Let's also no forget that the software is so poorly written that running it on a Windows 9x machine is the kiss of death for your uptime.
Yes, yes, the OS should never let one single errant program take down the whole machine. That's true, but that does not take away from the fact that Real is that one errant program that can bring your machine to a halt.
I pride myself on my stable Windows boxen. My FreeBSD box getting months of uptime isn't impressive, because FreeBSD is very stable. But Windows when properly set up can be stable, too. One of the ways I keep all of my Windows machines stable is by simply NOT running software that I have noticed serious problems with.
If you run Real on a Windows machine there is a very good chance you will require a reset within a day. Probably within the hour or sooner. I've seen it over and over again, recreated the situation, and proven it to enough people that I have single handedly turned dozens of people away from Real forever.
Now they pull this shit. I hope they die a quick and painful death soon. Worse. I hope Microsoft buys them.
That has always been the case, don't kid yourself. Ever since the Atari 2600 games were intended to be developed only by authorised developers.
This was tested in a case where SEGA took Electronic Arts (and I believe one other company) to court. Sega didn't exactly "win", but neither did EA as they were forced to become liscensed developers.
And even yet still today you won't be going to the store and buying games made from anybody that isn't a legit 3rd part to the "Big Three". Try to make Microsoft look evil if you want, but Sony and Nintendo both do the exact same thing. In fact, Sony is NOTORIOUSLY evil in this area. At one time it was well known that they demanded a larger cut of the royalties, they had stricter control over the distribution, and a bunch of other things that 3rd parties didn't exactly agree with. I haven't heard if things have changed in recent years or not, but I imagine they have considering Nintendo has "lightened up" a whole lot since their SNES days. Sony wants to keep the domination they current have.
Just today I was called by a home security marketer and asked if I was interested in a home security system. I replied...
"Loo' mutha fudda... I ain't harly done paid fo' da' box I in, sos I ain't 'bout to pay fo no insurance. 'sides, I doan thank no'un is gonna try un take muh box. Nigga', how'd you ged muh cell phone numba ineways?"...CLICK...
I'm really glad there are that many people using it for legit purposes. I myself have desperately wanted to get into homebrews and developement on the GB/GBC/GBA.
Still, there are always going to be a ton of pirates.:/
The GBC looked better than the GBA. Perhaps you misunderstood what I was trying to say. The GBC was more than adequate. Perhaps those people who claim I'm "smoking crack" are slightly color-blinde, or perhaps they just don't have very bright vision. Whatever the case, the Gameboy Color was magnitudes better than the Gameboy Advance. It wasn't perfect, no, and if your room was dimly lit you were better off no trying to play. But under any decent light the Gameboy Color was MORE than adequate. It takes nearly PERFECT lighting for the Gameboy Advance to ever be usable.
How someone can say the Gameboy has ALWAYS had a shitty screen, given the time-frame the various systems came out is beyond me. The only system that truely had a shitty screen for it's time was the Gameboy Advance. It really should have been lit. They've fixed that. Finally.
On the other hand, what if light does have mass? I know it supposedly doesn't, and I know most anybody who know anything about physics will say it doesn't and even do the math to "prove" it doesn't. But what if that math is wrong?
If light did have mass, no matter how minute, could not also gravity have mass? Could the two together when added account for much of the "Dark Matter" in the universe?
What if a good portion of the "Dark Matter" was in fact light. Wouldn't that be an irony?
Those are benefits of a hard drive, not winning arguments as to why the system should have (or more importantly, rely upon) one.
Storing MP3s is a niche thing, I have an XBox and I don't even use that feature. I've tried it, but it's really not worth it. Even if more games supported it, I'm not sure I would use it.
A third-level cache for game data promotes some really sloppy game design and just begs game designers to store more shit on my drive than I care to have there in the first place. I'd rather see game designers work on tigheter, more efficient code and smaller less bloated save-data, than give them a huge space and just taunt them to fill it.
I'm not saying the hard drive isn't useful, but it's hardly a requirement and I would hate to see memory cards forfeited in favor of hard drives. The funny thing about hard drives in consoles is that the people who want them most are the ones who play the least games.
