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Games Entertainment

Game Boy Advance Screen Shots 98

Posted by emmett from the want-my-game-gear dept.
Anonymous Coward writes: "IGN Pocket posted the first ever screen shots of Nintendo's Game Boy Advance. The images' quality is quite poor, but you can clearly see that the console is able to push out about twice as much color than a Super NES."
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Game Boy Advance Screen Shots More

Game Boy Advance Screen Shots

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  • Please lord... (Score:4)

    by Elvis Maximus ( 193433 ) on Monday August 14, 2000 @01:42AM (#858035) Homepage

    The last three years have seen the Tamagotchi and Pokemon take children in the United States by storm. Please, please, God, do whatever you have to to keep hamster simulators from catching on.

    -

  • There's a FAQ on the Game Boy Advance located at this link [ign.com], and should answer a lot of general questions regarding the GBA, as well as listing the specs. Here they are for you lazy types:

    Game Boy Advance

    CPU: 32-Bit ARM with embedded memory

    Screen: 2.9" TFT reflective screen, 240x160 resolution, 65,535 possible colors, 511 simultaneous colors in character mode; 32,768 simultaneous colors in bitmap mode

    Size (mm): 135w x 80h x 25d

    Weight: 140g

    Power: 2 AA batteries

    Battery Life: 20 hours

    Software: Cartridge format, GB Color compatible, Game Boy compatible

  • Who cares about the gameboy advance??? THERE'S ANOTHER ZELDA ON THE WAY!!!

    *chokes on own drool*

    :-)
    Gfunk007
  • you can clearly see that the console is able to push out about twice as much color than a Super NES.

    You can clearly see? You can tell the difference between 16k and 32k colours from a 240x160 screenshot? Congratulations. You've obviously got better eyesight than me and the vast majority of the population...

  • It has an ARM, what else? (Score:4)

    by Lerc ( 71477 ) on Monday August 14, 2000 @03:08AM (#858039)
    I once had a possibility of having to do some GameBoy Color work. I saw the raw specs and was quite impressed and a little surprised that games for the GBC were not better than what I had seen.

    I then saw the constraints on the system and it was so heartbreaking, The real killer was that you can't write to the display while the screen is updating. There were so many things that I'd learnt in my C64 days that I had planned that suddenly I couldn't do.

    In many respects I would have prefered a C64 Handheld over a GBC.

    So it has a decent CPU and it has pretty Screenshots, but as this link [geocities.com] shows, even the GameBoy Color can do pretty pictures. It just can't move them very well. The proof of the GB Advance pudding will be when we see the moving images or the full hardware spec (With the big N the latter is hardly likely).

    On second thoughts, What I would really like to see is A C64 handheld. Surely we have the tech to do one well now. Of course there are a few little changes that could be made here and there just to spiff things up a little.

    Provide changable rgb defs for each of the colors.
    Let the border be turned off without the hacks.

    On third thoughts, what I would like to see is the video chipset from my second thoughts filling a frame buffer like a video signal and an Arm for the CPU. Then you'd have the possibility of

    1. Run the Fancy Chipset emulate a 6510 on the arm and play old c64 games (cool)
    2. Run the Fancy chipset and use the arm natively. (Lots and lots of tricks available then)
    3. Just let the Arm write to the framebuffer directly (lets you do things the boring way).

    On fourth thoughts, When are we going to get an Amiga Handheld?
  • There's a link to Cecil Adams's Straight Dope on gerbil and hamster stuffing at my Hampsterdeath page [8m.com].
    <O
    ( \
    XGNOME vs. KDE: the game! [8m.com]
  • Does anyone know if games like Contra and Super Metroid will be hitting the GameBoy Colour or Advance? I see games like Excitebike hitting the Nintendo 64 and raising spirits. It would be great to have those games on a handheld console. Still it's good to see updates for other classics as Zelda (but who didn't see that one coming).

    Even the samurai
    have teddy bears,
    and even the teddy bears

  • .
    From the IGN GBA FAQ [ign.com]:

    The GBA Specs:

    • 32bit ARM (rumored 206 Mhz?)
    • 2.9" TFT reflective screen
    • 240x160 resolution
    • 511 simultaneous colors in character mode; 32,768 simultaneous colors in bitmap mode
    • 8-way digital pad, two action buttons (A and B), two shoulder buttons (L and R), and a start and select button. In total, a D-pad and six buttons, four of which will be used for normal action.
    • 135w x 80h x 25d
    • Price: Unknown (under $150?)

    From Compaq [207.18.199.3] and Handhelds.org [handhelds.org]:

    The iPAQ Specs:

    • StrongARM 206 Mhz processor
    • 2.26 x 3.02 inches backlit screen
    • 240 x 320 resolution
    • Color (4096 colors (12 bit)
    • 5 way pad, four programmable buttons (2 left, 2 right)
    • 5.11" x 3.28" x .62"
    • Price: $445 from Pricewatch, MSRP higher

    Okay... the same processor helps emulation, and the difference in resolution/bitdepth is addressable (unlikely, but possibly even in hardware) by dithering - which can be coded blazingly fast in ASM.

