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Games Entertainment

Game Boy Advance Arrives 221

Posted by timothy from the change-is-afoot dept.
Gary writes: "Nintendo begins shipping its next-generation handheld game in Japan this week. Nintendo estimates that it holds a 90 percent share of the portable game market, though some analysts believe that percentage to be even higher. It is the first to have a horizontal alignment, and it is 17 times faster than the Game Boy Color, which was released in 1998." This is the first portable gaming system I'm really tempted by -- horizontal alignment is The Way Things Should Be on such things;) Update: 03/21 03:53 AM by T : And Prabhjeet "The One" Singh writes: "According to Gamespot, Activision will be releasing a version of DOOM for Nintendos upcoming Game Boy Advance. No game has given me more sleepless nights. Now its time for sleepless plane rides, mall trips, etc. I can't wait."
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Game Boy Advance Arrives More

Game Boy Advance Arrives

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  • Nintendo's been milking the Game Boy for about what, 10 years now? They were all the rage when I was in first grade, and now they're all the rage now in tenth grade.

    Really, though, does this new GB have a backlit display finally? Does it slurp up batteries like the Game Gear did?

  • First Game Boy to have a horizontal alignment, yes.

    First handheld period, hell no. Sega Game Gear had both horizontal alignment and a color screen years ago.
  • anyone know how long one can play on these things before a recharge?
  • "It is the first to have a horizontal alignment"

    Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't the Atari Lynx, Sega GameGear, Sega Nomad, and Neo-Geo Pocket Color all "horizontally aligned"?

    In fact, about the only vertically aligned handheld game system I can think of is the original Gameboy!
  • I'm assuming horizontal alignment means the controls are horizontal from the screen? has everyone forgotten about the ill fated Sega Game Gear [vgmuseum.com]??? 3.58 mhz of pure gaming speed, who could ask for more!
  • How long before someone puts Linux on one of these.... That's all we need.. A gameboy pda. ;)
  • This thing is laid out almost exactly the same as the ill fated sega game gear..

    Looks killer though
  • The new Gameboy will plug into the upcoming Cube to act as a controller... a controller with a seperate screen. Wonder if you could use this to set up a second view? (i.e., rear mirror in a racing game)

    Neu

  • So this is the one where they are reselling all their SNES games, instead of the one where they are working on reselling all their NES games? I looked at Shadowgate for Game Boy for about 10 whole seconds before I realized it was an identical port of the NES version.

    The emulator/abandonware folks aren't going to like this that much.
  • I took that sentence to mean the first nintendo portable to have horizontal alignment ...
  • As long as you are going to go there...


    Can you imagine a Beowulf Cluster of these?
    P.B. lives.

  • Read that quote in context.

    "It is the first to have a horizontal alignment", implying the first Game Boy not the first handheld console.

    Are you people just trying to find 'mistakes' where there are none?

  • Does anyone else hate its name? (Score:5)

    by stevens ( 84346 ) on Tuesday March 20, 2001 @06:04PM (#350971) Homepage

    I hate the name. It's like they're asking us to adopt pronunciation mistakes made by non-fluent English speakers.

    Come on, "advance" isn't an adjective, it's a verb. It should be "Game Boy Advanced" if anything.

    And if they wanted to be funny while misusing the language, it should be "All your game boy are belong to us." :-)

  • Don't forget about the Lynx and others..those were great systems. I believe that Game Boys are long since due for a major, major upgrade. Yes, Game Gear ruled. Buy a TV tuner card and you have a portable TV + a portable gaming system, with an adapter that supported the old Sega Master System games...all happening about 7 years ago - amazing.
  • There goes my chance to release my own hand-held system and thwomp Nintendo. ;)
  • Yup, and the Atari Lynx had it years before that.

    All that, in addition to the networking of up to (IIRC) 8 players. Too bad the software guys didn't release much...
  • Uhhh... Read that quote in context.

    "It is the first to have a horizontal alignment", implying the first Game Boy not the first handheld console.

    Are you people just trying to find 'mistakes' where there are none?

  • Re:battery life? (Score:3)

    by CybrGuyRSB ( 410357 ) on Tuesday March 20, 2001 @06:07PM (#350976)
    According to Nintendo, GBA will have about a 15 hr. battery life. (5 hrs. more than Game Boy Color) Of course, I guess it depends on the quality of the batteries, etc. You can read about it on their web-site [gameboy.com]. I don't think any third party has tested the system out yet, so we just have to trust what Nintendo says for now.

