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Games Entertainment

Gameboy Advance US Launch Details 171

Posted by michael from the where's-the-slime-shield? dept.
GB Fanatic was one of many people to send this: "I've seen Game Boy Advance news here before so I thought perhaps some of you would be interested in this. Nintendo has announced the full line-up and price range for the launch of Game Boy Advance. GBStation.com has the details. Oh, GBStation.com also has a list of classic SNES and N64 titles that will be released for Game Boy Advance, including Super Mario Bros. 3." There's also a CNN article which has a bit more information. I don't know, I think I've outgrown the Gameboy, but judging from the number of people I've seen playing the snake game on their cellphones, handheld games are still pretty popular.
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Gameboy Advance US Launch Details More

Gameboy Advance US Launch Details

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  • The problem with the NGPC was that it wasn't a Game Boy; there are something like 500 GB games available, and the NGPC was released with a dozen. Most of the games released for the Neo Geo Pocket Color were fighting games, with one or two RPGs and nothing I can think of that could compete with good ol' Tetris. It's main market ended up being hardcore gamers, and there aren't too many hardcore gamers who are into portable gaming. SNK realized that their market wasn't large enough to be worth the effort, so they bailed.
  • Average reader/user needs this type of information, since they've all heard of this Playstation & Playstation 2 machines. At least it's kind of saying "It's like having a PS2, but much less powerful".

    Yes, the comparison doesn't make sense to those of us familiar with these technologies, but it might make some sense to most consumers.
  • OH JESUS SAVE US. Nintendo is stopping its development of the VirtualBoy to create this gameboy advance? What the hell?!?!?!? VirtualBoy has only been out for 4 years and now its being cancled??!?!?!??!?!?!

    --
  • >> I just hope Nintendo realizes that a large portion of gamers today are adults, and leaves the Pokemon crap off of this system. <<

    I'm confused -- how does the availability of Pokemon on the system affect those who don't want to play it? The gameboy, at least, has a very wide variety of games available, even if Pokemon is among the most popular.

    Or is this a self-image thing?

  • My only concern with advanced handheld's is battery life. Remember Sega's handheld? That thing could gulp down a couple of AA batteries per hour. That got expensive.

    I liked the plain old gameboy... used little batteries, and since it was so graphically deficient, the emphasis was on gameplay rather than goofy effects like most modern games, regardless of platform.

    I'll probably buy a gameboy advance for plane trips... but only because it looks ALOT like the SNES, which IMHO was one of the best consoles of all time in terms of game quality.

    LONG LIVE 2D SIDESCROLLERS! :)

  • And no other non-"GameBoy" handhelds ever really took off

    Seen a top 10 videogames [dailyradar.com] list lately?

    And ever heard the figure "one hundred million [channel4.com]"? That's how many game boys have been sold in the last 12 years. Do you know any other console that's sold that well?
    --

  • the snes emulator (and mame) work on the iPAQ in linux...
  • Looks like it also has some of the original mario brothers (not SMB1, MB aka that little weird level you can into in SMB3 2p mode) in it. If we're really lucky it may be like mario all-stars or something..
  • I agree wholeheartedly-tetris, and galaaxia are all there for the taking off the internet if you wanna do something a little more "usefull" with your calculator

  • Snake (Score:1)

    by Chmarr ( 18662 )
    Speaking of the Nokia snake game, I've gotten 1542 as my high score. Anyone beaten that?
  • Would that be the "Los Angeles Bay", then? South Bay is Silicon Valley. The bay in question is San Francisco. It's about 400 miles from LA.

    -- Brian

  • Re:does anyone play these, besides 5 year olds? (Score:3)

    by Valdrax ( 32670 ) on Wednesday March 07, 2001 @02:28PM (#378024)
    Yeah, people who still care about gameplay.

    Some of my favorite games are for the Gameboy. I'm suprised to see how well some of my cartridges (particularly the RPGs with battery saves) have held up over the years. I mean, my "Final Fantasy Legend" cart is still kicking after 10+ years!

    I even bought a Game Boy Pocket last year when I temporarily succumbed to the Pokemon demons. Geez, talk about video game crack! I don't think I've logged more hours (100+) in a single session of any game before. That game is designed to prey upon the weaknesses of obsessive-compulsives.

    Polys are not everything. Gameplay is what brings people back.
  • Yes... only if you buy the parts yourself and send them to him, you can't just buy the whole unit (sue me, I'm lazy).

    -----

  • Just in time for my birthday.

    now, if only they didn't look like those $5.00 tiger LCD games from back in the day, I'd be happy.

    Also excited about the first new Metroid game in a LONG time... not counting Samus being in Super Smash Bros. Say... Portable SSB... could we be that lucky? Hmm.

    Ohyea, be sure to watch those Japanese commercials about halfway down the page. LOL

    -------

  • Seems to me that there should be enough horsepower in GBA to run Doom or perhaps even Quake1. Is anyone working on a port? Besides how does one go about obtaining a GBA SDK anyway?
  • Well, it's somewhat off-topic, but here goes
    . I don't know about other gamers out there, but I look for a different kind of game for portable play. Something that will let me pass the time away is what works best.