    A and B on the right two buttons, shoulder buttons on the left two, remappable for various games and left-handed users. The 5 way pad on the iPaq is (I assume) a "click + 4 directions". I'm just wondering if that's 4 directions true, or if you can combine up and left for "upperleft". Map Start and Select to a key combo - maybe far left + both right for Start and inner left + both right for Select. For fighting games that use combos, you'd need to rework that, but IANAFGP... RPGs and sims are the only things I play.

    The really neat thing would be if somebody packaged the emulator with a iPaq accessory sleeve that allowed you to pop in GB carts. Bleem vs. Sony seems to indicate that it could be done legally.

    --
    Evan

  • There is also real hamster, but I certainly hope it is not from the makers of real doll.
  • There's one big problem with gaming on the iPaq right now. You can't press two buttons at the same time. So you can't hold down fire and press any directional button. It's not clear if this is a hardware limitation, or a driver problem that could be fixed with a flash update, but it makes playing games quite less fun.
  • I am sorry to say so, but you are wrong. The PsOne (handheld playstation) is very bulky for a handheld, it is bigger than your average portable CD player, it doesn't come with a screen. You have to purchase it. The cost + the screen is over kill. The battery life is a joke. The gameboy is doing well because Nintendo has been very smart. Look at atari lynx and the handheld sega, they had superior technology and color, but their battery life sucked, they were bigger than gameboy. In the world of handhelds, battery life + smaller size is what reigns. The same reason why palm pilot is a success. :-)

  • Count on it, MAME will be ported to it. ;)
  • one thing that wasn't mentioned in the specs was the screen ratio: 16x9. at least, as close as 16x9 as one can get using multiples of 16.

    as any movie enthusiast knows, 16x9 is the dimension of a theater screen. interesting possibilities, no?
    --
  • There's been rumors of a Metroid game for the N64 and now the Dolphin for a couple of years now. I guess we can only hope that Nintendo hears the American gamers pleas for it and release it in America.
  • I hear a lot of comments like this regarding just about anything that becomes popular. People whine and bitch about them not based on the quality of the game (or sim), but on the hype surrounding it.

    I haven't really been a fan of either Tamagotchi or Pokemon (although Tamagotchis were kinda cute), but at least I'm able to make a distinction between hype and actual quality.

  • If Nintentdo is trying to mature their image, mabye they should consider porting such PC classics as Leisure Suit Larry to their Gameboy Advance.

    acm

  • Actually, calculator games are quite good. They are also free, so the total investment is 130-150 for a TI-89 and 17-24 for a Graphlink, unless you build your own for 4, for a total of 134-174. You can get a game boy and 5 games for that price, but that's it. With calculators, all games are free, so, economically, calculator games are better. Also, calculators, at least the TI-89, TI-92, and TI-92+, have much more powerful CPUs. Depending on the hardware version, its either a 10.5 MHz Motorola 68000 or a 12MHz Motorola 68000. If I remember correctly, the Game Boy series uses a Zilog Z80 or a derivative of that architecture, which is much less powerful, although I have seen some wonderful things done on TI's Z80 calcs (TI-73, TI-81, TI-82, TI-83, TI-83+, TI-85, TI-86).

    The main problem with calculator games, particularly on TI calculators, is the lack of corporate support. TI has provided assembly execution capabilities, but has not released a development kit or much else. All that they have released is a list of ROM calls. From what I've heard, HP provides full support for assembly coders, which makes games on those calcs run much better than on TI calcs, despite the HPs' inferior hardware.
  • 2000-08-11 00:04:17 GameBoy Advance screenshots (articles,games) (rejected)

    Include a reason for the rejections maybe?

  • The PSOne is portable, but not a handheld. It does not have a battery, and is designed for use in non-primary TV areas - e.g. rather than being on the Living Room TV, it's on a bedroom TV or used the LCD screen that you can get for it.

    The Gameboy advance is a handheld and will have a long battery life (i.e. 10 hours or so), which is what made the original GB so popular in the first place.
  • It's probably a good thing you're an anonymous coward, because your name would probably be headstuckupass. I'm not sure if you noticed, but IGN also included seven games coming out for the Game Boy Color.
  • The PS1 is hardly hand held, if even portable. It dosn't have a battery to talk of and the screen is extra.
    Not to mention that you have to plus in a controller to it, versus the GameBoy's built in one.
    Plus the PS1 is awfully expensive compared to the GameBoy.
    I don't even think they were ment to compete in the same market. Right now the only ceompetiton Ninendo has is from NeoGeo Pocket and I don't think that will put up much of a fight.
  • How much memory? Anyone want to take bets on how long it takes a zealot to port Linux to it? Come on, you know someone will try it...
  • Let's see one of those newfangled Next Gen systems try to last half of that time.