  • Re:Looks like a sega gamegear (Score:3)

    by Xenex ( 97062 ) <xenex&opinionstick,com> on Tuesday March 20, 2001 @06:09PM (#350977) Journal
    Yeah, it's basic design is very similar (Control, Screen, Buttons) but it is ALOT smaller. In August last year when Nintendo first displayed the GBA the presentor (I cannot remember his name, but he is a fair way up the Nintendo chain of command) pulled the GBA out of his jacket pocket. It is very tiny, but the screen itself is bigger then the current Game Boys.

    Also, it's battery consumption is FAR lower then the Game Gear. Ten years of technological progress helps that, along with no backlight...

  • Gameboy PDA (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    There's already a form of PDA for the Gameboy. It's a freeware ROM made by TeamKNOX [tripod.com]. You can download it from here [tripod.com]. If you need an emulator for it you can download one (Windows) here [www.work.de]. It's actually pretty fun to play with. There is also a retail GB PDA, made by Datel, but I believe it is only available in Europe.
  • I do not understand the big fuss about horizontal alignment. It would just seem to be more of a hassle to play. With the vertical configuration your arms are in tighter, allowing you to play in more confined spaces. I used to play tetris lying on my side in bed, but with the new gameboy one arm would uncomfortably be up in the air. It just seems easier to keep your arms rested and play for long hours with the old config. Aside from the ability to have LR buttons on the top, what's the advantage?
  • Did anyone hear about the handheld microsoft is supposed to release after the Xbox? I just read about it somewhere but it didn't go into any detail.
  • What really needs to happen is for Sony and Handspring and Palm to dump their proprietary module formats and get Palm OS to support Game Boy cartridges. Oh, yeah.
  • No, you still have a few hours to design it and get it to market:) Look on it as a challenge:)

    Firepro Wrestling A (I believe that's the title) is one game for the GBA that will never be released here for idiotic copyright reasons. Real shame if you're into puroresu...

    ---

  • Actually, the Turbo Express [pcenginefx.com] was vertically aligned.

    It also played the same hu-cards as the TG-16.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • "It is the first to have a horizontal alignment", implying the first Game Boy not the first handheld console.

    Are you people just trying to find 'mistakes' where there are none?

    Actually, the sentence was rather ambiguous regarding whether it referred to the first handheld, or first Game Boy. Details matter in a world where marketing relies on word games.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • The problem with the Game Gear was that the games sucked. I remember at the time when I played with my friend's Game Gear I was impressed, but looking back on it now I realize that none of the games (at least none that my friend had) were as good as the games on Game Boy. Consider Zelda: Link's Awakening (I realize that it came out after the Game Gear faded away, but it's the best example of a good Game Boy game). The game was on par with Zelda: A Link to the Past. It was a solid game with great gameplay and great graphics. Looking back on the Game Gear, the graphics weren't that great, the colors were vivid leading one to overlook the graphic deficiencies. Also, the Game Gear games I played had rather simple game play.


    "Homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto"
    (I am a man: nothing human is alien to me)

  • Now instead of "Pokemon Gold" and "Pokemon Silver" we can have "Pokemon Midnight Blue" and "Pokemon Burnt Sienna" and "Pokemon Baby Poo Green."

    I can't wait! Pikachu! Bizatchu!

  • Re:Ugh (Score:2)

    by Xenex ( 97062 )
    "The emulator/abandonware folks aren't going to like this that much."

    Actully, this takes away one of the most popular ways that people try to justify the piracy of old games- that the owner isn't making money from it anymore.

    Nintendo's 'classic' games such as the Super Mario series are hardly abandonware. Super Mario Bros Delux being an enhanced version of the original SMB (one of my favorite games of all time), and Super Mario Advance, an updated version of SMB2 from the All-Stars SNES game, a launch title for the GBA.

    It doesn't matter if the rom scene doesn't "like this much", because they are still stealing.

    (Disclaimer: I am not anti emulation. I emulate all the Nintendo hardware I own to play the software I've bought, be it NES, SNES, GB, N64... I just am not pro ROM piracy. Yes, it is illegal to copy games, no matter how old, an no, you can't keep them for 24-hours as many sites like to say [rant mode off])

  • I saw Silent Hill run on that thing. That thing is like a minnie handheld playstation. I thought it was just a handheld snes, but after seeing SH, it's more.
  • Ummm.....You know the game Donkey Kong? Does it have any donkeys in it? Do you think it perhaps should have been called Monkey Kong? Did it still sell crap-loads? I don't think they really care. Neither does the market.
  • Yeah, we didn't have a 'Game Boy Colored' either...
    I guess 'ed's just aren't cool enough... :-)

    And anyway, Nintendo spelt 'Colour' wrong too ;)

    /me dons the flame suit

  • The trouble is that most Palm's and Visors can't handle it. Someone ported a Game Boy emulator to PalmOS but found that the hardware just couldn't cut it (actually, now that I think of it, I think there is a Game Boy emulator for Palm OS that people are actually using, but I doubt it works overwhelmingly well). The Visor Platinum and Visor Edge might be able to run Game Boy games in emulation.