Anybody who remembers the hype from the PS2's pre-release will remember exactly how much pure FUD they spread. There will no doubt be PS2 defenders who are going to reply to me and defend every claim that Sony has made, but the fact is (and I've seen the real world comparisons) that the PS2 isn't half of what Sony promised. They made outrageous polygon claims and bandwidth promises, all of which were in better than ideal, and horribly unrealistic conditions, and they were assuming you weren't actually doing anything in the first place (rendering single, untextured, unshaded, flat surfaced polygons).
There will be no doubt the next Playstation will be leaps and bounds beyond the PS2. It will probably be more powerful than either the Gamecube or the XBox combined. That happens. It's Moores Law (which is ending, or so they say).
But the fact is no matter how good the PS3 will or will not be, Sony is going to feed us as much hype and fud as they can generate until we all have a PS3 sitting in front of us (disappointing us).
And I'm not just trying to flame Sony, because I like many of the games I have for my PS2, as well as the fact that I can play all of my PS1 games on it. But the truth is, Sony as a gaming company really hasn't got any more of a clue than Microsoft. They only know how to market something, and it doesn't matter what it is. It can be anything from a featureless AM/FM radio the size of a quarter or it can be a really stupid mechanical Dog. If the engineers make it, Sony's marketing division can sell it to you.
I predict the PS3 will be either black again, or silverish like the Sony Vvega televisions. I predict the controller will change very little (or not at all) though perhaps it will gain a couple of new useful features. Really the PS2 controller has reached a height of evolution that, love or or hate it, is hard to fault (unless it doesn't fit your well in your hands...) It will be a big leap in technology blah blah blah but anymore that isn't mattering the way it used to. I predict that the first year of games will be rushed sequals to PS2 games and shoveled versions of PC games or XBox/Gamecube games that outshined the PS2 versions (this year will be the year the GCN and XBox really show their technical superiority as the developers have come to grips with the systems).
Most importantly, you can expect television commercials, signs, radio spots, magazine spots (even in no-gaming mag-rags), you can expect web-banners, signs in malls, signs in fast-food-joints, and basically all of the crap we've become used to, only pushed to a level only Sony has the stomach to do.
Your wish has already been confirmed, though I can't provide links at the moment, do a google search. You'll find them.
2. Hard drive.
There are two sides to that coin, and the side in favor of the hard-drive has more disadvantages than the side that says it's just an expensive waste. I would PREFER a larger standard memory card than a hard drive. 64 meg or 128 meg. That would all but eliminate the need for dozens of memory cards or even the limitations on what you could store on even one that was dedicated to just a few games. As for swapping saves with a friend, it's actually EASIER with a memory card. Just take your card to a friend's house, copy. Bam. I have a PS2. I have many, many games. My PS2's 8 meg card is about half full, and I get to take it with me when I go to a friend's house which has been useful. My Xbox's hard-drive on the other hand is about fucking useless. Yes, it'll save my game on MY Xbox, but it doesn't do me any good when I go anywhere else.
A hard drive is a good thing. Big-Fat Memory cards are better. There is really no argument here.
3. Built in Ethernet/Modem
Oh yes, in an ideal world every machine would come with all the upgrades. It's anybody's guess what Sony will do when the issue of money comes into play. I guess on this one we'll just have to see.
4. With the Ethernet/Modem, I want a CDDB system for my CD's to store them on the HDD.
There's no reason why they couldn't do that right now using 64 or 128 meg memory cards (or larger), but a hard drive IS better suited for this task. Still, given that online capabilities are only going to become more common in consoles, there isn't any reason why CDDB support couldn't make it into even the current PS2s, and definately the PS3. Sony's feelings on the whole issue will be the major stumbling block.
5. And, of course, I want a Linux disk to be orderable with the system - just for those of us who like to tinker.
You already know about the Linux kit for the PS2, why would you think it wouldn't come along at least at some point on the PS3? I personally don't see Sony considering it a major issue, but I don't think you'll have to worry. Even if Sony doesn't do it, some crafty geeks probably will.
Not at all. Some PS1 games still shine on a PS2, and I would dare say that the best reason to own a PS2, and probably a PS3 will be for the massive collection of PS1 games out there.
Do some games on the PS1 look horribly out-dated? Yes. No doubt. I can say the same thing about PS2 games of today. Even Vice City isn't all that great looking. The polygons are simply, the textures lack any detail. The people have static facial expressions, and the lighting effects are laughable. That doesn't mean Vice City sucks, it just means we've all be exposed to more advanced things.