    Playstation (1, not 2) is 5 years old this year.

    Rob.
  • There's an obligatory Richard Gere joke somewhere in this....
  • GB Color has a few good games on it, and a remarkable battery life, I'll give it that. The next handheld will probably be just as impressive.

    However, as a company, I don't like them, I suppose for the same reason you do. Nintendo seems to be continuing to market to the same age group as always, while the die-hards that grew up on video games (like me) continue to get older.

    Of course, Nintendo has Pokemon, so there's no chance of them disappearing anytime soon, but the Playstation succeded despite its terrible loading delays and poor 3D graphics [1], because Sony recognized that the NES generation has aged ten years over the past ten years.

    [1] Pitiful when compared to the N64's.

  • I am scared. Really scared.
    First that human id thingy and now a Game Boy
    that actually seems worth buying.
    I tell you, there's some strange things happening.
    The end of the world is drawing near.

    Now I will have to stop hating Game Boys. What's next? Getting a real haircut? Getting a life? Lying under that big round bright burning nuclear reaction in that room outside my window?

    Please tell me that this is a hoax. I don't want to give up hating Game Boys. And someone please turn off that burning thingy. I'm scared of it. I mean they turn it off every day. Can't they just keep it turned off? I don't even want to know how much it costs the taxpayers to keep it burning.

    Can you tell I need a coffee?

  • MAME (Score:2)

    by British ( 51765 )
    I'll buy it if someone ports MAME and gets most of the pre-85 games to work with it. I'd be in retro heaven.
  • The NES was graphically a 8 bit machine if I recall correctly. Telling the difference between 256 color vs. 65k and chance IS pretty damn simple.

    Indeed, but if you'd read the original comment, you'd see that it was being compared to the Super NES, not the original NES. The SNES has 16K colours, and the new gameboy has 32K. Thank you, and thanks for playing.

  • Sega Nomad? I would love to get one (or more) of those for my kids, but it seems they only sold them for about 2 months. Can you still get one?
    I was going to get one for my kids for Christmas, and they abruptly disappeared, which is a shame because I was waiting for Sega to make one for years, seeing as how the Game Gear was essentially a portable Master System.

    I thought the Game Boy looked dated when it first came out. Imagine it still being popular in 2000. Heck, I thought it looked like an minor update to the Microvision from about 1980 (which was extremely cool in it's day, but now you can get better stuff on a $5 key chain). But I guess If there's decent games for it that's all that matters.

    The new screenshots look nice, but I'll stick to Total Annihilation and Nethack on my laptop.

    Personally, I think the ultimate hand-held would be an HP Jornada with a CE port of MAME and a nice plug-in controller. It can certainly handle emulating almost any game worth playing. We can all dream.

    Rick

  • Actually the Gameboy Advance has a "measly" 16.78 (or so) MHz ARM7DTMI running the show, as well as a z80-wannabe for running old GBC games (though it can't be used at the same time as the ARM) And those 511 colors in character mode is kind of off. You can have up to 256 colors on screen for the "planes" (backgrounds) and 256 for the "oam" (sprites) BUT in almost every case color 0 doesn't count because it's transperancy.

    And, it bitmap mode (single or double buffered) it does 16bit gfx, so 65536 colors

  • There's an obligatory Richard Gere joke somewhere in this....

    A relative of mine is a 17+ year Toronto General Hospital nurse. Many moons ago when she was in emergency she swears to god she pulled hamsters out of his arse. And this woman never ever lies. Ever.

    She didn't say it was him for sure but she is willing to put money on it. She's got quite a number of interesting stories about her emergency room days, in fact.

  • Uhm, even if you could use a totale of 16k colors on the SNES, you couldn't use them all at once. Each sprite on the SNES is limited to 16 colors. And the difference between 16 colors and 32 colors is pretty big. I forget what size pallete those 16 colors are drawn from, but I don't think that it is a 16k palete. I'm kinda thinking it might be a 256 color overal pallete, but that might be from a larger pallete of 14bit color.
  • The reason the gameboy has come out better than the gamegear and other varients is simple:

    • The console is cheap
    • The console isn;t big and clunky - it truely is portable
    • The batteries don't need replacing every 2 hours - you can actually get a decent amount of playing time out of them
    • The games are cheap - anything from 9 UKP to about 14 UKP

    The others failed because they weren't one or more of the above. When you make a portable console you can't have it weighing the same as a brick and eating batteries like there was no tomorrow.

    Ninetendo got it right by making something that was portable and useable. Lets hope their new console takes the same approach.