    "Homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto"
    (I am a man: nothing human is alien to me)

  • Yeah, I hear it's the same (or simmilar) architecture and porting games will be a sinch. I 'LIKE' some of those old SNES games though, so I don't see this as a bad thing.
  • "Nintendo begins shipping its next-generation handheld game ... a 90 percent share of the portable game market ... it is the first to have a horizontal alignment"

    There is no prior reference to the words 'Game Boy' in the body. Though you may know what it means, the statement is incorrect as it stands.

  • I think you missed the point of the previous post.. The poster seemed to be suggesting that the Palm OS be ported to the GameBoy, rather than trying to port games to the Palm.. If this thing's quicker, and can accept expansion modules, then it could make a pretty slick PDA..
  • Doesn't this machine seem a bit too small, even for a handheld? I don't care how many thousands of colors it can show, if the screen's 41mm x 61mm, does it really matter that much? This is not a flame.

  • The Game Boy Color isn't simply the same machine as the orginal GB with a colour screen, but actully has a faster processor. That is why there are some games out now that require a GBColor, because they are built needing the newer chip.

    Anyway, last I heard the GBA includes the GBC chip with it so it's 100% backwards compatible with all the old games (unlike Sony's poor effort with the PS2 playing PS1 games). But then, I might be wrong, I haven't read up on the GBA much since it was shown off last year with the GameCube...

  • Activision issued this press release [activision.com] today, detailing plans for a GBA DOOM game! This comes shortly after the announcement of an all-new Commander Keen title for GBC. Let me the first to issue a hearty double woot! From the press release:
    DOOM®


    Based on the most popular action-shooter of all time, id Software's DOOM for Game Boy Advance features all of the frenetic, adrenaline pumping action and immersive gameplay from the original PC game. True to the original, the game features an advanced 3D graphics engine and an onslaught of horrific demons. DOOM challenges players to face off against attacks from cyber-organic creatures and demons in a timeless battle of skill and firepower.
  • Alright, I really hate to get off-topic like this, but since when did www.howstuffworks.com turn into a media front for Nintendo? I mean, I've used the website several times to show stuff to people that I couldn't explain well, and I've always thought that they did an excellent job, but that articale wasn't blatently spouting off Nintendo's message. There was barely any review of what the actually hardware was (although I do like the fact that its using an ARM processor (who wants to hack it for Linux??))... Sorry to go off-topic, but I just had to say something. Oh yeah, what's the deal with the colors on the GBA???
  • 15 hours for AA batteries and 10 hours for the rechargable battery pack made by Nintendo. The GBA also lacks an AC adapter port, instead the AC adapter is designed to fit into the battery compartment in place of the batteries.
  • Four Player link up Mario Kart, and with the GBA you only need one cartrage between all four. Mmmm, portible battle mode...

    Yeah, I think of the GBA as something in the middle of the SNES and the N64, it's 2D is almost on par with the N64 (one of the original demos Nintendo released for the GBA was what was pretty much a stright port of Yoshi's Story on the N64 [bad game, nice graphics]). However, it's 3D is nowhere near up to the N64, but Nintendo have said that this thing is not for mass 3D games.

    I can't wait to replay alot of classic SNES games with updated graphics and levels, it'll be like a flashback to my childhood :)

  • No consumer electronic equipment is worth a hoot until *nix runs on it!

    -Spack
  • I love how I submitted this information about the GameBoy Advance on
    2001-02-02 16:23:38 Game Boy Gets Advance (articles,games) (rejected)

    which was totally rejected, nice scoup guys, you just a tad behind tho, been there done that...

    I think though as I said before its a smart marketing and production act to rerelease old games, not only for us who remember the titles, but those like my sister who may never have experienced great games like "Pilot Wings", "Super Mario Bros. 2", and "F-Zero" etc etc. In order to truely apreciate games you must play the past realize it takes much more than graphics it takes STORY and these old games really had that going on, so cudos to Nintendo for bringing back great memories.

    "Why do I need a girlfriend when I got women I don't even know yelling at me!?" -- roomate
  • From what I've read about the GBA's design Nintendo went with the horizontal alignment because it worked better with the wider screen and people with large hands complained that buttons were too close together. The entire system is really quite small so horizontal alignment probably won't be too bad.
  • this is a quote from the site

    The Game Boy Advance is Nintendo's first horizontally aligned handheld game.