    This is why I (and many others) enjoy things like Tetris so much. You can pick it up and put it down, with no problem.
    This is where the GBA is doing the right thing: bringing back those fun, *nostalgic* games. Those are the enjoyable ones to play when on travel (anyone else enjoy a few rounds of Joust as much as me).

    Here's where the GBA fails, and someone else should pick up the slack:
    1. Autosave. Someone needs to come up with an autosave feature that will let me save the state of my current game, so that I may turn off the machine and resume an hour, week, or month later.
    2. Emulators. For portable games, the most fun ones are the puzzle (e.g. Tetris) and nostalgia games (e.g. Mario, Joust, galaga, etc.). It would be really great if I could play any game from any of the older platforms on my new portable. Ergo, it would need to act as an emulator. Wouldn't it just be the cat's meow if the thing could play games intended for other hw platforms (NeoGeo, Genesis, SNES, GB, etc.)?

    Then again, maybe I'm all alone on this one.

    -D

  • SMA is a Mario 2 remake, just like there is a Mario 1 remake for Game Boy Color (which also included "The Lost Levels" AKA the Japanese Mario 2). It'd be nice if they'd just make a GBA version of Mario Allstars instead of porting each game individually.
  • MAN, SMBA is just mario 2 with a new name. Ask anyone and they will tell you that mario 2 had to be the worst mario ever. To top it off, Nintendo didn't even write mario 2! They bought the game from another company after it was released in japan and changed the graphics to Mario n' friends. This was done because the japanese mario 2 (lost levels in mario all stars) was deemed too hard for us american folk.
  • Nintendo wouldn't need Sega for anything Mega Man related, since Mega Man is a Capcom property.
  • My phone has a Breakout clone on it, which is infinitely more entertaining that the snake game. ;)
  • Nintendo probably won't do it; they made one for the original (Spinach green) Game Boy, but haven't made one that will work with the others (they have different power requirements). However, other companies definately *will* make battery packs. There's one for the GBC that is supposed to get 10 hours, like you guesstimated, and it will work with the GBA if Nintendo doesn't redesign the battery compartment, which they probably will.
  • Umm, this things good enough for first person shooters. It can handle Doom/Duke3d style hybrid 3d/2d engines for one thing. Personally, my favourite feature is the fact that you can plug 4 of them into a gamecube and use that as a server, needing only one cartridge (a feature that I've always wanted in multi-console connecting). Finally you don't need all the kids to play the same damn game to get them together.

    Close, while the GameBoy Advance can connect to the GameCube with a special cable; single cartridge, multi-player games on the GBA don't require the GameCube to act as a server. The system with the cartridge downloads relevant pieces of code to the other systems and acts as the server.

    Still all that, but its only got 4 freaking buttons! And that's only if you count the select and start! I'm sorry, while the dual shock monstrosity of 4 pads and 10 buttons isn't quite needed, they need better then that. I was hoping for a configuration like the one on the SNES (ABXY, LR, sel/strt). Only 2 player used buttons seriously limits gameplay.
    Actually, the GBA has six buttons: Start, Select, A, B, and two shoulder buttons that will presumably be named L and R. It's not quite the number of buttons on the SNES controller, but at least they're there.
  • Also, the original Game Boy had an add-on that would do color like this.

    Nope, you're dreaming. You may be thinkking of the super-gameboy, a device you plug into your super nintendo that allows you to play gameboy games, and allowed gameby games to come with 16(iirc) colours, but only when played on the super-gameboy.

    Gfunk


    --Gfunk
  • First, the Xbox, a consumer console.

    The the Xboy, the portable game machine.

    The the Xboz, the arcade cart!

    Or something like that.

    Geek dating! [bunnyhop.com]
  • you didn't miss anything he's just talking crap he heard on some cheapo zine that needed another story to fill it's newsletter
  • I just hope Nintendo realizes that a large portion of gamers today are adults, and leaves the Pokemon crap off of this system.

    Sorta off-topic, but maybe this will get some attention since it's fairly high up in the comments. It turns out that maybe Nintendo has heard games pleas and has alllowed a very "adult" game to be released for the N64.

    A few days ago a very anticipated videogame by Rare, a second party to Nintendo, was released: Conker's Bad Fur Day [ign.com]. From the same company that brought you Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong 64, comes one of the most hilarious and "mature" games ever released. And on the Nintendo 64 platform too, which is known for its image of being "kiddie". Could it be, a very adult game on the "kiddie" system? Nintendo was still Nintendo however, as the official Conker BFD [conker.com] website attests, with it's multiple "MATURE" warning signs, and Nintendo only marketing the game so as to make sure it is pretty much only seen by people who are over 17; ie putting ads in Playboy and Maxim but not their own Nintendo Power, who won't even review it since it's read mainly be the 12-17 crowd. But the fact that Nintendo is letting this game be released on their system by one of their favorite developers shows that Nintendo isn't as tight-assed as everyone makes them out to be.