    --

  • Is not Handheld
  • First of all, on the GBA you can only display 32k colors in bitmap mode. I don't expect that people are going to use bitmap mode much, especially not at first. To my understanding, the SNES doesn't have such a bitmap mode (and I have a set of documents for programming the SNES in front of me).

    So, in character mode we get 512 colors, except color 0 is a transparency bit, so really only 511 colors. By comparison, on the SNES, we have sprites that are made up of tiles. Each tile can display 16 colors. I believe that you can get up to a total of 256 colors between all the different tile palets on screen.

    So, the difference between 256 colors and 511 is pretty obvious. Also, the different between 256 colors and 32k colors is even more obvious.

    I'm assuming that you are getting you 16k and 32k numbers from the fact that the SNES is a 16bit machine and the 32k colors from the fact that the GBA is a 32bit machine. However, this just isn't the way it works. For starters, if the number of displayable colors and the bit depth of the main processor lined up, then the SNES would display 64k colors (2^16), and the GBA would display over 4 billion colors (2^32). However, processor bit depth and and on screen colors don't always line up. If they did then the N64 would be able to display 2^64 colors, but alas, it is limited to 2^24 (with 8 bit transparency. I'm not sure if the transparency can be used to eek out more colors, but I'm inclined to think not). Actually, pretty much every machine in existance could display more colors than it currently does (with the exception of SGI's Onyx2, which can display 64bit color and it is a 64bit chip).
  • Sure, they say there's an ARM, but that's like describing your computer as a PowerPC box.

    I'm doubting it's running at 206 MHz; Does anybody have any semi-concrete rumors? At least we might find out fast of a web server it'd really make.

  • Unfortunatly, not many people would be willing to pay true cost for this device. Thus, to get people to buy it, they drop the price below the manufacturing cost and make their losses up on game royalties. If anyone can program the machine and if games are easy to download, then there aren't any game royalties to be made.
  • We've seen it on the iPaq [slashdot.org], we've also seen it on an IBM wristwatch [slashdot.org]. So... when do we see it on a Gameboy?

    I'll take $US1.00 bets. E-mail me the year, month, and day (zulu) that someone will announce, and show proof of, Linux running on a Gameboy. Winner gets 50% of the pot, the remainder to the person(s) who actually managed the feat.

    Next stop, the new HP [slashdot.org]...


  • I have one question since the original GB (or at least since the color ones) came up...
    Why didn't anybody try to port some of the good old C64 Games to this little machines?

    I've always dreamt of being able to play Elite, Bubble Bobble, Pirates, Commando, Boulderdash, or even Maniac Mansion on these small devices.

    Can you imagine how *cool* Pirates on a gameboy color must look like?

  • i just can't wait for the new mario games, and multiplayer tetris [tetrinet.org] to come out.

  • Ironic isn't it (Score:3)

    by Emerson Willowick ( 215198 ) on Monday August 14, 2000 @01:15AM (#858075)
    In the age of constant cuthroat competition between video game systems and companies with constantly expanding technology and hardware, the longest lasting console is the minimalist Game Boy. IIRC the Game Boy is over 10 years old, still going strong with only minor updates like the GB Color and now this. Let's see one of those newfangled Next Gen systems try to last half of that time.

    I'm not a big fan of games myself, so I won't buy one, but I must admit that the industry and its evolution is very interesting. I just like that a portable mini-system can outlast the heavyweights of the industry. But to be fair, software support always makes or breaks a system too, which is why the handheld brethren of the Game Boy (Lynx, Virtual Boy, GameGear, and TurboExpress) are all in their respective coffins now.

    Maybe I'll get one as a gift to my teenage brother so he'll stop wasting his TI-89 with those cruddy little calculator games :)

  • Thirteen? Is that how old I am? I must be doing something right to have a home, two cars, two kids and a wife and a career to pay for it all considering I'm only 13.

    If you don't like what I have to say, ignore it. Everyone is entitled to my opinion.

  • Your point? The SNES used 8-bit palletized color, except it chose those colors from a larger array of 32,768 colors. (Ultimately the most it could display at once was 256, and that was only in specific screen modes, usually ones not that friendly to developers).

    About the photos, they look VERY nice, better than I imagined they'd look. Definately something I plan to buy when it's released (hey, I'm a Mario Kart addict, so sue me).
  • Can you imagine a Beowulf cluster of these? Woo!

    --

  • I'd appreciate to read some specs about that little thing: not a word about them, just two games screenshots.

    Perhaps I've missed something, but I can't remember having read something about it on /.: is it a pocket SNES? Or just some hardware that has about the same abilities than the SNES, but has nothing in common with it?

    What about battery life ? Technology used for the screen?

    Stephane
  • as any movie enthusiast knows, 16x9 is the dimension of a theater screen. interesting possibilities, no?

    No, not really.
  • That is not what I expected. I figured on seeing the actual gameboy advance itself. The screenshots of games for it are nothing surprising. SNES level games, with slightly lower quality display than a tv.