  • Donkey Kong is wordplay on King/Donkey.
  • Or the genesis for the second system Sega made.

    It was called "Genesis" because it was the first true 16bit video game console.

  • Yes, exactly my point. People who think they were reasonably safe and moral in what they were doing (nintendo *wasn't* making money on a lot of those titles for quite some time) will suddenly find themselves further over the line of legality than they probably want to be.
  • Find me another connector that's more proprietary that Nintendo's. Go ahead. I dare ya.
  • Nintendo's been milking the Game Boy for about what, 10 years now? They were all the rage when I was in first grade, and now they're all the rage now in tenth grade.

    I'd say that Nintendo has done much more than milk Game Boy. The 15,000 versions of pokemon that annoyingly dominated all the gaming sales for awhile are almost responsible for keeping Nintendo afloat (if not financially at least in people's minds) for the past 2 years.
  • My shoulders are broad. The GB forced me to hold it in a really goofy posture. The horizontal layout is superior for adults, and it's a wash for kids, so it's a better design.
  • No, actully, I was because I was pissed off that people kept saying "1st horiz. handheld" when they knew that the post was refering to the Game Boy, so I resubmitted it to all the people going "What about the Game Gear?!"

    Ha, like I'm a karma whore. I've had this account for well over a year and I only started getting the +1 bonus a month or so ago. If i'm a karma whore, i'm doing a pretty poor job...

    It's a Nintendo related story. They're the ones I post to the most. I'm sorry if posting alot to one story makes me a 'karma whore'.

  • What an arbitrary benchmark to association with the creation. :)
  • No it does not have a backlit display. It has a reflective screen.

    The battery life is 15-20 hours.
  • sure but not as legal =) there is also something a bit more satisfying stuffing a big plastic cartridge into a consul
  • Ill-fated Game Gear? How about the ill-fated Sega Nomad? And the Virtual Boy might count as horizontal...how many people bought those pieces of monkey dung? I say Nintendo has an uphill PR battle to overcome the Horizontal Curse.
    ------------------------
  • was the gameboy advnace released somewhere else already?? I found an emulator page for it:

    HERE [emuhq.com]

  • Re:Go Zilog! (Score:4)

    by spectecjr ( 31235 ) on Tuesday March 20, 2001 @07:05PM (#351026) Homepage
    Am I the only person who didn't realize that the GB still used a Z80 processor still?

    Actually, it's not a Z80 -- it has a couple of specialized instructions, and is missing the exchange register set. But it's pretty damn close.

    Actually, it's pretty close to an 8080 with different mnemonics, but I digress.

    Check out here [devrs.com] for the instruction listings, if you'd like to know more, or here [devrs.com] for info on D-I-Y original gameboy and gameboy color development.

    Simon
  • I can't see why Microsoft would produce a handheld gaqme unit separate from their PocketPC line.

    I give the game boy max this generation. After that the handheld platform will be a $50 convergence of Palm meets Blackberry meets gameboy.

    Oh I forgot it will play MP3! if the game boy does not they are lusers

    First thing that hit me when I read the PocketPC specs was the audio input and output.

    What would be ultra mega cool would be a device like my Archos 6Gb MP3 player with an o/s and display.

    WiFi internet connectivity would be cool as well. Then you could play games at the back of a lecture hall.

    Sorry, I just can't get excited about carrying another gadget arround with me. Already I have a RIM pager, Palm VII, Cell Phone, Archos Mp3 jukebox - not to mention the DVD theatre. Now it occurs to me that one of the new Sony Vaios would be smaller than that lot. And it would play games that would kick ass compared to the Gameboy (as cartman would say.)

  • First, the machine has been said to be very flimsy and the screen dim. Not flamebait but just facts. Read a review here [dailyradar.com].

    The machine uses the same LCD idea as the Gameboy Color (no backlight to save battery life), but with a larger resolution vs. a paltry 160x120 with 64 colors on screen at one time (Gameboy Color), it's hard to see. You can only go so far with upending resolutions on a not-backlit screen before people start to notice.

    There are a couple of obvious design flaws. The cartridge stickers actually face *in*, so you can't see what game you're playing from the back when you turn the until off. The L and R buttons are a bit of an odd touch (traditionally, to use L and R you have to take your hands off the back of the device -- which in this case, would cause you to drop it). When you plug a normal Gameboy or Gameboy Color game in it sticks out the top of the unit.

    Couple that with the Hello Kitty colors and the small-buttons, and you don't exactly have a game machine that's going to tie over the Playstation masses. If Sony ever decided to make a handheld device that could play PS One games (which has been rumored for years now), they would win over a lot of adult gamers. All they would need is a battery to recharge a small CD player, and a cost-effective screen like the Gameboy Advance.

