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Games Entertainment

Portable GameCube 132

Posted by michael from the gameboy-on-steroids dept.
Bodero writes: "After Slashdot ran a story about the Portable N64 over a month ago, many of us have been enlightened to the idea of portable home console systems. The Portable N64 was more of a novelty item whose cost and development factor outweighed its feasibility. However, IGN Cube is running a hardware review on the Interact Mobile Monitor 5.4, a 5.4" LCD that hooks up to your gamecube, providing a screen and power from either AC or an included car adapter. All that for only $150. For only $50 more, Interact sells an optional battery pack, which IGN claims can power the GameCube and monitor for up to three hours."
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Portable GameCube More

Portable GameCube

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  • Cigarette adapter too? (Score:5, Funny)

    by RogrWilco ( 522139 ) on Thursday December 06, 2001 @10:44PM (#2668855)
    Now I'll get run off the road by some guy playing Luigi's castle instead of reading his morning paper? Isn't progress grand?

  • GameCube portability (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    In my opinion, GameCubes were designed for portability. They're light, their discs are easy to carry (they fit in my CD holder), and they're small.

    I would venture to say this is the kind of thing Nintendo intended for the GCN.

    • Re:GameCube portability (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      indeed. they were designed to fit into a child's backpack.

      i guess little kids know what LAN parties are too :-P
  • I knew about the LCD display, but not the 3Hr battery! Now I can take my GameCube anywhere - see if something like this for the damned XBox ever comes out!

    • Re:This gets me hyped. (Score:4, Funny)

      by megacia ( 534566 ) on Thursday December 06, 2001 @10:54PM (#2668894)
      something like this is already out for the XBox, it's called a TV! if you have room for the XBox you can bring a television too :)

      • Re:This gets me hyped. (Score:2, Interesting)

        by sahala ( 105682 )
        Actually this reminds....

        About 2 years ago in my last semester of college I got pretty deep into a few RPGs for the PSX. Since this was back in the let's-recruit-every-college-grad-that-knows-Java days, I had to fly out to job interviews every other weekend, which seriously hampered my game playing progress.

        (hey, it was senior year...time to goof off a bit)

        I had this great idea of taking my PS along and playing during the evenings in those nice hotel rooms they put me up at (now of course they fly you out 5 minutes after the last interview). I mean the alternative would be...what, going out and drinking? So I embarassingly packed my PS along in my carry-on bag, which I'm sure the x-ray peeps would love today -- "can you turn that on please?" -- and tried to hook it up to the TVs in hotel rooms. So apparently a large number of hotels really do not like their guests bringing their own electronics. It was a repeated nightmare trying to get physical access to the back of a TV, and in some cases they did a great job making sure the original cables could not be easily unplugged (plastic boxes screwed in around the plugs, etc) for the use of other devices. There were a few times when I had to dig out the swiss army knife i never otherwise use to really go to work, sometimes wreaking havoc on the cable TV setup -- all for my gaming habit/addiction. And I never stayed at a hotel with TVs with convenient RCA plugs in the front.

        But I guess the point of my lame story is that it's sometimes a pain in the ass to assume that just because there's a TV, you can play your XBox/PS1/PS2/N64. It's more worth it to just get a Game Boy with Harvest Moon, or maybe even go out at night in a new city (imagine that).

        • Dear gawd!!! A night without gaming?! What the HFIL?! I cannot believe such things! Blasphemy! Just be glad there's not Inquisition, or j00 w0uld be reprimanded by the l337 police!
    • This is cool, because it makes it much easier to haul a complete system to a LAN party.

      No lugging a huge seperate TV for networked console games.

      All you need then is a room and power outlets to plug into and you're up and racing!

  • Hmmm, game appliance for $350 (Score:3, Insightful)

    by KarmaBlackballed ( 222917 ) on Thursday December 06, 2001 @10:51PM (#2668887) Homepage Journal
    ...$400 and it becomes portable for 3 hours of play. (Game cube retail $199 + 150 screen + $50 battery pack.)

    This is getting into used laptop territory. Why would I want this GB setup when I can buy a used laptop with 10.4 inch active matrix screen and 5 hours of gameplay?