    BTW, will this thing play the huge library of (Colour)GameBoy games?
  • why do you hate gameboys? were you a sega/atari fan or something?
  • You can clearly see? You can tell the difference between 16k and 32k colours from a 240x160 screenshot? Congratulations. You've obviously got better eyesight than me and the vast majority of the population...

    No, I can't. But I can tell the diffrence between 32k colors of the GBA and the 256 colors, witch is what the Supernintendo had (although Rare managed to hack out 512 colors for a few games near the end of the SNES lifespan)
  • For too long, Nintendo have been able to steamroller all other handhelds out of the marketplace, because they had the luck to get Tetris.

    This time round, they will be up against the PsOne (the handheld playstation), and I think they'll lose. Those screenshots look ok, but Nintendo have historically been able to price their handheld games very high, and I've alreadty got a dozen better playstation CDs already in my collection.

  • Re:Specs ? (Score:3)

    by NoNeeeed ( 157503 ) <slash@@@paulleader...co...uk> on Monday August 14, 2000 @01:27AM (#858085)
    Check out this [gameboy.com] for the full specs. Looks like a pretty good machine.

  • Re:Specs ? (Score:4)

    by m3000 ( 46427 ) on Monday August 14, 2000 @01:29AM (#858086)
    The specs for the GBA have been known for some time now, and a couple of sites even have some mock-ups of what it might look like. IGN Pocket's FAQ [ign.com] on the GBA should answer most of your questions. Also it's heavily rumored that the Dolphin/Star Cube will intereact heavily with the GBA and there will be built in ports so that you can plug your GBA into your Dolphin.

    Full details and a real mock-up will be announced during Space World which is from August 24-26 (I think). It's a Japanese Nintendo trade show when Nintendo will tell all about the Dolphin/Star Cube and the GBA: Including having several GBA playable games. And expect a Slashdot article on the Dolphin specs on August 23rd when Nintendo holds a press conference at 3 PM Japanese time to unveil the Dolphin/Star Cube.
  • I'm not up to speed on the specs myself, so I'll happily accept those as true, since they do seem to make sense. It makes me wonder, though, what's up with e.g. this shot [ign.com] (the first from the linked-to page), since it's four times as large (at 480x320 pixels). Weird? Also, can I take this opportunity to think negative things about companies that publish screenshots from a fairly low-res console as JPEGs? They're dithered all to hell...
  • I hate to break it to you, but Nintendo is changing; they have to. They lost this generation in part because of the public's perception that they're a "kiddie" company. Hence they're trying to change that image slightly. They're still making regular good family games like Mario and Zelda, but they're also allowing some more "adult-oriented" games too. They recenting announced Sin and Punishment [ign.com] for Japan, and they're allowing several risque games to come out from Rare (second party) like Conkers Bad Fur Day [ign.com], which might be one the raunchiest videogame ever released, and Perfect Dark. The days when they ban blood in the games for their system are long gone.
  • The psone is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a `handheld' in the same sense the gameboy is. It's small (although nowhere near as small as a gameboy), and it's cute, but it also needs to be plugged into the wall, and uses a separate PSX controller.

    [I don't know about you, but I usually use my gameboy while *standing up*, on the *train*. Try *that* with a psone!]

    -Miles

  • here's [obsess.com] another new pocket console.

  • Re:This time, there will be a decent competitor (Score:4)

    by hattig ( 47930 ) on Monday August 14, 2000 @02:15AM (#858091) Journal
    I see that people have now provided some links to rough specs. 240x160 pixel screen, in bitmap mode (32k colours) requires 75k of memory, which a 36MHz (my guess at the speed) ARM processor would have no difficulty in updating for a Doom style game, with better graphics than the original doom. Quake is out of the question unless the system has good 3D capabilities - it appears it has some capabilities though, so maybe Quake might appear, especially if the processor is faster...

    The sound system is dobly surround compliant, and appears to be able to play up to 32 channels simultaneously. Not bad.

    The system retains the character mode graphics of the Gameboy, for compatibility as it will still play Gameboy games (is there a Z80 in the machine then, or is it software emulation on the ARM?) but able to show 511 colours at the same time (sounds like 256 colours for the character blocks, and 255 colours for the sprites).

    4 controller buttons, A, B, L and R. Horizontal aspect, as opposed to vertical, which is about time! This does limit the system when it comes to Quake style games though, as strafing, looking up and down, crouching, etc would be hard to do quickly as there aren't enough keys. The display is just over 100dpi, which should guarantee crisp high quality graphics.

    The system can be connected directly to the Dolphin console when it comes out - this could mean that downloadable games could become popular, or DVDs full of games at least. This would be great for all those older Gameboy games that are only 256k to 1Mbyte in size, as tonnes could be written on a 32Mb flash memory cartridge. Nintendo had better watch out for this.