    P.S. Doom on Gameboy Advance is going to be like Doom for Super Nintendo. That is, slow frame rates, using Mode 7 to generate pixelated graphics. No texture smoothing. Just blocky goodness (and a tinny sounding speaker to hear the grunts).

  • I'll vouch for that. Final Fantasy IX runs like a dream on my PS2 (and with texture smoothing on it's absolutely delicious).
  • Well, just be fortunate it doesn't have the typical anime translation name.

    "Super Magnetic Advanced Gameboy Successor Cowboy Bebop Neo"

  • Activision issued this press release today, detailing plans for a GBA DOOM game!

    Question - Given that this is for a Nintendo platform, will this be butchered as badly as I'm told Castle Wolfenstein was?

    I'm told that Nintendo has some pretty draconian content restrictions.
  • A relife for the 16 bit era? could the SNES 'time of light' be once again upon us? It looks that way- from the game lists anyway. But it makes me wonder-- very few things nowadays are done for the 'fans'- they're done for the $'s and the Advance seems too good to be true.

    Does anyone know if tey confirmed the FF4-6 remakes yet?
    ----

  • The new Gameboy will plug into the upcoming Cube to act as a controller... a controller with a seperate screen. Wonder if you could use this to set up a second view?

    • Too much work for your eyes to keep looking back and forth between the TV and the GBA. Better to do what most Super NES games did and put the rear view in a window above the main screen.
    • I don't think there'd be enough bandwidth to shove that much video down the pipe. No, realtime DivX ;-) is not the answer; I don't think the ARM processor in the GBA is that fast.
    • The digital pad doesn't provide much control in racing games. You need analog for steering nowadays.

    Selecting plays for american football is a different matter entirely. But the Dreamcast did this how long ago? *cough*VMU*/cough*

  • I suppose that it is once the terms of the original copyright run out, don't you?

    Copyrights expire? Where'd you get that idea? Anything copyrightable first published on or after January 1, 1923, is under perpetual copyright [8m.com] in the United States.

  • GB is faster than GG (Score:3)

    by yerricde ( 125198 ) on Tuesday March 20, 2001 @09:37PM (#351063) Homepage Journal

    has everyone forgotten about the ill fated Sega Game Gear??? 3.58 mhz of pure gaming speed, who could ask for more!

    Sega Game Gear has a 3.58 MHz Zilog Z80 microprocessor (and a reduced Sega Master System chipset). Zilog Z80 has several "advanced" instructions that are on the die but were not fully tested (or documented) in the first run of chips. Nintendo Game Boy has a 4.0 MHz Sharp Z80-clone processor with a different set of "advanced" instructions. Game Boy Color can overclock the gb-z80 (as emulator developers call it) to 8.0 MHz on newer games for more performance.

    Taking a cue from Sega Genesis and Sony PlayStation 2 (the latter just recently came out where I live), Game Boy Advance contains a 4/8 MHz gb-z80 processor (and the rest of the original GB hardware) as an I/O controller. There's also a 17 MHz (?) ARM processor, sprite-scaling hardware (think Super NES with Super FX acceleration) with 511 simultaneous colors, and two digital PCM channels (left and right); software expands this to 16 or so voices (think .mod players for SB).

  • Anyway, last I heard the GBA includes the GBC chip with it so it's 100% backwards compatible with all the old games

    (Sega did the same thing with the Genesis, to play Master System games.) There was actually one title that required the original (green screen) Game Boy because it included a keyboard that plugged into the serial port on the side and didn't fit into the smaller connectors on GB Pocket and GB Color. This title was Workboy [dailyradar.com]; it foreshadowed the modern PDA.

  • Re:Hmm.. 90%? (Score:4)

    by The_Messenger ( 110966 ) on Tuesday March 20, 2001 @09:52PM (#351068) Homepage Journal
    The Nomad and Lynx sold very poorly. The Virtual Boy did even worse -- I'd be amazed if they sold one. The Game Gear was mildly successful but was never as popular as the Game Bou due to its higher cost, lower battery life, and lack of good games. I say this as a former Game Gear owner... there were some awesome games (such as Sonic 2 and Mortal Kombat) but they couldn't keep good games coming out consistently.

    Game Boy was successful because of its games and its steadily dropping price. It may have also had something to do with the fact that the Game Boy never tried to do too much. Each new version has built slowly and steadily upon its predecessor, while maintaining backwards compatability. The Game Boy Pocket had a smaller chassis and a much sharper/clearer screen. The Game Boy Color added a faster processor and basic color support. The GBA is their biggest leap forward yet, but unless it completely sucks, I think Nintendo has the name recognition to pull it off. (And hell, it's about the only name recognition Nintendo has left.)