I for one wish there would be more 2D games released, most of those could be done for the PS1, and probably should be.
Just because newer, more advanced gaming technology evolves does not automatically mean older technology becomes worthless.
which, if I'm not mistaken (and I very well may be), was rambus ram.
You are not mistaken. The N64 uses Rambus for both the main system memory and the 4 meg Expansion Pak.
I just though tof something... (GASP)
on
New Gameboy Announced
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Some of us are fanatical about games in general, and since we carry our Gameboys with us everywhere, toting around many cartridges is a chore...
Now, there are devices out there such as the Game Wallet and the Flash Advance, devices which essentially let you copy Gameboy Advance games. But more importantly, they let you consolodate your games onto a single cartridge, and yes it works really well.
What I've been wondering is does this new Gameboy detect such carts and prevent them from working? I was giving it some thought and one of my basic problems with the Flash Advance is the fact that it will mostly be used for piracy. That's something of a shame too because Gameboy cartridges are dirt cheap at most used game shops. I picked up a handful of great games not long ago for about $25 total. Still, Nintendo needs to protect their system and the 3rd party developers so I'm wondering, do the Flash Advance cards WORK with the Gameboy Advance SP? (GASP hah hah)
The odds that you will win the Lottery Every Week of your Life: Improbable. The odds that every female in the world will beat a path to your door: Highly Improbable. Their odds of doing so without knowing about your money: Very Highly Improbable. The odds that you would have enough money if all of the above were true: Impossible.
Under a decent light, the GBA's screen is fantastic.
The image quality is fantastic, but under very few (and I mean VERY FEW) lighting conditions is the GBA usable, I admit THAT. If Nintendo hadn't announced this new design I would HIGHLY recommend the Afterburner kit. HIGHLY. This new system somewhat obsoletes it though, which is a shame because the GBA is a nice design. Well, I like it anyway.
It has A, B, Start, Select (and one other button - probably on/off for the screen). The two shoulder buttons are on top. That's not really four "Face" buttons, since everyone was expecting X and Y to join A and B, like the SNES.
It should be easy to see that this is no change over the existing GBA. Nothing has been added here except for the screen ligth and a new form factor.
This means the rumors for the Clamshell Design, Lighting, and Smaller design are true. Just look at the picture here where you can clearly see the cartridge port. MAN that thing is tiny!
The rumors about 4 face buttons are obviously not true. At least, not with this upgrade.
Actually, you're partially correct. There is no ADDED functionality, but there are link cables for Gameboy Advances to allow them interconnectivity with Cellphones in Japan. This was a huge selling point for the GBA when it was first introduced, but as I understand it game developers never really warmed up to it so it's something of a dud.
I would provide links, but searching Japanese sites is kind of hard for me, not being a Japanese speaker. Still, Google search does find several kind of relevent links, and then there was this photo.
It should be pointed out that the Gameboy Advance does some trickery to accomplish Gameboy Classic compatibility. It's both a software and hardware based backfall, and it's not perfect but it works well enough to cover the vast majority of the games.
Still, if for some reason you feel the need to EMULATE a Gameboy Classic on a Gameboy Advance without resorting to it's built in capability then feel free to put your roms on a Flash Advance cartridge and run those Gameboy roms under GBonGBA. It's still slow and beta, and there's some question as to if it will ever run full screen, but then -- on future Gameboys, it just might.;)
There has been talk of 4 face buttons for a long time, so I'm wondering if that prototype isn't finished, and is just a working concept.
Though, you can kiss the shoulder buttons hello. They're not going anywhere. They're a mainstay of game controller design these days. Everyone has been saying the next gameboy would contain the 4+Shoulder design to match the SNES, considering the SNES games are being reborn so much as Gameboy titles lately.
As any GBA owner can tell you, the screen in earlier models sucked pretty terrible.
I think most gameboy owners would disagree with that statement at least partially.
The original Gameboy had bad smearing as the pixels moved, and let's face it, black and white is still black and white no matter how many shades of baby-shit-green you make it.
So here, yes, the Gameboy screen sucked.
But then the Gameboy Pocket moved on to an actual more "black and white" BW screen, with much faster pixel updates and screen visibility was never an issue unless you used the thing in the dark. At this point, the Gameboy screen didn't suck too bad for the time.