    I can't wait for the machine, although I will probably hold off a while before buying at, so the price will drop from the initial high (probably $200) price it will start at. Those colour screens are expensive. What this machine needs is a GSM mobile phone addon - the high quality screen would be great for WAP, it is bigger than a Palm screen and has colour... If only the screen was touch sensitive, it could make quite a nice PDA :-)

  • Any chance of porting any of the Sid Meyer games to it? (e.g. Civ, Civ II, Colonization, Alpha Centauri, et. al.) Or better yet -- FreeCiv! [freeciv.org]

    Give it an external PC/MAC-linkable port (USB, 1394, or Ethernet...hell, even RS-232) and I'd shell out some buckage for it.
  • Castlevania, Zelda, Kid Icarus, Gradius, R-Type, Turrican 2, Mario, Sonic, MasterBlaster, Ikari Warriors, Contra, MegaMan! All these are still better than all this FPS crud coming out. Quake 3? I'll pass, Doom was fun, but the industry didn't need to go any farther. Give me Castlevania 50!
  • How much memory? Anyone want to take bets on how long it takes a zealot to port Linux to it? Come on, you know someone will try it...

    What good is it if it doesn't run Linux or NetBSD? :)

    If it has >=4MB, it has a good chance to get NetBSD/ARM32 [netbsd.org] ported to it...then I'd *REALLY* shell out the bucks for that...

    Someone designs an embedded NetBSD or Linux kernel in a GBA cart, with 16MB RAM and a USB port sticking out of it, and I'm there.
  • Actually, I thought the shots looked markedly better than the SNES. And it is actually 9 bit graphics. That or 15 bits, but programming for 15 bits is going to be a pain because the processor is slow and for 15 we have to handle our own sprites instead of letter other hardware do it.
  • The Neo Geo has been around almost as long as the Game Boy (since 1990) and games are still being made for it (although now it's only being sold in Japan). Both the Neo Geo and Game Boy were impressive when they first came out, but seem dated now. As another poster mentioned, the Atari 2600 was sold for 18 years, but probably because it was the only popular console for a long time.
  • Uhm, even if you could use a totale of 16k colors on the SNES, you couldn't use them all at once.

    I stand corrected. Never having had a SNES, I assumed all the colours were available simultaneously, just as I assumed that all 32K colours were available on the GBA. Looks like for all practical purposes, I was wrong on both counts. Ho hum...

    BTW, in a comment a couple of days ago, you mentioned that you couldn't install your Voodoo3, 'coz it didn't work without XFree86-4. You're misinformed about that -- mine works perfectly under XFree86-3.3.6

  • First there was Hampsterdance [hampsterdance2.com], then GUWAME Hampsterdeath [8m.com], now this? Damn.

    No more penis birds! Adopt a normal bird today!
    <O
    ( \
    XGNOME vs. KDE: the game! [8m.com]
  • There is a Metroid game for Game Boy, Metroid 2. It's 9 years old, but still a good game. While I'd love to see a new Metroid come out, I don't know how likely it is. The Metroid series was never very popular in Japan. If Nintendo doesn't release a game in Japan, they're not going to release it anywhere.
  • The original Super Nintendo could display 256 colors at one time out of 32,768. however, people were able to trick it into displaying up to 512 at certain resolutions (I have forgotten which one)

    The Gameboy advance can do 512 colors out of 65,535. it can also achieve mode 7 graphics in the foreground as well as the background (the super could only do the background originally)

    People will find ways around it. Look at the gameboy color. It could only do 56, but they have came up with ways to display 4,000 colors with it (Alone in the Dark)
  • civ came out on snes a few years ago so that at least show that it is possible to port...
  • >BTW, in a comment a couple of days ago, you
    >mentioned that you couldn't install your
    >Voodoo3, 'coz it didn't work without XFree86-4.
    >You're misinformed about that -- mine works
    >perfectly under XFree86-3.3.6

    Yeah, a couple of people have mentioned that. All I know is that the XFree configuration program bundled with Redhat 6.1 doesn't pick out my card. And maybe I only have Xfree 3.3.4 or 3.3.5. I don't know. All I know was my first try failed, and I didn't have time to much around anymore. In another week I should have more available time to figure out why things didn't work the first time. I'm really looking forward to getting that card to work so that I can do more than color vertices in the program I'm working on.

  • Indeed, but if you'd read the original comment, you'd see that it was being compared to the Super NES, not the original NES. The SNES has 16K colours, and the new gameboy has 32K. Thank you, and thanks for playing.

    Your welcome, but it dosn't chage the fact that you are completly and utterly wrong, since the The super nintendo could only display 8bit graphics. Think about it, were there many 14bit graphics cards out there in 1991?