    I think their price point is a little high. Maybe for $250 it would be sweet. At $400 it is for the rich kid that has everything and needs one more thing for the closet.
    • Yes, it is expensive, but it is still a lot more powerful than a $500 laptop. The laptop might be good for retro gaming, but this plays the latest (not that I could afford one).
      • not that I could afford one

        That is why they have a pricing problem.
        • Weel if I can't afford a Game Cube at that price, I'm certainly not going to buy a less powerful laptop for that price, at least not for its gaming value. The whole point here is that you can get gaming power equivelent to todays fastest computers in a portable package for less than $400, expensive but impressive.
          • There is a reason XBox and PS/2 sell at a loss for $300. Anything more and they are too expensive for most consumers, or so Microsoft and Sony believe.

            The issue is not about buying a used $400 laptop for retro games. It is about people having enough money for a computer that they can use for school/work and some games OR a game machine.

            And of course, if you can afford both ... why not just buy an even better laptop?
            • First off... I believe that all the consoles out now are being sold at a very small profit. Perhaps a dollar or so. I've heard that only the Dreamcast was sold at a loss and even then it wasn't a very big loss.

              A game console is not a computer. A computer is not a game console. Although one can serve as the other, it cannot do the same things as well. And, of course, if you want to play Pikmin, Halo, or Metal Gear Solid on your PC... uh... well, you can't.

              The GC, PS2, and XBox can all pump out better graphics than my $1200 laptop, not neccesarily because the hardware is better, but because the hardware is specialized. The games are written specifically for it and it is designed to do ONE thing (I leave it to your imagination to figure out what that is)
              • I work at a retailer, and I can say for a fact that ALL game consoles are sold at no more than $1 profit. In fact, we only get about 30 cents of profit on the X-Box, and about 70 cents of profit on the PS2. DC's are getting sold at about $150 loss @ most places now. We really recieve the shaft on the deal, but we have to get the shite out of the store.
        • Console manufacturers have traditionally taken a loss of the sale of consoles and made up for it with licensing fees from games, so it's hard to think that a company has a pricing problem with a product that they are losing money on. Also, look at the price tags on the competition: PS2 and XBox are $100 more expensive and neither offer portability yet. Sure, you get the DVD capabilities, but I've already got a DVD player and even if I didn't, I could pick one up at Best Buy for less than $80 that will also play mp3's [bestbuy.com].

      • Yes, it is expensive, but it is still a lot more powerful than a $500 laptop

        So what spreadsheets are available for the Gamecube? Web browsers? Have the GNU utilities been ported over yet?

        Your definition of 'more powerful' is pretty narrow.

    • Re:Hmmm, game appliance for $350 (Score:4, Insightful)

      by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Thursday December 06, 2001 @11:24PM (#2668992) Homepage Journal
      Well... u might want to play WaveRace, or Luigi's Mansion, or MonkeyBall, or [insert game that you can play on the GameCube but not on the PC here]... This is the TRUE reason to own a game system. Not hard drives, processors, RAM, Nintendo, MS, whatever.. its because there are GAMES you want to play on it.
      • Exactly. I bought a game cube because I like nintendo's games. Not all of them of course, but the mario bros of old and the zeldas are some that I liked in the past. Pikmin sounds interesting, although the name isn't so good...
    • how do you get 5 hours out of a laptop?
    • Well, unless the power adapters are specific to the GameCube's hardware, then $150 screen + $50 Dreamcast + $50 battery = $250 portable game console. The DC may not have the latest and greatest games any more, but it's still alive and kicking.
  • Sheesh, Interact's Mobile Monitor has been available for the PSone for maybe a year or so now. And Sony just came out with their own.

    Hate to be an ass, but that's SO five minutes ago!

  • Another article on the portable GameCube (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Harumuka ( 219713 ) on Thursday December 06, 2001 @10:54PM (#2668893)
    Over at Emugaming.com they have a short but informative article [emugaming.com] on IGN's portable GameCube. Includes some nice pictures.

  • Flamebait, but what the hell.. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by antis0c ( 133550 ) on Thursday December 06, 2001 @10:57PM (#2668908)
    I used to work for InterAct Accessories, Inc.
    First off, let me tell you that Interact has a very close business relationship with IGN. IGN/Snowball now hosts their website. In turn GameShark provides them exclusive codes, and other perks. So I don't trust this review very well to begin with.