The Gameboy Color game along and I couldn't have been happier. It's pixels were big enough that they reflected just enough of the light from the environment that you were in that any well lit area provided plenty of light. Anybody who doesn't know this never had one. This screen didn't suck.
The Gameboy Advance comes along, and using the same type of screen, only larger with higher resolution pixes, and suddenly everyone things the Gameboy Screen is "notorious for shitty screen"? I don't get this. The majority of the Gameboy's life has been spent as the Pocket and Color, not the Classic and Advance. If you ask me, all things considered, the Gameboy has always been an EXCELLENT design, and still is.
If you don't like the Advance screen? Use a GB color. They still sell them. Definately want those ADVANCE games? Get a Afterburner modified Advance from YourHappyPlace. It's around $150 shipped to you with the lighting and the dimmer chip installed, but it's an excellent investment and the screen looks great.
I'm sorry, I just can't agree that the Gameboy screen has always sucked. I just think Nintendo made a pretty bad mistake not lighting the GBA themselves.
As for this new Clamshell design, I hope that's a prototype, because rumors have been talking for a while about 4 face buttons, and that one still only has two.
I manage three different accounts at Network Solutions and I can tell you it's nothing but a pain. I try to mess with it as little as possible because the system almost always craps out on me. If I change a password, the new password doesn't work anymore, and the old one seems to take some time before it kicks in.
On top of that, don't ever let your information in their records become obsolete. If they have a wrong e-mail account for you, you can pretty much give up seeing any use out of that domain until they get around to giving a crap (which is never).
It's been several months since I could get any replies or answers out of them regarding the information on one domain that I own, and it wille expire in April. If I don't have any control of it by then, I'll renew it with someone else that will give me some control over it.
If everything scientists know about the creation is completely and totally wrong and the universe were in fact created just hours ago and all of your memories were created at the same time, then how would you know any different?
Slashdot Mirror
Let's also no forget that the software is so poorly written that running it on a Windows 9x machine is the kiss of death for your uptime.
Yes, yes, the OS should never let one single errant program take down the whole machine. That's true, but that does not take away from the fact that Real is that one errant program that can bring your machine to a halt.
I pride myself on my stable Windows boxen. My FreeBSD box getting months of uptime isn't impressive, because FreeBSD is very stable. But Windows when properly set up can be stable, too. One of the ways I keep all of my Windows machines stable is by simply NOT running software that I have noticed serious problems with.
If you run Real on a Windows machine there is a very good chance you will require a reset within a day. Probably within the hour or sooner. I've seen it over and over again, recreated the situation, and proven it to enough people that I have single handedly turned dozens of people away from Real forever.
Now they pull this shit. I hope they die a quick and painful death soon. Worse. I hope Microsoft buys them.
That has always been the case, don't kid yourself. Ever since the Atari 2600 games were intended to be developed only by authorised developers.
This was tested in a case where SEGA took Electronic Arts (and I believe one other company) to court. Sega didn't exactly "win", but neither did EA as they were forced to become liscensed developers.
And even yet still today you won't be going to the store and buying games made from anybody that isn't a legit 3rd part to the "Big Three". Try to make Microsoft look evil if you want, but Sony and Nintendo both do the exact same thing. In fact, Sony is NOTORIOUSLY evil in this area. At one time it was well known that they demanded a larger cut of the royalties, they had stricter control over the distribution, and a bunch of other things that 3rd parties didn't exactly agree with. I haven't heard if things have changed in recent years or not, but I imagine they have considering Nintendo has "lightened up" a whole lot since their SNES days. Sony wants to keep the domination they current have.
A food printer.
Just today I was called by a home security marketer and asked if I was interested in a home security system. I replied...
...CLICK...
"Loo' mutha fudda... I ain't harly done paid fo' da' box I in, sos I ain't 'bout to pay fo no insurance. 'sides, I doan thank no'un is gonna try un take muh box. Nigga', how'd you ged muh cell phone numba ineways?"
I hope you take this kindly :)
Why should I take it anyway? I used a lot of maybes. Maybe the math is all wrong. As my signature says... Everything you know is wrong!
I never claimed to be right. I just said maybe everything else is wrong.
I'm really glad there are that many people using it for legit purposes. I myself have desperately wanted to get into homebrews and developement on the GB/GBC/GBA.