    Anyways, it got a 9.9 from IGN and mainly I just wanted to point out that Nintendo (or at least one of hteir developers) can make games for adults too. Besides, have you ever played Pokemon? It's a damn good game, even if you are an adult.
  • Actually, not to nitpick, but the GBA can't display 65536 colors, simply because it hasn't got that many pixels. According to this FAQ [ign.com] the screen is 240 x 160 and can display 32k colors. It also says the processor is 16Mhz and 32-bit, while (I think) the SNES was 16-bit.
  • You are right, it did require every player to have a cart. In the originial design from EYPX called "Handy", did have support for 1 cart multiplayer though.

    They probably dropped this feature to save money on units AND to make more money on carts.

    Too bad Atari is dead... (well, Atari corp. anyway).
  • I think I've outgrown the Gameboy

    That's ironic, because I find portable game platforms more and more appealing as I get older. I just can't be bothered to go home and play a tethered console or PC game when the urge hits. But I can take my portables (Palm, Game Boy, phone, etc.) with me to the office, on business trips, etc.

    I have less leisure time at home for games now than I did when I was a kid, but I love games almost as much. Bring on the portables!
  • that's garbage, the Neo Geo pocket had bust a move AND wasn't just a fighter based system- it WAS QUITE literaly the King of Fighters because as I remember it- the game (king of fighter) was able to hook up to the Dreamcast (also very KoOl) gatta love SNK and Sega!!, c-bob
  • You're gonna have to back up those words with nuclear weapons!!!

    *ahem*
    --
    Peace,
    Lord Omlette
    ICQ# 77863057
  • Oh, and in case you were wondering, the extra 8-bit CISC CPU that is mentioned there is the GBC processor. Instead of having the Game Boy Advance emulate the old Game Boys for compatability, they're just including the Game Boy Color to run the old games.
  • Don't knock it if you haven't tried it.

    Despite the fact that I despise Pokemon as a "suck the kids in" marketing phenomenon, the Pokemon gameboy games are some of the best ever created.

    They're *great* games, they just happen to have stupid characters. =)
  • Was an NES game... SMB 4, aka Super Mario World, was the first game for the SNES. Just thought I'd clear that up.
  • > I'm looking for a good Gyro place in the South >Bay area. If you know of one, please let me know.

    Try Yiassoo on De Anza Blvd in Cupertino.

  • The snake game sucks... (Score:3)

    by Skyshadow ( 508 ) on Wednesday March 07, 2001 @01:01PM (#378048) Homepage
    The snake game sucks, but comes in really handy when you go to the first night of a movie, get there :45 early and have to hold your seats.

    Still, I'd rather play Tetris.

    ----

  • Re:The snake game sucks... (Score:4)

    by great throwdini ( 118430 ) on Wednesday March 07, 2001 @02:42PM (#378049)
    Might I suggest a book. Very usefull time killer.

    Might I suggest a dictionary. Very useful book.

  • Handheld games are awesome (Score:5)

    by ibpooks ( 127372 ) on Wednesday March 07, 2001 @01:01PM (#378050) Homepage
    Not just cell games though. My collection of TI-85 games was the only thing that kept me from stabbing myself in the eye with a pencil during high school math class.
  • Hmm. You gotta admit it's a cute little devil, even with the awkward name of Game Boy Advance, but let's think about the real competition.

    First, does it make the xBox look like a MSFT kludge? Yup. But that wasn't hard.

    Second, does it have primo addictive games and interactivity? Yup. But no killer carts yet.

    Third, is it priced well? Hmmm. I'm not so sure of that.

    When all is said and done, Nintendo has a good track record of actually making money on the box, as well as the games, so even if it has a few lame titles (ever played MIB on the Color Game Boy? yuck ...) it only needs two or three killer addictive games that encourage player to player action and it will do well.

    Of course, I'm biased, since I own NTDOY ADRs and both my son and I have color game boys (but I don't use the cheats ...).

  • I'm quite glad; GBA is long overdue (Score:4)

    by PsionicMan ( 74653 ) on Wednesday March 07, 2001 @01:20PM (#378052) Homepage
    I've owned every US-marketed version of the gameboy (stupid cosmetic changes (like pokemon shells) not included, I mean hardware changes):
    * The original, with the screen of spinach green.
    * The "Pocket", with a gray screen and much improved size (smaller) and battery life (longer).
    * The "Color", with which the main change was the addition of color.

    In addition to these, I own a Sega Nomad--this is a portable Genesis with a backlit screen and horrible battery consumption--and a Neo Geo Pocket Color.

    Out of all of these systems, I like the NGPC the best. The Nomad's 2-hour battery life condemned it from the start, even if you can play Toejam & Earl on vacation. The Game Boy, Game Boy Pocket, and Game Boy Color were nice when they were all I had, but I honestly haven't played any of them since I got my NGPC. The main advantages it had was it's better screen (both in size and colors available IIRC... I also seem to remember it having a little bit more in the CPU department, but I'm not sure). That, combined with one of the overall highest-quality software lineups around made it my favorite from the first time I picked it up.

    However, the almost complete and utter lack of 3rd party support drove it (And SNK as a company) out of the picture.

    All of this brings me to my point, which is incidentally the only thing so far that will address the article at hand.