    I no longer work for them now, but I can tell you this, InterAct products are not of good quality. In fact InterAct makes no actual products. They are outsourced from two major companies, one, STD based in China, and Datel based in the UK. Datel makes semi-decent products (eg, GameShark), but STD makes shit products. For example, STD produced a Lightgun for the Dreamcast, not only was the Lightgun made of poor housing materials, but the aim wasn't accurate. It would shoot about an inch to the upper left of where you actually were targetting. When Interact gave STD a call to ask what was up about the lightguns, STD's response was merely, "Sorry, we're not very good at making lightguns." I'm glad I didn't work in customer service, because they god a beating all the time. Nintendo 64 GameSharks will fry randomly. Interact really didn't bother pressure Datel to figure out why, and just kept making them.

    Secondly, InterAct/Datel has violated the GPL multiple times. Anyone that's listening, the GameShark that was produced for the PC (another horrible product, and has been discontinued), includes an MP3 player. The MP3 player is not of their own creation, but merely a hacked up version of FreeAmp, which they sold and never released the source too. As you can see I have a lot of greif with this company, so my views are a bit slanted myself ;) In conclusion, I wouldn't purchase this product, it's most likely produced by STD, and will probably break for you in the not so near future.

  • This is just... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Evil Oli ( 516455 ) on Thursday December 06, 2001 @10:59PM (#2668915)
    natural progression of technology via miniaturisation and improvements in power consumption. We've already witnessed essentially the SNES being shrunk into the Gameboy Advance. The next handheld will surely be a shrunken version of the N64, and so on.

    We're only really up to the second generation of portable consoles, so these things are naturally surprising to us. Not that I'm putting it down - I think we'll see a lot more power in portable gaming/computing units in future. I think the issue that needs to be addressed now is battery life.

    Perhaps combining those technologies that provide power from body movement (eg, rapidly moving thumbs) with these handhelds is the answer...

  • New York, New York... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You thought cell phones were bad?! :)

  • really useful? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Teflon Coating ( 177969 )
    I dont see how well this could really work. Outside of using it for the once a year trips to somewhere, little jimmy would have no use for this. I doubt that it would even work that well on a road trip, how do you balance a cube that has a 5.3 inch screen sitting on top of it? It might work fine on a desk, but i dont see how you could play it in a car where there would be no sturdy surface to rest it on.
    • Ever had a lay over at an airport or been stuck in the hotel during vacation because of lousy weather?

      Think outside of the box (er, car) and see how great this would be for a kid during that 2hr flight to see the grandparents or when flying home from college during breaks.

  • Making plane rides fun (Score:3)

    by MikeyNg ( 88437 ) <mikeyng AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday December 06, 2001 @11:07PM (#2668952) Homepage

    This sounds like a fun device for those plane rides. I would think that the GameCube and the LCD screen don't put out enough RF to really interfere with the plane. I could get three hours of Rogue Squadron or Super Smash Brothers lovin'! That would make the ride THAT much more bearable. Of course, you'd also have about a dozen little kids clamoring all over your seat trying to play. You could then charge admission or something and make back your plane fare. :)

  • You will renew your glasses perscription for the first time in years after discovering the joys of small flatpanels.
  • In a couple of years, when the components have shrunk, become cheaper and less power hungry, we have the instant Gameboy Advance successor selling for $100 a pop, with a nice library of games on small, portable media.

    Nintendo is the king of portables, and I think they intend to stay that way.
    • I agree with you. I have a feeling Nintendo designed not just a powerful home system, but their next portable system in the next 5 years.

      Think about that... by the time it launches you have a library of 500 or so games. Heck, by then they might even have an 802.11 adapter for it. Imagine the LAN Party you could have then? Everybody brings their GBA sized GCN and their Network cards, somebody sets up a cheap $100 wireless hub, and everybody sits around an apartment playing a cool game.

      Heck.. have the party at StarBuck's or something. Heh.
      • Wow, now that I think about it that really does make sense. I mean why else would they have gone with such small sized media (those mini dvd-rom things).

        Doesn't really make since to cut the size of your game discs down so much, especially when your last gaming system was flamed so much for having cartridges that were lacking in space. They must be doing it so when they come out with the portable game cube all the games will still work fine.

        Interesting.
        • Well, I don't have an exact number on the amount of data that can be stored on the little dvds, but it is still quite substantial for a game. Somewhere around 1.5 Gigs should be plenty for a majority of games out there for the near future. The only thing that takes up tons of space is FMV, and if you want a game with tons of that, put it on a couple little dvds. They can't cost that much.