:/
Still, there are always going to be a ton of pirates.
Exactly. You've just reinforced my point.
The GBC looked better than the GBA. Perhaps you misunderstood what I was trying to say. The GBC was more than adequate. Perhaps those people who claim I'm "smoking crack" are slightly color-blinde, or perhaps they just don't have very bright vision. Whatever the case, the Gameboy Color was magnitudes better than the Gameboy Advance. It wasn't perfect, no, and if your room was dimly lit you were better off no trying to play. But under any decent light the Gameboy Color was MORE than adequate. It takes nearly PERFECT lighting for the Gameboy Advance to ever be usable.
How someone can say the Gameboy has ALWAYS had a shitty screen, given the time-frame the various systems came out is beyond me. The only system that truely had a shitty screen for it's time was the Gameboy Advance. It really should have been lit. They've fixed that. Finally.
On the other hand, what if light does have mass? I know it supposedly doesn't, and I know most anybody who know anything about physics will say it doesn't and even do the math to "prove" it doesn't. But what if that math is wrong?
If light did have mass, no matter how minute, could not also gravity have mass? Could the two together when added account for much of the "Dark Matter" in the universe?
What if a good portion of the "Dark Matter" was in fact light. Wouldn't that be an irony?
Okay, I'll shut up now.
Those are benefits of a hard drive, not winning arguments as to why the system should have (or more importantly, rely upon) one.
Storing MP3s is a niche thing, I have an XBox and I don't even use that feature. I've tried it, but it's really not worth it. Even if more games supported it, I'm not sure I would use it.
A third-level cache for game data promotes some really sloppy game design and just begs game designers to store more shit on my drive than I care to have there in the first place. I'd rather see game designers work on tigheter, more efficient code and smaller less bloated save-data, than give them a huge space and just taunt them to fill it.
I'm not saying the hard drive isn't useful, but it's hardly a requirement and I would hate to see memory cards forfeited in favor of hard drives. The funny thing about hard drives in consoles is that the people who want them most are the ones who play the least games.
Anybody who remembers the hype from the PS2's pre-release will remember exactly how much pure FUD they spread. There will no doubt be PS2 defenders who are going to reply to me and defend every claim that Sony has made, but the fact is (and I've seen the real world comparisons) that the PS2 isn't half of what Sony promised. They made outrageous polygon claims and bandwidth promises, all of which were in better than ideal, and horribly unrealistic conditions, and they were assuming you weren't actually doing anything in the first place (rendering single, untextured, unshaded, flat surfaced polygons).
There will be no doubt the next Playstation will be leaps and bounds beyond the PS2. It will probably be more powerful than either the Gamecube or the XBox combined. That happens. It's Moores Law (which is ending, or so they say).
But the fact is no matter how good the PS3 will or will not be, Sony is going to feed us as much hype and fud as they can generate until we all have a PS3 sitting in front of us (disappointing us).
And I'm not just trying to flame Sony, because I like many of the games I have for my PS2, as well as the fact that I can play all of my PS1 games on it. But the truth is, Sony as a gaming company really hasn't got any more of a clue than Microsoft. They only know how to market something, and it doesn't matter what it is. It can be anything from a featureless AM/FM radio the size of a quarter or it can be a really stupid mechanical Dog. If the engineers make it, Sony's marketing division can sell it to you.
I predict the PS3 will be either black again, or silverish like the Sony Vvega televisions. I predict the controller will change very little (or not at all) though perhaps it will gain a couple of new useful features. Really the PS2 controller has reached a height of evolution that, love or or hate it, is hard to fault (unless it doesn't fit your well in your hands...) It will be a big leap in technology blah blah blah but anymore that isn't mattering the way it used to. I predict that the first year of games will be rushed sequals to PS2 games and shoveled versions of PC games or XBox/Gamecube games that outshined the PS2 versions (this year will be the year the GCN and XBox really show their technical superiority as the developers have come to grips with the systems).
Most importantly, you can expect television commercials, signs, radio spots, magazine spots (even in no-gaming mag-rags), you can expect web-banners, signs in malls, signs in fast-food-joints, and basically all of the crap we've become used to, only pushed to a level only Sony has the stomach to do.
Share and enjoy.