    The GBA is going to be like having these three general platforms I've described rolled into one. It will have:
    * The Gameboy's userbase and marketing power/brand recognition, plus a lot of software, much of it decent.
    * The Nomad's whole "play your console games on the go" thing. GBA will be able to have many SNES games ported to it, with F-Zero and Super Mario Kart already done/being worked on.
    * What the GBC looked like next to the NGPC, the NGPC will next to the GBA. It's sort of the next level of handheld graphics.[1] So it's similar in that respect to the NGPC. Plus, I expect much quality software from Nintendo for this (like SNK and the NGPC.... ever played SNK vs Capcom: MotM? Best handheld fighter, ever.)

    The current version of GB, Game Boy Color, is really just a Game Boy done up with color as the name implies. Sure, it has a little more horsepower etc, but it's not that much of an improvement.

    Nintendo has essentially stuck with the same handheld for around a decade or more (assuming that my memory serves me right and the GB was a mid- to late-eighties release). The GBA brings a long overdue update to Nintendo's handheld juggernaut.[2]

    --Psi

    [1] No, the Virtual Boy didn't count. I still own mine, though. Dropped it a while back, and now it gives you [more of] a headache [than before].

    [2] Just so you know, kids, the Game Boy was big even before Pokemon!

    Max, in America, it's customary to drive on the right.

  • Didn't you read the page? Nintendo's coming out with Cup and Ball Advance!

    Catch a ball, in a cup!
    In stunning 3D!


    -------
  • Just a few corrections. Game Boy Color [ign.com] was released 3 years ago, and it indeed had color before the Game Boy Advance.

    Some differences are... GBA has a 32 bit processor, and it's turned sideways so you hold it much like a PS/DC/N64 controller.

    A few refinements. Plus backwards compatibility with an ever-growing library of games makes it a winner for me.
    --

  • I just hope Nintendo realizes that a large portion of gamers today are adults, and leaves the Pokemon crap off of this system.

    You just KNOW Nintendo will dive right in with a Pokemon game at launch, or closely afterwards. I just hope 3rd parties jump on board for this system (which so far seems to be happening) more than they did for Nintendo's N64 console. Capcom appears to be porting their popular titles (Super Street Fighter II is listed as one of the games in development for the GBA), and I believe I saw some Konami titles further up on Nintendo's games list [gameboy.com].

    Will I buy one though-- **absolutely**. $99 is a little much (Japan is getting it for around $82), but it's still reasonable and well, I can't help it, I love the idea of playing 4-player Mario Kart Advance. =)

  • Yeah, Mario Allstars was awesome, and that was an SNES title, too.

    Mario 2 was dumb, though; Nintendo needed a new US Mario game, so they bought some silly Arabian game and changed the sprites and whatnot. Hence, the preponderance of deserts and carpets.

    But you probably were reading Nintendo Power back then too, so I'll assume you knew that. :)
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].
  • A) The Game Boy Advance WILL connect to the upcoming GameCube

    B) You have seen this before. The NeoGeo Pocket could connect to the Dreamcast via a special serial cable.

  • Posers.

    I wrote a poker game with a rudimentary AI (granted it sucked) on a Casio 7700G. Now that was some limited hardware.

    ;)

  • There will be no shortage of people who play their GBA on the train or bus on their home to where an Xbox is waiting for big screen fun.

    But MSFT is working on an xBoy to compete with GBA - which they'll probably lose money at, since that's their style.

  • I dunno, Tyrannosaurus Tex [ign.com] for the GBC seems pretty Wolf3D-like, and someone has demo'd [ign.com] a 3D engine for the GBA using the first level of Doom2. So, I wouldn't rule out GBA Doom.
  • First of all, this should get you started with development [agbdev.net]

    Bomberman? oh yeah! that would make such a fun game to play multiplayer. I don't think I ever had the priveledge more than a few times to play a good bomberman game with more than two people, but it is so sweet. This has so much potential.
  • I may be wrong because I'm no video game expert but wasn't GameBoy pretty much dead until Pokemon came along? And if so, is this new GameBoy coming out with a whole line Pokemon games so it doesn't die a horrible and flaming death.
  • Nothing could be more 1337 than DODGE BALL ADVANCE!!!! Screw the PS2, I'm buying that!!!
  • Now, a handheld NES... THAT would be worthwhile.

    Actually the Game Boy Color was more or less a portable NES, actually CGB had a little more power, but it was basically the same thing with a different screen so games wouldn't run verbatum. The Game Boy Advance is pretty much a SNES again with a different screen. Developers have been saying that its more or less a SNES with a SuperFX chip (Star Fox, Stunt Race FX, Yoshi's Island).
  • "My neice, back in Scotland, has many games for her gameboy, and she plays it more often than she ever plays on playstations and computers and so on. I think it shows how it doesn't matter what the game looks like on a handheld, as long as it is well designed."

    Which illustrates exactly why girls/women are more likely to have a Gameboy than a Playstation. Women are not as stimulated visually as men are. Girls are crazy about Pokemon because it emphasises gameplay and collecting, as well as cute monsters. Most games for "NexGen" game systems bore me after a day or two because it's the same thing over and over with different visuals. Which I suppose is why RPG's have done so well lately, because there's somewhat of a story to entertain you since the gameplay is so lame. Hopefully Phantasy Star Online will pave the way for better &quot'NexGen" games.