    We don't know how bad things are in north korea, but here are some pictures of hungry children. -- CNN
  • Now *that* is a marketing phrase i've never heard before. "able to push twice as much color".... you don't need more then the color available on a SNES for low-resolution, you know..
    ----
    Oh my god, Bear is driving! How can this be?
  • They said about twice as much color, so if the SNES was 16bit, does that mean this thingy is 17bit?


    ---
  • Actually, emulation probably wouldn't be possible. Most of a game machine's power is in the graphics hardware. According to your logic, it should be possible to emulate a gameboy on a TI-83 (which has the same proc clocked 50% faster) but it's not. Game machines tend to have all sorts of funky graphics procs. Programming for game machines is a throwback to the early days of the PC. You hack this, make this do something it isn't supposed to, figure out how to get the sound chip to do blits, all sorts of fun things ;)
  • Or, they could do a spin off of Pocket Monsters called Pocket Hookers.
  • but can it run linux?
  • Personally, I think the screenshots looked pretty good. Definitely better than the long-forgotten Sega Game Gear. I just hope that the sound is also improved. I've found that with both the Game Boy and the Game Gear, I've had to turn the sound all the way down most of the time just so I could stand to play the game. However, it's really the quality of titles that are released that matters. That's one of the reasons I kept my original dot matrix Game Boy a lot longer than the Game Gear...
  • Moi, a stupid bitch?

    Sometimes I can be annoying and a little whingey at times, but a stupid bitch? I fear not.

    (And what a way to make my Slashdot debut, defending my good name against such heartless claims!)
  • will this thing play the huge library of (Colour)GameBoy games?

    Yes. It's 100% compatible with all GBC and GB games.
  • Actually, I was part of the PET2001/C 64/Amiga crowd. The game boy just had not enough bang for the buck. Blocky black and white graphics that were as ugly as PET 2001 ASCII graphics games. And that at a time when great things as the Lynx was possible. I just don't get it. What's the appeal of the Game Boy? Everyone knows it, noone knows about the Lynx. Now that the Game Boy finally catched up with the Lynx graphics-wise, I'm actually considering to get one. Release dates, anyone?
  • According to a statement made by Nintendo's executive vice president of sales and marketing Peter Main, the Game Boy Advance will be able to interact with Nintendo's upcoming next-gen console. He states:

    "Clearly there was a huge opportunity to do that and clearly you're going to see an interface between the Game Boy Advance and Dolphin that is more than happenstance and doesn't require a mechanical device, and probably uses the modem and our online capabilities. And having those two pieces of gear grow software -- growing software on one, trading data, raising the level of performance, will make Dolphin a very different kind of dedicated gaming machine."

    His entire speech can be found here. [ign.com]

  • Your thinking of the PSOne totally wrong, its not totally portable... it dosnt come with the screen, heck I think you need a power source to play it, no batteries. As for a good handheld Ill take the Sega Nomad over anything, a handheld genesis was a kickass idea. I can still pick mine up and play a game of road rash 3 and it still amazes me on how good the graphics are even tho im playing a handheld.

  • Re:This time, there will be a decent competitor (Score:3)

    by m3000 ( 46427 ) on Monday August 14, 2000 @01:34AM (#858115)
    But you forgot Nintendo's killer app: Pokemon. The craze is still going strong and that alone will sell millions of GBA's. Plus the real reason the GB has done so well is because it has some awesome software and longer battery life than it's competitors. Tetris might have sold a couple of million GB's, but it's not the reason it's survived 10+ years.
  • So if you have this implant and sit around and watch TV a lot, it's a Couch Potato Chip?
  • This is maybe wishfull thinking, but I would definitely buy one of these if games like TibSun came out for it.

    Regards, Tommy

  • My father always speaks of the technological advances in his time. Granted, I don't feel that I can possibly top what he has seen in his time (he's in his 50's now). But take the last 20 years. If you really want to see how technology has advanced (rather, if you wanted to SHOW someone how it has advanced), you need only to look at the game industry -- specifically the consoles.
    <p>
    First there was Pong -- two long rectangles and a circle. Couldn't get any simpler than that. Now you have this? This is a handheld device! For God's sake....this is a mark of technology right here.

    (And I must agree with a few of the comments abou the longevity of the Game Boy)
  • Yeah, I suspect they've just doubled the size of the pictures for the linked versions. Very strange, especially since the wording on the linked site makes it clear that they should be higher-quality. Scaling an image up does not, in my opinion, improve its quality. ;^)
  • Remeber that the Atari 2600 (VCS) was sold for 18 years. That's the longest-selling system by far (also made Atari $5 billion).
  • Nintendo has been a success because of the quality of its original games and not because of acquiring Tetris. It all began in 1985 with the hit release Mario Brothers on the NES. Zelda soon followed. Both of which exist on the Gameboy in different adaptations. The console remains to thrive because of the value of the games. The Gameboy (color) did not thrive as a result of graphic-intensive games, because they were not, but because of their entertainment value. Nintendo continues to release new games for this console and so do other manufacturers. Fifteen years and counting.
  • Now if only SGI [sgi.com] would make a gaming console...

