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GameCube (Games) Portables (Games) Entertainment Games

Alternative GameCube GBA Adapter Launched 35

Posted by simoniker from the unfortunate-dupe dept.
An anonymous reader writes "GamesIndustry.biz has the scoop that Datel will be launching an alternative GameBoy Advance player for the GameCube, an unofficial third-party device that plugs into the memory slot of the GameCube. The Advance Game Port will be smaller than the official GameBoy Player, and play GBA games only, but is cheaper (30 GBP) then the Nintendo version (40 GBP)." No word on US release, but it's interesting to speculate/dream that Datel could theoretically make devices to adapt other Nintendo systems to GameCube.
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Alternative GameCube GBA Adapter Launched More

Alternative GameCube GBA Adapter Launched

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  • "its pocketable size is likely to make it very popular compared to the GB Player, which actually needs to be bolted onto the bottom of the GameCube."

    Its a console. Its not meant to be carried around from room to room or house to house. Who cares if the player is the same size as the gamecube? For stuff like this I'll stick with official devices.
    • Well let's say that you wanted to go over to your friend's house and play a little Final Fantasy but your friend didn't have the GB player. If you had the one released by Nintendo, you'd probably just want to take your whole Gamecube, even though he's got one. With this item, you can just grab it and the game and be out of the house.

      If you have two devices that do the same thing where one is portable and one isn't - why not get the portable one? You can just invent uses for the portability.

      Look at how the P

      • The size of the GC itself really isn't a problem, though. If your friend already has one, it's even easier than if they didn't, because you can just pull the two connectors from the back of their GC and put them on your GC (and since both connectors are fairly easy to connect/disconnect, that's not a problem, either).

        Other than that, the Player itself is fairly easy to move from Cube to Cube, it's just a little more effort.
    • Its a console. Its not meant to be carried around from room to room or house to house. Who cares if the player is the same size as the gamecube? For stuff like this I'll stick with official devices.

      We're talking about the only game console that not only comes with a handle attached, but is also the smaller console out there besides the PSOne and launched with several LCD screen peripherals for mobile gaming. The thing was designed to be more easily portable than any other console and bolting a large perip
    • Agreed. I'll call the extra $20 I spend on the Nintendo one an insurance policy versus the nerfing Nintendo's likely to do on the 3rd party one.

  • hmmm (Score:3, Insightful)

    by snubber1 ( 56537 ) on Friday October 17, 2003 @10:21AM (#7239945)
    if you want a picture of what it looks like, click here [codejunkies.com]
    The think I don't like about this device is that it will most likely be emulation instead of hardware. There no way something in the memory slot of the Gamecube could be playing a gba game and sening out video. I've had my share of shitty emulation already.
    • Why would the size forbid something like that? Remember, the GBA is quite small already. Another thing would be the licensing problems, but maybe that's been sorted out..

      • Re:hmmm (Score:2, Informative)

        by snubber1 ( 56537 )
        Size has nothing to do with it. Its the fact that the memory card slots are not intended to be high-bandwidth ports to pump video output from a gba processor. That device is most likeley a fancy cart reader that makes the gba game show up as blocks on a memory card. The boot disk would then read the rom in and start emulation.

  • ...play GBA games only, but is cheaper (30 GBP) then the Nintendo version (40 GBP).

    Sacrifice GB/GBC support for 10GBP? I'd rather pay the little extra (~17USD) for the official product and have built-in support for all three systems.

    • Ditto, that's why I got the GBA->GC Player, I can use all of my Gameboy games from the original Tetris on the first GB to Wario Ware, Inc and Worms World Party
      With this adapter I would only be able to use the GBA games, which rules out most of my GameBoy games...not worth it to someone who has been playing Nintindo since Donkey Kong hit the arcades...
  • If it's emulated instead of hardware, then perhaps it could also emulate more than one GBA at once, connected by emulated link cables. If so, I would switch over from the official device in an instant.

  • No Link Connector (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Randar the Lava Liza ( 562063 ) on Friday October 17, 2003 @11:02AM (#7240361) Homepage
    One big drawback to this is that it lacks a link connector to connect up multiple gameboys. So you can play a game on the cube, but you can't link up with any other cartridges.

    Additionally, with titles like Four Swords and Pacman Vs. coming out soon, you'll not want to stray from the official Gameboy Player hardware.

    I can see the appeal price-wise, but with $10 separating the two devices, I'd stick with the official Nintendo kit. The one place I'd consider going third party though is with the new wireless systems. Nintendo's won't be backwards compatible with older titles. It will be an all-new connection protocol.

    Triton Labs [tritonlabs.com], maker of the Afterburner, announced a wireless connector for the gameboy that would emulate the existing link protocol, so all gameboy games would be able to be used wirelessly. This I'd LOVE to see enabled. I'm pretty surprised that Nintendo didn't follow this path for the new wireless support, they have a good history with the gameboy of legacy support.

    • Why are you referencing the Four Swords and Pac Man game? Those titles are designed to work with a Gamecube connected to a GBA. The only way any GBA Player works with those is if you have more than one Gamecube (and tv) available. While that's not unheard of, its much easier to just use the systems as intended and play those games with one 'Cube and a few GBA/SP's. Of course, there are plenty of other titles to justify wanting a link cable on your GBA Player. (Final Fantasy Tactics Advance is an exampl

    • The one place I'd consider going third party though is with the new wireless systems. Nintendo's won't be backwards compatible with older titles. It will be an all-new connection protocol. [...] I'm pretty surprised that Nintendo didn't follow this path for the new wireless support, they have a good history with the gameboy of legacy support.