    I myself am waiting for Nintendo to re-release or make a sequel to "Earthtbound" for Gameboy Advance. I think it was probably the most entertaining RPG game ever: a girl and three boys save the world with baseball bats and frying pans :)

    "I don't want more choice, I just want nicer things!"

  • Yes, actually it is backwards compatible with almost all existing GB and GBC games...though they haven't said which games will have problems. That's why I'm buying it...I still have the original white GameBoy, screw the pocket and color....Advance is finally a worthy upgrade!
  • Ahh! You are correct. It was a 9 that looked just like a g.

    --
  • I suppose your right, but still you gotta love the tone of the sentence. Playstation 2 has "dazzling graphics, with a powerful 128-bit processor", while the Gameboy is merely "32-bit", and only offers the "basics".

    I guarentee someone at Nintendo is shitting bricks over that line alone.
  • You're completely forgetting the Neo Geo Pocket. ...that's the problem though. It was a completely awesome handheld game system, with an excellent selection of games, but it got completely mowed over by Pokemon. Since it didn't have Pokemon, and SNK USA didn't have the ad dollars, nobody knew, or cared, about it. Real shame, since it had incredible potential. I've still got mine, but it's hard to find games for now after SNK pulled everything off the north american market without any warning.
  • Sure. I recently spent many hours playing "Ultima - Runes of Virtue" on a GB during a couple long plane flights, and I'm many times 5 years old.

    It is kind of a pain getting through airport security with one, though. They either want to X-ray it, or turn it on to see if it's really just a game!

  • that would really fun trying to keep it in your pocket, you might be able to make a screw in one, but you would still have to keep track of it, easy for us, difficult for kids
  • <I>I just hope Nintendo realizes that a large portion of gamers today are adults, and leaves the Pokemon crap off of this system</I>

    Have you ever played a pokemon game? Regardless of what you think of the multi zillion dollar pokemon marketing empire, the gameboy games are actually quite good jap RPG's.
  • i bought a gameboy color last fall, it uses 2 AA batteries. nintendo says that those should last around 16 hours but i was able to play (super mario bross :) around 20 hours before batteries were exhausted. so i guess gb advance is not going to be any worse than gb color
  • ...I think your "followers" posts as you are better than your posts as yourself.

    Anyway, similarly, my nieces and nephews have been playing game boy games for years, and the old game boys get handed down to the younger ones as the elder cousins get newer systems.

    As far as this thing being big only because it will be color, well... the color game boy is already in color, so that eliminates that one... I do believe the point is that this new handheld will be a bit more powerful, have a slightly different design, and still be able to play the old game boy games (a big plus, in my book anyway).

    However, they could easily incorporate a feature that I swear I've seen done at one point, but I may have dreamt it: make a way to connect the hand-held game device to the larger console. Given a little time and creativity, there could be a lot of cool things that could be done with a system that was capable of doing that.

    Just some food for thought.

  • Hence the qualifier "might." There's a "South Bay" in LA as well.
  • I may be remembering incorrectly but didn't Doom use a lot of Sprites? And Actually Doom came out for the SNES. one that by your thinking(at least it seems correct me if I'm wrong) has less power than the AGB. Look at the specs, and games were sprite based hella earlier than Polygons showed up on the scene.
  • What about support for Virtual Boy games?! This is Nintendo's chance to get back the fans it alienated by cancelling the much-maligned system. Just look at the Hordes clamouring to have it brought back [cjb.net] (well, come to think of it, all these people have probably gone blind by now, never mind...)
  • The problem with the Game Gear was that it had a backlit screen sucking up the batteries; all of the Game Boys need external lighting. The GBC runs for 20-25 hours on 2 AAs and I think the GBA is supposed to be the same.
  • AA batteries, up to 15 hours (that's probably a very optimistic estimate, though). Not bad, considering that it's better than the SNES in almost every way, except for having fewer buttons and lower resolution. See this GBA FAQ [ign.com] for more details.

  • Stop your flaming (Score:3)

    by euroderf ( 47 ) <a@b.c> on Wednesday March 07, 2001 @01:26PM (#378080) Journal
    Listen, I have been on /. for a long long time, and the thing that affected it badly was the appearance of people like you. Don't attack her just because you disagree with her - that is the road to a hellish monoculture here on /.

    Effectively, it is the first new one in a long time. Sure, there were others. The fact that they did not topple the gameboy, despite being technically better, if anything backs up her point.

    The colour gameboy is pretyty much identical to the original gameboy, and very few games were released supporting the miserable advance in features. This also backs her point up.

    In addition, people can post whatever they like here. If you want high standards of evidence and so on, /. is not the place to look. It is a discussion site, and people can damn well give family anecdotes if they like.

    Your type of elitism disgusts me.
    --

  • It basically IS a handheld NES.

    Yes, the screenshots look crappy. Gimme a break, the thing includes a display with it, but costs much less than consoles that don't have displays. The display is powered batteries, yet needs to run 10-15 hours per charge. Thus, the display is going to be very contrained. You can't really compare it to tethered consoles.