1. Backwards compatible with the PSOne and PS2.
Your wish has already been confirmed, though I can't provide links at the moment, do a google search. You'll find them.
2. Hard drive.
There are two sides to that coin, and the side in favor of the hard-drive has more disadvantages than the side that says it's just an expensive waste. I would PREFER a larger standard memory card than a hard drive. 64 meg or 128 meg. That would all but eliminate the need for dozens of memory cards or even the limitations on what you could store on even one that was dedicated to just a few games. As for swapping saves with a friend, it's actually EASIER with a memory card. Just take your card to a friend's house, copy. Bam. I have a PS2. I have many, many games. My PS2's 8 meg card is about half full, and I get to take it with me when I go to a friend's house which has been useful. My Xbox's hard-drive on the other hand is about fucking useless. Yes, it'll save my game on MY Xbox, but it doesn't do me any good when I go anywhere else.
A hard drive is a good thing. Big-Fat Memory cards are better. There is really no argument here.
3. Built in Ethernet/Modem
Oh yes, in an ideal world every machine would come with all the upgrades. It's anybody's guess what Sony will do when the issue of money comes into play. I guess on this one we'll just have to see.
4. With the Ethernet/Modem, I want a CDDB system for my CD's to store them on the HDD.
There's no reason why they couldn't do that right now using 64 or 128 meg memory cards (or larger), but a hard drive IS better suited for this task. Still, given that online capabilities are only going to become more common in consoles, there isn't any reason why CDDB support couldn't make it into even the current PS2s, and definately the PS3. Sony's feelings on the whole issue will be the major stumbling block.
5. And, of course, I want a Linux disk to be orderable with the system - just for those of us who like to tinker.
You already know about the Linux kit for the PS2, why would you think it wouldn't come along at least at some point on the PS3? I personally don't see Sony considering it a major issue, but I don't think you'll have to worry. Even if Sony doesn't do it, some crafty geeks probably will.
Not at all. Some PS1 games still shine on a PS2, and I would dare say that the best reason to own a PS2, and probably a PS3 will be for the massive collection of PS1 games out there.
Do some games on the PS1 look horribly out-dated? Yes. No doubt. I can say the same thing about PS2 games of today. Even Vice City isn't all that great looking. The polygons are simply, the textures lack any detail. The people have static facial expressions, and the lighting effects are laughable. That doesn't mean Vice City sucks, it just means we've all be exposed to more advanced things.
I for one wish there would be more 2D games released, most of those could be done for the PS1, and probably should be.
Just because newer, more advanced gaming technology evolves does not automatically mean older technology becomes worthless.
which, if I'm not mistaken (and I very well may be), was rambus ram.
You are not mistaken. The N64 uses Rambus for both the main system memory and the 4 meg Expansion Pak.
Some of us are fanatical about games in general, and since we carry our Gameboys with us everywhere, toting around many cartridges is a chore...
Now, there are devices out there such as the Game Wallet and the Flash Advance, devices which essentially let you copy Gameboy Advance games. But more importantly, they let you consolodate your games onto a single cartridge, and yes it works really well.
What I've been wondering is does this new Gameboy detect such carts and prevent them from working? I was giving it some thought and one of my basic problems with the Flash Advance is the fact that it will mostly be used for piracy. That's something of a shame too because Gameboy cartridges are dirt cheap at most used game shops. I picked up a handful of great games not long ago for about $25 total. Still, Nintendo needs to protect their system and the 3rd party developers so I'm wondering, do the Flash Advance cards WORK with the Gameboy Advance SP? (GASP hah hah)
Hmmm.
The odds that you will win the Lottery Every Week of your Life: Improbable.
The odds that every female in the world will beat a path to your door: Highly Improbable.
Their odds of doing so without knowing about your money: Very Highly Improbable.
The odds that you would have enough money if all of the above were true: Impossible.
Under a decent light, the GBA's screen is fantastic.
The image quality is fantastic, but under very few (and I mean VERY FEW) lighting conditions is the GBA usable, I admit THAT. If Nintendo hadn't announced this new design I would HIGHLY recommend the Afterburner kit. HIGHLY. This new system somewhat obsoletes it though, which is a shame because the GBA is a nice design. Well, I like it anyway.
It has A, B, Start, Select (and one other button - probably on/off for the screen). The two shoulder buttons are on top. That's not really four "Face" buttons, since everyone was expecting X and Y to join A and B, like the SNES.
