game....and they are working on porting other classic nes games...
Yep, there was. what'd be neat if this thing managed to run the Linux ARM port, and it DID have this kind of hub, that could be hacked to use TCP/IP..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
Now, first off. I like eye-candy as much as the next person. I really like computer generated graphics. Ok, with that said, how important are graphics to the gaming process. I feel that gameplay has a lot more to do with whether I like a game or not. If a game has great graphics and bad gameplay it will not hold my interest and I would be less likely to buy it after a demo. Case in point: Zelda for the gameboy. Zelda has always been a fun game, I think part of it has something to do with the fact that you can see areas/things that you can't go to/interact with until you get farther in the game. Zelda on the gameboy is 2D, but it is still a much better game experience than some new whizbang 3d games out now. So, for me gameplay is more key than graphics, that combined with a relative low price point and the ability to link gameboys together and you will see why the gameboy remains the best selling video game device. Vermifax
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From what I heard, Game Boy Colors with backlight is coming out this fall... of course, it's probably going to eat batteries much quicker and be a lot more bulkier - which is why I'm satisfied with my non-backlight game boy right now :)
Some more info can be found here:
GBA FAQ
Various stuff, including some concept drawings(not official though)
IGN Pocket
Glad to hear they've been selling. I never wanted the GB to disappear. It's just that most of the games (by today's standards) aren't that great.
What pray tell, is the Pokemon? It is a GB game? (Worth the time to fire up an emulator to check it out? )
This sig is false.
Anybody else notice that you can have more 'simultaneous' colours than there are pixels :-)
240 * 160 == 38400, colours == 65000
- CPU: Memory embedded 32-bit RISC CPU (CPU core design by ARM)
is this related to any of those recent initiatives to put the cpu closer to the memory but just embedding smaller cpu's in, say, DIMMs?but if this won't be out for a year, how can you say Nintendo released it already?
First off I love /. With the last two postings about games I am rather dissapointed. The Game Boy Advanced was announced awhile back and anyone who has interest in the industry would have known that. I even submitted the story last week, as have many others i see. Also I had a chance to meet with Anthony Bay of Microsoft in Jun and I questioned him about M$'s plans in the gaming market.I found the news about the X-box on the 2nd...submitted it RIGHT AWAY and a few DAYS later someone else go it...rather slow /.
What gives computer gods?
"when i needed you most, when i needed a friend, you let me down now, like i let you down then."
Not necessarily.
Pretend we work for Nintendo for a minute.
If we have a handheld that plays all of our massive library of games, allows you to play over the phone, goes forever on one change of batteries, and has several other things that our competetors' units don't, then we can sell it at $125.00 to $150.00. What's more, with the Pokemon craze, we could probably sell for as high as $175.00 and still make a profit.
When you market to the 5-15 year old segment, initial investment is usually not a concern, IMHO.
censorship is a form of noise, which actively seeks to drown out content with silence - Crash Culligan
Just imagine - you could crack RC5 and capture all of the pokemon at the same time 8^)
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
Try two. It really is fantastic.
Actually, the current CGB is active and it's one of the best tiny reflective color displays currently made. It has an incredible contrast ratio and produces vidid colors. You still need a good light source to play it, but other then that it's wonderful.
Seems like the GameBoy has remain (for the most part) unchanged for years--it's about time they upgraded that dinky thing.
:)
Don't get me wrong, I loved my GameBoy--years ago. But it seems out of date these days. I'm glad to see Nintendo hasn't given up on portable's. I thought the GameBoy was already in the grave.
This sig is false.