    Don't buy a handheld for its cool looks, but it because its games are fun to play.
    --

  • Game Boy Color isn't really that new; it's just a few hacks on top of the aging Game Boy. Also, the original Game Boy had an add-on that would do color like this.

    And no other non-"GameBoy" handhelds ever really took off, so I can see how someone would see this as the first real Advance in handhelds in 10 years.

    Sad, but true.
  • You left out the best part -- they needed a new US Mario game because they thought their new Japanese one was too hard for Americans :P
  • can someone please mod this "-1, gullible"?
    "-1, humorless" will work as well.
  • Yeah, I was thinking about that a bit after my first post - that is going to be really cool for kids, which is why Pokemon is such a deal - it encourages trades and fights and mail being sent from one player to another.

    And, get this, only one of the four players needs a cartridge. So, if Ian and Maria and Sasha and Jon are all into the same game, and only Ian's parents shelled out for the new Purple version, the whole gang can play.

    This is super nifty - addictive on a social level. It also means you can get a Powerpuff Girls group, with one player for each Powerpuff Girl ("I'm Bubbles! No, I'm Bubbles; you're MoJo JoJo this time!") and one can be the bad guy.

    Gonna rock!

  • My friend and I spent time programming games on the TI-85. The coolest game my friend wrote (who now works on Madden 2001) was Arkanoid. But this wasn't just any arkanoid game... It had 3 different kinds of blocks, a level editor, and it even stored the levels in a compressed vector so you didn't run out of memory. I spent much time on that... Very cool. There was also a pretty solid poker program that either he or I wrote (I can't remember who). We never uploaded them to the net, but we gave them to everyone at our Highschool, so who knows where the games have ended up. :)

    -Ted
  • Well, we all laughed at the "fruity" name of the Dreamcast, and assumed they'd have a different name for America and Europe. But that was about the time that the home office in Japan was really putting their foot down, and they thought it was a great name to have worldwide, so Dreamcast it was. But after you hear/see it a couple hundred times, you really don't notice any more.
  • What, you didn't like the Game Boy Color one [ign.com]?
  • If not, it sure looks like it. The levels in the screen shots certainly look familiar, and there are one or two places that definitely came from Super Mario 2 (which wasn't a Mario game in Japan the first time around...)

  • Yes, the Game Boy Advance console is compatible with almost all official titles that run on Game Boy Pocket and Game Boy Color. There is one title (Workboy) that does not function because it requires a special keyboard that can connect only to the original Game Boy's serial port.

    It accomplishes this the same way the Sega Genesis plays Master System games and the PlayStation 2 plays PlayStation games: it includes a miniaturized version of the previous system, used in native games for I/O processing. It's as if you had a 386 on an ISA bus and an Alpha or PowerPC on a PCI bus on the same machine.

    I'd really like to see a "graphing calculator" attachment for GBC or GBA. That baby would sell because "now you can take your Game Boy console to school and your teacher won't care!"


    All your hallucinogen [pineight.com] are belong to us.

  • The snake game sucks

    While we're on the topic of Nintendo consoles, you can get a version of the snake game for NES here [rose-hulman.edu].

    Still, I'd rather play Tetris.

    Do you want generic falling tetraminoes [8m.com], or do you want to pay through your no$e for the Tetris brand [8m.com]?


    All your hallucinogen [pineight.com] are belong to us.
  • I wasn't expecting so many games from the SNES era, although I guess it's only natural. Well, it's great that there's apparently a system starting where the SNES left off. And apparently they're even making games that aren't based off of PlayStation games or licensed characters! Hooray!

    Possible slogan: "It's like 1991 again... in your pants!"

  • Re:The snake game sucks... (Score:3)

    by sludg-o ( 120354 ) on Wednesday March 07, 2001 @03:18PM (#378119)
    The snake game is also a good time killer when you've got too much freeway in front of you. Good thing you can play it 1-handed or I'd have to steer with my knees.
  • Well, I'd play it if it ran my NES games. Even if they had to re-release them. I guess that'll be the first real hacking project for the GBA: run NES games. :)

    I thought the screenshot looked pretty good, actually. But I don't remember saying anything as to the quality of the video display. I was objecting to the fact that they chose to remake "Mario 2", the worst Mario game for the NES. If they actually remade Mario 3, as the story submitter implied, that would be awesome.

    And yes, I buy systems because its games are fun to play. That's why I owned a C64, an Atari 7800, and an NES. Sadly, I have owned no other good gaming systems besides a PC. I think an SNES or a Playstation might have been worthwhile, but that's about it. Oh, and my g/f has a Vectrex, and that's really fun too. :)
  • Due to the graphical limitations of the hardware, the only way it'll survive is by the strength of it's games. Hopefully, designers will once again be forced to design for playability instead of just trying to cram the flashiest graphics possible into a cart. This may be just what we need to bring back a revival of old-school quality games and get rid of those crappy first-person-shooters.

    I just hope Nintendo realizes that a large portion of gamers today are adults, and leaves the Pokemon crap off of this system.