  • (is there a Z80 in the machine then, or is it software emulation on the ARM?)

    No, there doesn't appear to be either. This story [ign.com] at IGNPocket [ign.com] says that they shrunk the whole original Gameboy into a single chip that plays old games. The relevant passage:

    Built into the Game Boy Advance's circuitry is a single chip - engineers have shrunk the Game Boy Color chipset into a single chip. When you plug an original Game Boy or Game Boy Color cartridge into the Game Boy Advance, the Game Boy Advance will check to see what type of game it is. If it recognizes the cartridge as a Game Boy or Game Boy Color title, the system will boot up as a Game Boy Color.

  • The specs are much nicer, and the games will obviously be more advanced because of it. But graphically, it looks like they're still finding new tricks with the current Gameboy. Check out these shots of the upcoming Alone in the Dark:

    [ign.com]
  • The specs are much nicer, and the games will obviously be more advanced because of it. But graphically, it looks like they're still finding new tricks with the current Gameboy. Check out these shots of the upcoming Alone in the Dark:

    http://pocket.ign.com/news/23128.html [ign.com]
  • Ok, let me explain something. In the life cycle of every major game console, the company almost always releases a smaller more cost-effective model near the end in an effort to sustain sales through the launch of their next gen effort.

    There was the "new" NES, "new" Sega Master System, two "new" Genesis, a "new" SNES. Now there's a "new" PlayStation.

    Since Sony's marketers are more interested in capturing the mainstream idiots, they decided to label this smaller PlayStation as "portable".

    Now, certainly it is portable. The old PSX was portable. This one is just smaller (and cooler looking), and will have a seperate attachable LCD screen to be released several months afterwards.

    So anyways, what I'm trying to say here is PS One is NOT a handheld or a true portable. Anyone who thinks that is falling right into marketing's grubby little hands.

    (Now, on the other hand, I will eventually buy a PS One because it's so much cooler than PSX)
  • Does SGI really own MIPS still ?
  • I was actually quite dissapointed when I read the specs for this. It has an as powerful (or more powerful) a processor than the SNES, better graphics, and certainly there has been an adaptor for SNES systems to play gameboy carts for many years - so why doesn't this thing take SNES cartridges, and come with a SNES > Gameboy colour adaptor?
    I would certainly have sprung for the cash to play all my old favourate SNES carts on a handheld; that it could load and play my gameboy carts would have been a bonus, but I *have* a gameboy, and only recently bought a gameboy colour - why should I now buy yet another "improved gameboy" when there will almost certainly be "extended super improved gameboy" or "N64 Gameboy advance adaptor" a year from now which will take my current gameboy cartridges and the new "Game Boy Advance" cartridges (which I *can't* load on anything else at the moment) as well.......
    It's an incremental improvement that offers little to tempt me - yes, it's better, but not leading edge, even if it is impressive for a handheld. It *could be* and *should be* better, and I am dissapointed in it.
    --
  • Well, to be factious, they do. It is called the N64. But seriously, SGI makes more than just the main CPU for that system.
  • I don't think you are quite correct there, the PSOne won't be as protable as you think, you will definetly need a external powersupply, as the CD drive, and processor would suck up the power like nobodys business.

    The GBA on the other hand will "supposedly" run of 2 AA batteries for Aprrox 20 hours


    -
  • ...because, they of all companies, have stuck to the values they set forth in front of the public. They are obvious believers of pacifism and for that I praise them. Not many companies stick to the values they espouse, but Nintendo, IMHO, has done a damn good job of it.
  • Duh. The portable playstation requires a wall socket power supply to run - it is basically a small playstation that is more luggable, that is it. The gameboy advance will easily beat it in the portable games market, as it can be played without having to be within 2 meters of a power supply. Also, have you seen the size of a CD recently - the gameboy advance will use cartridges as they are much more compact (hopefully like the Atari Lynx cartridges, which were tiny).

    The GBA uses an ARM processor, I don't know the speed. Those screenshots are beautiful. I see this being very popular, even if it is a little expensive when it comes out. Imagine when the coders really get to grips with the system, they will produce amazing games. This system is probably as powerful as a Playstation, maybe moreso.

    Of course hardly any details are known about the actual hardware config of the machine. Resolution is better then the Gameboy, which is good, and there are tonnes of colours. Sound is an unknown, and the speed of the processor is as well. Average size of the cartridges is unknown... Does anyone know or have a lonk to the detailed specs?

    I wouldn't call "a dozen" that high for a 5 year old system, would you? And have you played on the gameboy advance? Do you know what a gameboy actually is? Nintendo have typically been a high quality software company, and they aim for good quality software that is playable and fun, if a little childish. The PSOne can't compete, its a different market.

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