    Anyway, I think that 90% is actually a bit low. Six or seven years ago, they probably had 60-70% of the market. Today, I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo has 99% of the handheld market. Their few competitors have dropped off the face of the earth, and they keep on releasing more popular games. (Donkey Kong, Pokemon series, et cetera. I don't play GB anymore but my 12-year-old brother is a GB nut and I can tell what's popular from what he and his friends play.)

    --

  • Question - Given that this is for a Nintendo platform, will this be butchered as badly as I'm told Castle Wolfenstein was?

    Only four things were changed in Wolfenstein 3d: Germany ==> Master State; Hitler ==> Staatmeister; Hitler photo ==> developer's mug; Swastika ==> Eagle. (Note: butcher is also the last name of the guy who claims to have created Precious Moments [preciousmo...munity.com].)

    I'm told that Nintendo has some pretty draconian content restrictions.

    SNES Mortal Kombat's blood was always light gray. When Nintendo realized that the red blood code (a b a c a b b) on Sega Mortal Kombat was selling Genesis consoles the way pixel-perfect Street Fighter II had sold SNES consoles, it wisely allowed configurable red/green/no blood in Mortal Kombat II and subsequent games. There was a relatively unaltered Doom port (a few levels and a lot of framerate were lost in the 2 megabyte cartridge) to SNES+SuperFX, which is incidentally the model Nintendo uses to explain the graphics power of GBA.

  • Re:Does anyone else hate its name? (Score:3)

    by coaxial ( 28297 ) on Tuesday March 20, 2001 @10:05PM (#351071) Homepage
    > And anyway, Nintendo spelt 'Colour' wrong too ;)

    Hey. Can Nintendo and the US help it the rest of the world are bad spellers?

    Or for our european (and european colony (ie
    Canada) brethren:

    Hey. Can Nintendo and the US help it the rest of the wourld are bad spellres?

  • but lets set the minimum requirement as needing a 500MHz PIII or better and at least a Geforce2 or Radeon. Anything cannot be considered an innovation

    All those first-person shooters seem to be innovating off each other ;-)

    or cutting-edge in any way...Unless it meets those requirements, it's not breaking new ground.

    Not everybody has US$2500+ to spend on a mobile system that meets those requirements. US$100 for a Game Boy Advance system buys you an awful lot.

    C'mon, now...the GBA raises a sub-NES quality game system to sub-SNES status now.

    Bull. GBA is as powerful as the Super NES ever was, and it's easier to code for because of good C compilers for ARM (the Super NES's 65c816 is very NOT C friendly). It's even more powerful because GBA includes sprite scaling and rotation, which required Super FX acceleration on Super NES. We're talking 3DO or Saturn graphics here.

    I saw people playing one of those ancient Atari 2600s a while back (ATTN: 70% of slashdot readers werent even born when these things were in use...so stop talking about them, they're DINOSAURS) -- it gave me a headache just looking at that awful blocky crap

    Atari 2600 had backgrounds of 2 colors (out of about 16) per scanline and 40x100 pixels. It also had only 128 bytes of RAM and half a scanline's worth of VRAM. Heck, it was just barely Tetris-complete[?] [everything2.com]. GBA, on the other hand, has a 240x160 display with 511 simultaneous colors and sprite scaling and 384 kilobytes of RAM.

    If you want the best graphics, get GIMP, WinGIMP [gimp.org], or Photoshop. If you want the best animated 3D graphics, get a DVD player. If you want gameplay and don't want to waste money, get a GBA.

  • FYI, 'Mode 7' doesn't exist on the GBA, only a better implemenation that results in the same, but better effect

    Mode 7 is rotation and scaling of background scanlines to produce planar 3D effects. See a demo of Mode 7-style effects here [8m.com].

  • a paltry 160x120

    160x144. Eighteen rows of twenty tiles each. Count the lines of text on the original Tetris® [8m.com]'s copyright screen (including the blank lines). Picky, but when you use numbers, you should use the correct ones.

    If Sony ever decided to make a handheld device that could play PS One games (which has been rumored for years now)

    Then they would need to invent shock protection like I've never seen. Kids. Drop. Game. Boys. And they use them in moving vehicles, where vibration and ever-changing effective-g directions are big concerns.

    and a tinny sounding speaker to hear the grunts

    Assuming you don't have it hooked up to the car stereo (with the big thumping 12" subwoofer; all your bass are belong to us) or Sennheiser headphones.

    What I really want to see is a port of Zero Wing [planetstarsiege.com].