It should be easy to see that this is no change over the existing GBA. Nothing has been added here except for the screen ligth and a new form factor.
This means the rumors for the Clamshell Design, Lighting, and Smaller design are true. Just look at the picture here where you can clearly see the cartridge port. MAN that thing is tiny!
The rumors about 4 face buttons are obviously not true. At least, not with this upgrade.
Actually, you're partially correct. There is no ADDED functionality, but there are link cables for Gameboy Advances to allow them interconnectivity with Cellphones in Japan. This was a huge selling point for the GBA when it was first introduced, but as I understand it game developers never really warmed up to it so it's something of a dud.
I would provide links, but searching Japanese sites is kind of hard for me, not being a Japanese speaker. Still, Google search does find several kind of relevent links, and then there was this photo.
It should be pointed out that the Gameboy Advance does some trickery to accomplish Gameboy Classic compatibility. It's both a software and hardware based backfall, and it's not perfect but it works well enough to cover the vast majority of the games.
;)
Still, if for some reason you feel the need to EMULATE a Gameboy Classic on a Gameboy Advance without resorting to it's built in capability then feel free to put your roms on a Flash Advance cartridge and run those Gameboy roms under GBonGBA. It's still slow and beta, and there's some question as to if it will ever run full screen, but then -- on future Gameboys, it just might.
There has been talk of 4 face buttons for a long time, so I'm wondering if that prototype isn't finished, and is just a working concept.
Though, you can kiss the shoulder buttons hello. They're not going anywhere. They're a mainstay of game controller design these days. Everyone has been saying the next gameboy would contain the 4+Shoulder design to match the SNES, considering the SNES games are being reborn so much as Gameboy titles lately.
As any GBA owner can tell you, the screen in earlier models sucked pretty terrible.
I think most gameboy owners would disagree with that statement at least partially.
The original Gameboy had bad smearing as the pixels moved, and let's face it, black and white is still black and white no matter how many shades of baby-shit-green you make it.
So here, yes, the Gameboy screen sucked.
But then the Gameboy Pocket moved on to an actual more "black and white" BW screen, with much faster pixel updates and screen visibility was never an issue unless you used the thing in the dark. At this point, the Gameboy screen didn't suck too bad for the time.
The Gameboy Color game along and I couldn't have been happier. It's pixels were big enough that they reflected just enough of the light from the environment that you were in that any well lit area provided plenty of light. Anybody who doesn't know this never had one. This screen didn't suck.
The Gameboy Advance comes along, and using the same type of screen, only larger with higher resolution pixes, and suddenly everyone things the Gameboy Screen is "notorious for shitty screen"? I don't get this. The majority of the Gameboy's life has been spent as the Pocket and Color, not the Classic and Advance. If you ask me, all things considered, the Gameboy has always been an EXCELLENT design, and still is.
If you don't like the Advance screen? Use a GB color. They still sell them. Definately want those ADVANCE games? Get a Afterburner modified Advance from YourHappyPlace. It's around $150 shipped to you with the lighting and the dimmer chip installed, but it's an excellent investment and the screen looks great.
I'm sorry, I just can't agree that the Gameboy screen has always sucked. I just think Nintendo made a pretty bad mistake not lighting the GBA themselves.
As for this new Clamshell design, I hope that's a prototype, because rumors have been talking for a while about 4 face buttons, and that one still only has two.
That probably meant "we don't know what we're doing, and we're not sure how long it'll take for us to figure it out."
I manage three different accounts at Network Solutions and I can tell you it's nothing but a pain. I try to mess with it as little as possible because the system almost always craps out on me. If I change a password, the new password doesn't work anymore, and the old one seems to take some time before it kicks in.
On top of that, don't ever let your information in their records become obsolete. If they have a wrong e-mail account for you, you can pretty much give up seeing any use out of that domain until they get around to giving a crap (which is never).
It's been several months since I could get any replies or answers out of them regarding the information on one domain that I own, and it wille expire in April. If I don't have any control of it by then, I'll renew it with someone else that will give me some control over it.
If everything scientists know about the creation is completely and totally wrong and the universe were in fact created just hours ago and all of your memories were created at the same time, then how would you know any different?
You're right.
Let's get rid of all of the football teams.