  • xboy (Score:3)

    by deran9ed ( 300694 ) on Wednesday March 07, 2001 @01:03PM (#378137) Homepage

    Lets not forget XBoy

    Rumors of Microsoft entering the portable gaming market have been reported in abundance for the past six months. However, when a globally respected news source such as MSNBC reports on such rumors, there's sure to be some substantial evidence to support them.


    According to a report by MSNBC, Microsoft has progressed far enough along in discussions concerning the possibility of the company entering the portable gaming market (the fastest growing sector of the industry), that it has given the project a codename in "Xboy".

    The article suggests that if all goes well with Xbox, Microsoft could enter the portable gaming market in 2002 or 2003, bringing to the table significant technological advances (read: 3D visuals) over Nintendo's upcoming Game Boy Advance, which is scheduled to appear in the US this summer.

    The article is quick to point out, though, that Microsoft's main focus at this point and for the foreseeable future is Xbox. The company understands that it must establish a name for itself in the industry before attempting to enter multiple sectors of the market, and to do so, must make Xbox the system by which all others are judged.

    Chief Xbox Officer, Robbie Bach, told MSNBC, "I'm focused on one thing and one thing only. If I take my eye off the Xbox mission for two seconds, I'll lose. I can think about [portable games] when I have time to think about those things."

    Microsoft's competition in the handheld market, namely Nintendo, could be substantially more difficult to defeat than its main competition for Xbox, Sony.

    Nintendo owns 97% of the portable gaming market and has seen the sector grow from $216 million in 1998 to $618 million in 1999 thanks to the introduction of Pokemon. Figures for 2000 should be even more impressive.

    That kind of increase is one any company would be foolish to ignore, and Microsoft, while focused on Xbox, is surely paying at least a shrapnel of attention to the portable gaming market. It will take more than superior technology to draw the masses to a new handheld, though. We just hope that that "more" isn't comparable to 151 colorful monsters.


    CIA mining your info [antioffline.com]
  • I stand corrected by myself. There are actually many Gamboy Advance emulators already out there, in different levels of development, for different platforms, some as hobbies, some by companies, but all I would guess are being used for development right now. This Gamboy Advance Development webpage [agbdev.net] should definitly be mentioned at this point. I saw someone mention doom and quake, and a reply mention wolfenstein. A Wolfenstein clone already exists actually along with many demos, engines, and development tools. The extra emphasis on multiplayer gaming and the immediate independant developement is making me feel tingly.
  • Or on the super-advanced scientific calculators you could write interesting phrases such as the infamous "DEADBEEF" or even "CABBAGE".

    :)

    --
  • Using the link cable four players can play Mario Kart Advance, FZero Advance, or Mario Advance in 2, 3, or 4 player modes with just one cartridge. This is a great feature (although its not new; the Atari Lynx supported this feature long ago!)

  • is it just me? (Score:3)

    by jCaT ( 1320 ) on Wednesday March 07, 2001 @01:04PM (#378141)
    or does the name "game boy advance" just scream bad translation [engrish.com]? I mean come on, nintendo... couldn't you have come out with a better name?
  • I think a lot of people are going to dismiss Game Boy Advance.

    I think that will be a huge mistake, though. People forget that Nintendo's own software designers are extremely top-notch, and you do have to remember the Game Boy Advance has way more computing power than the the original Nintendo system of the 1980's. In addition, GBA can play current Game Boy games, and can function as a controller for Nintendo's upcoming Gamecube system. In Japan, GBA can also play games over the NTT DoCoMo cellular phone system.

    If Nintendo prices it right, they will sell a LOT of Game Boy Advance units here in the USA.

  • Re:The snake game sucks... (Score:5)

    by SquadBoy ( 167263 ) on Wednesday March 07, 2001 @01:05PM (#378143) Homepage Journal
    Might I suggest a book. Very usefull time killer. :)

  • GBA will be great (Score:3)

    by hattig ( 47930 ) on Wednesday March 07, 2001 @03:34PM (#378146) Journal
    I know it isn't going to be the ultimate in hardware gaming platforms ever, but with the great graphics, 240x160 16-bit screen, etc, this is going to make a lot of people happy.

    The 15 hour battery life means it won't be another GameGear or Lynx, where the only way to play it was plugged into the wall. Yeah, very portable. Also making the device backwards compatible with the old gamboy series is a master move, as it means that your investment in portable games will not be wasted ("Take two handhelds into the train?" aka shampoo ads).

    God, I am rambling. Nintendo have always said that they will only release better machines when the market is ready for it, and it can be delivered cheaply. Under $100 is cheap. Look at the cost of a colour Palm IIIc - this has more buttons, 1.5x the screen area, and an expansion port. This has multimedia capabilities (such as MPEG video decoding, great audio, etc). If it had a touchscreen and more RAM it would be the PDA that everyone would want :-).

    The graphics are awesome for a portable device that uses This device will not be playing Quake anytime soon, but Doom is a possibility - albeit with some caveats I am sure. The cartridges can hold either 256Mbits or 512Mbits (32MB or 64MB), which is enough for a portable Doom with all of the WAD files and the like, reduced textures, simplified maps, etc. And with 4 player deathmatch!