  • Developing (Score:4)

    by donglekey ( 124433 ) on Tuesday March 20, 2001 @10:40PM (#351079) Homepage
    This should be mentioned, if it hasn't already. There is a great gameboy advance development site at http://www.agbdev.net/gbadev/ [agbdev.net] You can find links there to demo's, and all sorts of tools and tutorials.
  • MONKEY KONG was supposed to be it's actual name.

    DONKEY came from a either a typo, mispronounciation, or mistranslation - whichever it was has been lost to history, or so I've heard many times over.

    No. This isn't a joke.

    ALL YOUR MONKEY ARE DONKEY KONG TO US!


    "Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
  • "Mode 7" when not done using the SNES Mode 7 hardware was normally called Rotoscaling.

    It had been seen in arcade hardware prior to becoming popular on the SNES, thoughI believe arcade hardware often used brute CPU power to pull off the effects.

    Psygnosis (I think) proved that it could be done using nothing but the COPPER in the Amiga. This was demonstrated in the game BRIAN THE LION.

    "Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
  • The Turbo Express was ever TG-16 fan's dream come true.

    The problem, is that while a brand new TG-16 cost $149 in it's day, a Turbo Express was roughly $349, as I recall. The price did drop, but it dropped proportionately to the popularity of the system.

    Before it's final demise, I remember buying NEW games at Toys-R-Us for $9.


    "Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
  • I think Conker's Bad Fur Day [rareware.com] proves they've given up on being sweet and innocent.

    But then, Rareware were always really warped dispite Nintendo's previous image.

    "Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
  • It's even more powerful because GBA includes sprite scaling and rotation, which required Super FX acceleration on Super NES.

    Rotoscaling did not require the SuperFX chip. The SuperFX was pure marketing hype. Very technically speaking, the SuperFX chip was nothing more than a 4, 8, or 12 mhz Math-Coprocessor which was added to some vector based games such as StarFox, FX Racing, and later, used to aid the Mode 7 hardware to set up the geometry for DOOM. (Bitmap rotoscaling was still handled by the Mode 7, but the vector surfaces were generatd by SuperFX, as best I understand it - a real hack.)

    What's worse is that developers often refused to develope using SuperFX because including the hardware on the catridge increased the cost of the game (duh!).



    "Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
  • Doesn't anyone else remember old Nintendo game watches? Pop eye, Donky kong etc. Check out www.gameandwatch.com [gameandwatch.com].
  • I got a problem with these game pads controllers, whether integrated or not in a console :
    The arrow-keys are usually on the left while the action keys are on the right.
    My problem is that I am used to playing with a computer keyboard on which the arrow-keys are on the right and the action key (space bar, etc) are left to these.
    I am actually very bad with such inverted key configurations.
    Is there a way to invert this or will I have to dismount the GBA case to invert the screen?
    Of course, the best for me would be to have the opportunity to buy a "left-handed" GBA.
    --

  • Presumably either RiscBSD or ARMLinux will run on this with a 'little' reworking.

  • Actually, Nintendo started as a playing card company many years ago. They didn't start dabbling in videogames until the 1970's, which resulted in the original Famicom system unveiled in the middle 1980's.
  • While it's true that Game Boy now has the handheld market pretty much to itself, I think the Game Boy franchise was actually starting to go rapidly downhill until this thing called Pokémon (or Pocket Monsters as it is called in Japan) single-handedly revived Game Boy sales, so much so that the revenue from the Pokémon franchise most likely paid for the development of the Game Boy Advance and the GameCube.
  • The writer wrote: It is the first to have a horizontal alignment which is WRONG! What about Game Gear? Lynx? Nomad? ALL of these were HORIZONTAL. The original game boy was the only one that came in a nice, compact, vertical package. I bet the only reason Gameboy Advanced came out in the format it is in was for room! I bet that, within a few years, they will be back to the original, classic Gameboy format, or a format simlar to the slimmer Pocket Gameboy.
  • Actually the GB is usually regarded as a 1 Mhz system, (and the GBC as 2 Mhz, even Nintendo themselves says that they are 1/2 Mhz systems...), since the fastest instructions uses 4 clock-cycles to execute. The slower instructions uses multiples of 4 cycles (8, 12, 16 and so on...)
  • My guess would be that the GBA is much more powerful than the SNES though... The SNES has an 16 bit CISC CPU at only a few MHz... the GBA has an 32 bit RISC CPU at 17 (?) MHz, and much more powerful sound and video hardware. The GBA can handle 512 colors in character mode, with any sprite size and scalable sprites, and 2*Mode7, and so on. The SNES can only handle 256 colors, with 8xN sprite size. The GBA can also handle 32000 colors at once on screen in bitmap mode. The number of voices in GBA sound is only limited by CPU power (I've read that around 12 at once is reasonable in games). The GBA can even stream sound directly off the cart. (It doesn't have to be copied to RAM first.)
  • It's why I got a Game Gear(Spyro the Dragon is why I got a Playstation).