          Besides, by doing this, Nintendo is essentially free from piracy.

          Here's [ign.com] a link to the 1.5 GB estimate.

  • Screen (Score:1, Redundant)

    by _ganja_ ( 179968 )
    Hmmm... I saw one of these a month or so ago in Amsterdam airport connected to a ps one, can't remember who made it but it looked exactly the same but white and cost the same also. Quality is an issue, I notice on IGN they don't show any good quality stills of the thing in action but just a quick time movie from a distance, there is good reason forn this. Then again its is portable I supose but I recommend you check the thing out in person if you are interested in one and don't just order it from the web without seeeing it in real life.


    One other possibility could be to use it for an in car movie/GPS etc dislay when hooked up to a PC in the trunk?

    • yeh i was just thinking that this isnt really news worthy.. those little screen fors the ps1's have been out for quite a time..not to mention the format of a ps1 is much better for a portable device.
  • heh, I'd like to see them do this for an xbox.

    the product has an adapter for a car - I can only imagine what such a setup would do to the battery!
  • An LCD that size must use a fair amount of batteries and be reasonably large.

    If you really want to make you're GameCube or PS2 portable ( Xbox's themselves aren't portable so I'll skip them ) you can get a pair of Sony Glasstrons [thinkgeek.com]. These are glasses that do TV resolution. Unfortunately they have been discontinued.

    You can pick them up on Ebay for ~$350. I've used these things once or twice and I was quite impressed. Has anyone else used them for any length of time ?
    • "Unfortunately they have been discontinued."

      With good reason. Sony found out that they caused an undue amount of eye-strain - it's highly recommended that someone under 18 does not use the glasses (because they could damage eyes that have not finished developing). They also caused seizures. That's the problem with these goggles - eye strain and seizures. Focusing on anything that close is a major problem for your eyes; their minumum comfortable focus range is about one foot.
    • http://www.epanorama.net/documents/pc/3dglass.html

      Here you go, all the links you need and instructions on how to make your own.

      Hoobalicious.

      ~Hammy
      nothing4sale.org

  • You can get an old Mattel Football [ev1.net] game on Ebay for around $20. That's about $400 less than the (NCube + Madden 2002 + PortaScreen).

    I also think the screen is slightly bigger, although I haven't actually measured.

    That'll free up more than enough cash to buy yourself a GeForce3, processor, and giant bag of Doritos. Morpheus [rocketdownload.com] will happily meet your software needs.
  • This sounds like a fun device for those plane rides. I would think that the GameCube and the LCD screen don't put out enough RF to really interfere with the plane. I could get three hours of Rogue Squadron or Super Smash Brothers lovin'! That would make the ride THAT much more bearable. Of course, you'd also have about a dozen little kids clamoring all over your seat trying to play. You could then charge admission or something and make back your plane fare. :)
  • the Interact Mobile Monitor 5.4, a 5.4" LCD that hooks up to your gamecube, providing a screen and power from either AC or an included car adapter ... Interact sells an optional battery pack, which IGN claims can power the GameCube and monitor for up to three hours

    I can't wait for the Xbox version, complete with diesel generator and trailer.

  • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Interact sells an optional battery pack, which IGN claims can power the GameCube and monitor for up to three hours.

    You left the part out about the Xbox version which will be out soon. The battery pack can power an Xbox for up to 4 hours along with the 4.5" LCD screen that snaps right onto the ample acreage of the Xbox controller itself. Further, there is some extra juice left over to power the Linux box sitting over on the side so you can actually use the ethernet connection to play with your friends online. As if that weren't enough, it comes in an enclosure no larger than 5 Xboxes and has a sporty green Xbox logo on the side so that everyone knows you are a gamer with a flair and style unmatched by your peers.


    At the jaw-droppingly low price of $450 for all the extra hardware (Xbox and games not included), it can be yours.


    And you have to admit, it is really quite amazing what they can do now with four car batteries, 20 pounds of wire, and a huge metal cart (required for portability).


    Yeah, so brand me a troll. I am, after all, tired and cranky and sitting under a bridge. How about tossing me a Scooby snack while you're at it?

    • Yeah, so brand me a troll. I am, after all, tired and cranky and sitting under a bridge. How about tossing me a Scooby snack while you're at it?