    What I want to see is Bomberman - that game was great. ALso that Japanese RPG (SunThingy) looks absolutely awesome, what with those thatched rooves and the like. I don't sound like a 23 year old at the moment do I? I really want to program this device - the VGBA is onlny at version 0.2 though, the dev kits are expensive etc. ARM assembly is the computer equivalent of a long drawn out orgasm, whereas x86 is like a quick wank into a manky tissue and then you get stuff all over the carpet and duvet and stuff.

    I would also like to see a lot of the Amiga classics ported. Alien Breed for one, maybe even Alien Breed 3D - that could run on a bog standard A1200, albeit like Quake III on a S3Virge. This handheld has much more CPU power than the original A1200, nevermind the A500. Other games include New Zealand Story, Addams Family, Sim City, Lionheart, Speedball 2 ... the list goes on and on.

    I think I have talked myself into getting one when they are released over here in dark and distant England. Mario Kart Advance looks like a sure fire buy from here.

    Anyone know where you can find some detailed hardware information about the GBA - not the high level stuff that is on every website, but things like graphics modes, CPU speed, audio functionality, etc?

  • There's also a CNN article which has a bit more information.

    Did anyone else notice the amusing inaccuracy in the CNN story?

    "But the monitor can now show 32,000 vivid colors, far more than the 256 of the original Game Boy -- a spectacular hit selling more than 100 million worldwide since going on sale 11 years ago."

    I don't know about you, but 11 years ago, my original Game Boy couldn't display any colors.

  • Stupid angled bracket... Lets repeat that messed up paragraph...

    The graphics are awesome for a portable device that uses under 0.6W of power, with a 16-20MHz 32-bit CPU. The CPU is much more powerful than the Palms dragonball. You can see the Japanese TV ads online for the GBA, and the graphics are also dead smooth, with parallax scrolling etc in the Mario 2 style game, and the mode 7 style graphics look smoother than the original - still twice the CPU power and 2/3rds the screen area should be helping here.

  • ...that they won't be releasing a Game Girl anytime soon. All those lonely Gaming Boys...

    (but I'm assuming heterosexuality)

  • I think it is quite funny (Score:3)

    by Lover's Arrival, The ( 267435 ) on Wednesday March 07, 2001 @01:09PM (#378164) Homepage
    that this is the first new handheld games system in almost 10 years now. I think it shows that handheld game systems don't really need to be very powerful, do they?They have very low resolution screens, and are played on the go, in the back seats of cars and such, by children, who aren't interested in how well it looks, only by how well it plays.

    My neice, back in Scotland, has many games for her gameboy, and she plays it more often than she ever plays on playstations and computers and so on. I think it shows how it doesn't matter what the game looks like on a handheld, as long as it is well designed.

    I think the big thing with this will be that it is colour. How can you advance a handheld gaming system any further? I think that the gameboy advance will be around for a long time now.

    My ex boyfriend used to play handheld games a lot when he commuted to work, so I suppose he would have been interested, so it is not just for children. I don't think I would want one though. The only games I ever play are solitaire and minesweeper.

  • I just thought that not only does this have potential to emulate games from nintendo because of it's architecture ( as I understand it) but this could be the first new system to actually be emulated right out of the box. People have been saying that it is weak (not a problem for me, give me metroid and I don't care) but that means sweet emulation time. If everyone was on the ball, an emulator could be realese before the actual release of the consol. It would be madness!! try before you buy, oh hell yeah!

  • Who the hell wrote that CNN article? (Score:3)

    by jayhawk88 ( 160512 ) <jayhawk88@gmail.com> on Wednesday March 07, 2001 @04:03PM (#378170)
    Compared to the latest offering from rival Sony Corp., PlayStation2, which delivers dazzling three-dimensional images with a powerful 128-bit processor, the 32-bit Game Boy Advance offers just the basics.

    You know what else I heard? Bicycles really can't compare to the power of a Ferrari. And the tase of apples is much better than the tast of dog crap.

    Is Sony paying a bounty for every time Playstation2 is mentioned on a major media outlet? Geez, the two products aren't even in the same class.
  • It's actually closer to a SuperNES. It supports Mode7 scaling effects, as well as multi-channel sound, things the NES couldn't do. Plus, the processor is faster than the NES processor.

    Color Gameboy was the handheld NES.

  • And still the gameboy amazes me... (Score:5)

    by Lostman ( 172654 ) on Wednesday March 07, 2001 @01:10PM (#378177)
    With as much competition as there is between video game systems and companies constantly expanding new tech and new hardware, the gameboy must be the longest lasting console!

    The gameboy is over 10 years old, and with only minor updates, it is still going strong. I would LOVE to see one of the newer systems be able to boast of that.

    I don't really play that many games, 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 sister so she'll stop wasting her TI-89 with those cruddy little calculator games :)
  • Shouldn't someone tell them that Super Mario Bros. 3 has been out for years already, and was a classic NES title? I also see no reference to it in the article.

    Also, Super Mario Advance looks more like a Mario 2 remake, at least by judging from the screenshots.

    Now, a handheld NES... THAT would be worthwhile.
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].

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