    I've got both a Game Gear and a Nomad. On the Nomad I like the Sonic series, Vectorman, and Earthworm Jim. The thing I really like about Nomad is the ability to hook it up to a TV with the video out, plus the ability to plug a second Sega joystick into the unit for two player games.

    To combat the battery issue, I use the rechargable battery pack(it clips onto your belt). Of course, I've not used it in a while, so I suspect it won't hold a charge anymore.

  • Considering that Doom ran on fast 386's as well in a sort of playable state, I don't think that the GBA is going to be having any problems with the game.

    I don't know how the (16MHz?) ARM processor in the GBA compares against a 33MHz 486 which could play Doom well, but that 486 would not have had built-in 3Dish hardware, sprite scaling capabilities, etc, so it is coming out about equal in the end I reckon. GBA cartridges can hold 256Mbits of data (32MB), possibly even more, and it is possible that they can use data compression like the N64 (anyone know?). Should be enough space for a full version of Doom.
  • The general ordered the troops to advance. (verb)
    The soldier asked for an advance on his paycheck. (noun)
    The general sent in the advance troops. (adjective)

    English allows words to change it's part of speech pretty easily, or, as my friend used to say "You can verb any noun in the language."
    --
  • SCreen is 240x160, which allows 38400 pixels, and the GBA can display all 2^15 = 32768 colours at the same time in one of its bitmap modes, so yes, you can put every colour on screen at once if you wanted.

    What this actually shows is how low the prices of reflective colour TFT screens has gone. Even if Nintendo are selling the machine at a loss (possibly), then the screen (which is 50% higher resolution than a Palm m505's) isn't costing much either, say $10 - $40. Anyone know any better the trade prices for small format colour TFT screens?

    Makes the Palm m505 look expensive for what it is. But you are paying for the platform there, not the hardware.

    Still, if Linux/BSD/AmigaNG/QNX/etc could be ported to the GBA, and someone came up with a thin touch sensitive attachment for the GBA that plugged into the serial port, then maybe some serious PDA development could occur.

  • The SNES can only handle 256 colors

    Unless you use the Super NES's additive and subtractive color modes, which make it relatively easy to display 4,096 colors in backgrounds. There are three scrolling planes with 16 colors each; set their palettes to redscale, greenscale, and bluescale and you can overlay them to produce lots and lots of pretty colors.

    with 8xN sprite size

    Super NES can display sprites up to 64x64. Up to 256 pixels of sprites can be on one scanline.

    The GBA can even stream sound directly off the cart. (It doesn't have to be copied to RAM first.)

    Heck, the 8-bit NES could do that; it was used for the drums in Contra and Super Mario Bros. 3 and for the explosions in Bomberman. Interplay's sound engine on Super NES could do something similar: streaming sound data from the cart to the SPC700's RAM while the game is playing.

  • Actually the GB is usually regarded as a 1 Mhz system, (and the GBC as 2 Mhz, even Nintendo themselves says that they are 1/2 Mhz systems...), since the fastest instructions uses 4 clock-cycles to execute.

    The 6502 architecture, used in NES and (in 65c816 form) in Super NES, requires anywhere from 2 to 6 cycles to execute an instruction, as it normally performs a memory access (to an 8-bit data bus) every cycle and apparently has only one ALU (no pipelining).

    The slower instructions uses multiples of 4 cycles (8, 12, 16 and so on...)

    Same with the Sega Genesis's 68000 processor, I'm told.

  • Just a note, the review never calls the GBA flimsy. It calls the unit light, thin, and comfortable. But not flimsy. I think you misread "It too is tiny, and light, and thin" as "It is too tiny, light, and thin." Big difference.
  • http://www.devrs.com/gba/files/gbadevfaqs.php [devrs.com]:
    • Q: Is it my imagination or is the GBA screen darker than the GBC screen?

      A: It's not your imagination, it is darker. Also the viewing angle appears to be worse. It is more difficult to view things on the screen than it was on the GBC.

    :(( I was hoping the reverse would be true.

    Otherwise though, I'm amazed that emulators are out so quickly and that there's so much dev info for it.
    --

  • Intentionally misusing a word allows you to copyright it.

    Actually, Nintendo was going to change the name, but the public (myself included) PREFERRED the name "Advance". So it stuck.

    PlanetGamecube [planetgamecube.com] covers all things Nintendo, including Gameboy Advance. Check 'em out.

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