      Your not supposed to feed the trolls :P
    • I don't think people know what flamebait means.

      I assume someone looked at it, and didn't like it for a reason like:

      1. He was trying to be funny, but I didn't laugh
      2. XBox isn't portable. Gamecube rules!
      3. GROUTY!
      4. He was making a point via sarcasm and humor, which is no longer allowed on here.

      Don't think this is the place for meta-moderation? Just write some replies!
  • I want a battery I can carry on my back.

    A battery whose half-life is guaranteed for over 3000 years.

    A battery that is not environmentally safe or even a good idea to carry around.

    A battery that doubles as a flamethrower and ghost-catching device.

    I WANT A PROTON PACK!

    Seriously...I don't mind toting a batterey that weighs 20 pounds and is approximately half the size of my laptop/portable device. Then maybe I'd get a good 10 hours of use out of it. Am I alone? I think that would solve a lot of the battery problems.
  • I know the GameCube is small, but it's not nearly small enough for this purpose, IMO. Plus, it's a cube--not flat like the PSOne...

    Call me a pessimist, but I just don't see this as being all that worthwhile...
    • I think it is. It might be a little awkward by itself, but in a carrying bag with the top open it'd be great.

      I've got one (the cube that is), and a carrying bag made for it as well. It isn't big at all, about as awkard as a lunchbox in gradeschool.

      I don't forsee myself using this in a car, but I do fly a lot, and I could easily see enough room for this.

      Glasstron from sony or I-glasses if they still make those would be better, but they cost more too.
  • One portability cancels out another, this Mobile Screen covers up the carrying handle.
    Is Anyone Not A Dumbass, by chance?

  • What?!? (Score:2, Funny)

    by jred ( 111898 )
    I'd just like to say I'm shocked and appalled that not one single /.er has said anything about using one in conjuction with (insert whatever game machine is currently booting Linux) and using it to hack on the kernel source in the back of the car. Oh, yeah, and usb wireless nics will allow them to surf the net through the chain of all the wireless nics in all the cars. Hey! A beowolf cluster! rotflmoa, I slay me...

  • Lunchbox (Score:3, Funny)

    by SilentChris ( 452960 ) on Friday December 07, 2001 @01:04AM (#2669297) Homepage
    As if the thing didn't already look like a child's lunchbox, now it even has a lid. :)

    I fear purchasing one so my girlfriend doesn't think I'm gay.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I think luggable would be a more suitable word than portable in this case. You wouldn't walk around carrying the GameCube AND the controller to play it. I really do like the idea of having a display like this so I can pick up the machine and use it in a more comfortable area of my apartment.

    I don't know about everybody else, but my apartment has it's fair share of hot and cool spots...
    • Hmm.. I had an idea I wanted to share. One thing I have always wanted is the ability to watch TV while laying down. I've actually thought about building some kind of contraption that'd allow me to hang a TV, screen down, so I could lay under it and watch TV more comfortably.

      I'm afraid to tackle something like this because of how heavy TV's are... I wonder, since this device is LCD, and I imagine it's pretty lightweight, I wonder if I could run an A/V cable to it and maybe hook up my DVD player to it?

      It'd be more comfortable playing games, too. It'd be so wonderful to be able to sit down and play a game without being distracted by a sore back. Anybody else feel my pain?
  • Is you can hook a battery up to anything that uses an AC to DC adapter and Voila instant portable. There's been many a time where i've used a battery powered 5 port hub as a cable tester.
  • Dude, for long ski and snowboard trips,as well as tailgate parties, this would be the bomb. Playing games on my laptop is always fun, but cube would allow me to not look like a major geek...just a minor one ;).
  • But the GBA does essentially the same thing. You can plug the GameBoy Advance into a GameCube and use the GBA's screen and controls to play the game.

    And, at approximately 60-70 dollars you get quite a better deal. It even has it's own games and everything.
  • This makes it even more unfortunate that the GC doesn't play DVDs...~$400 is fairly steep for a portable DVD player, but not bad for both DVDs and games on the road.

    "Inquisition this, you science dinks!" --The Tick
  • Microoptical (http://www.microopticalcorp.com/), sells 640x480 monoculars that use half a watt, one of those, combined with a gamecube would be really nifty. Split screen would be out though, unless you were to drop a splitter into the video line and buy a second display.

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