      Nintendo also has a history of making rugged and reliable products. They also have very ridgid expectations, concepts, and ideals. If the Nintendo wireless GBA lin

    • Tetra's Attackers and Pacman Vs. both work via GCN/GBA link cables, not GBA player. The GBA is the controller because it's linked to the cube; it boots via the link port. Unless you're actually say that you have 5 GameCubes, 4 GBA players, and 4 link cables all setup with 5 Tvs (1 GCN for the Pacman/Tetra + 1 GCN+GBA player for each controller port, etc)..

      As for Triton Labs wireless link device, I've yet to see or hear anything on it beyond hot air. Nintendo has working demo hardware, even if they do re

  • Hmm (Score:1)

    by arrow ( 9545 )
    I just don't see a price difffrence of $10 bringing them too many customers.

    Does this have any additional features over Nintendo's offering?
  • If this were something to play NES or SNES on the GC (and not through a memory card slot!), that might be different. But the travel argument doesn't work for me, and the lack of hardware (this does look like emulation) really creates issues in my view.

    If I were going to a friend's to play FFTA or Four Swords this still wouldn't work because of the lack of a link port. Plus, how would you use the e-Reader on this?

    This is a VERY niche product that probably will see a few thousand sold and be a curiousit

  • Think of this... The Cube generates image, full 3D and all, something GBA plainly can't do. The card scales it down and broadcasts a'la TV. Then the card in GBA receives the image and replays it on the small screen. It also sends back the "joystick events" to the "server". True you're still tied to the wireless link range but, say, your boss at work will allow you to play GB in free moments (say, when there's no customers for a while) but a fully blown console is an overkill - so you hide GameCube in a draw
  • I don't see any mention if this unit handles some key features.

    1) Does it scale the image to fit the screen properly? The GBA Player leaves an annoying 1-2" border around the screen
    2) Does is offer progressive scan like the Official Nintendo unit? If this is missing, forget it!
    3) Does it require a special boot disk? This would truly be a deciding factor as I hate swapping to the GBA player boot disk
    • I can probably answer 1 and 3: 1) There's a reason for that border - scaling up the image would cause "fat pixels" that would look a bit odd on the TV, because the pixels can't just be doubled up (not high enough resolution). 3) Almost certainly, as I don't think the 'Cube can even boot from those hardware expansion slots.
    • on point 2, why in the heck would progressive scan make the low resolution of the gba look any better?

      • That's an easy one. Because the GBA uses an LCD screen it refreshes differently then a normal TV. I have found playback with a standard TV to be jittery or jerky. Screens do not scroll smoothly and characters jitter a bit as they walk off screen.

        This is virtually eliminated in progressive scan playback. Creating much smoother game play and player animation.

        This might not be a big deal to some users but my eyes tent to be sensitive to subtitle jittering. Prolonged gaming like this makes me feel a littl

      • Ever heard of "2xSaI" or "Scale2x" smart interpolation methods? I know the official Nintendo adapter doesn't have it, but the Datel kit just might...

  • Cool (Score:1)

    by Goyuix ( 698012 )
    I first discounted the value of the game boy player when it was first announced and then bundled with the cube (having been a cube owner for quite some time now). I haven't purchased a GameBoy yet as I just haven't been compelled. Originally they were releasing "new" games for it, and lately they have gone all retro so I am not sure what to think. Anyway, enough with the rant about me.

    This little news item got me thinking, if they can send that kind of cool emulation (be it hardware or software driven) thr
  • I know this is a bit off-topic, but since the games forum gets so little posts, hopefully it won't be too bad ...

    Can anyone tell me what GCN is supposed to stand for when talking about Game Cubes? Best I can figure is Game Cube Nintendo, but that sounds silly. It seems like half of the folks use GC as the shorthand name for game cube, and the other half use GCN.

    Just a curiosity I've been meaning to ask for a while now.
    • As far as I know, it stands for "GameCube Nintendo." Many shops and sites already used NGC for NeoGeo Pocket Color so GCN was chosen instead.

      Every game system must be abbreviated to exactly three letters. The only thing more silly-looking than "GCN" is "XBX."
      • Haha you are so right about XBX.

        Well thanks for the update, I'm pleased to find out it was as ridiculous as I thought. (In a "man how stupid" sort of way ....) I'm sure NeoGeo Pocket Color is a huge seller, so it makes sense to screw up the Nintendo Game Cube acryonym. And of course it would be really silly to just use two letters for Game Cube, because as you say - we must have exactly three!

        I wonder who sits around and decides these things, anyway?
  • That it's a software GBA emulator + an adapter that lets the emulator read the GBA game via the memory card slot converter. Naturally, all GBA games would work as normal since it's emulating the GBA via the GCN hardware.

    Unfortunately, as some others have pointed out, it doesn't have link features, the ability to use GBA player rumble features (on GBA player aware games), or the ability to play GB and GBC games (since they would require an emulator for different hardware).

    A neat solution, but for the pric

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