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Education Portables (Games) Entertainment Games

Leapfrog Launches GBA-Style Educational Handheld 28

Posted by simoniker from the time-to-reverse-engineer? dept.
Thanks to Yahoo/Reuters for their story on the launch of Leapfrog's educational handheld, the Leapster. The article says the handheld is "aimed at giving parents an alternative to Nintendo's GameBoy system, [and] plays educational games and interactive videos." It retails for $79, with game cartridges costing around $25, and a Leapfrog spokesman commented on the reasoning behind today's launch: "A half a million GameBoys were sold last year for kids in the 3-1/2 to 6-1/2-year-old age group, but try to get parents to admit that in a focus group. This is a completely untapped market."
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Leapfrog Launches GBA-Style Educational Handheld More

Leapfrog Launches GBA-Style Educational Handheld

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  • I know this is stupid... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Masami Eiri ( 617825 ) <brain DOT wav AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday October 30, 2003 @10:21PM (#7354809) Journal
    But wouldn't it be easier just to make education GBA games? After all, you don't make profit on the hardware....

    • Re:I know this is stupid... (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      +1000000, Worthwhile First Post

      If it was on the front page, you would have gotten an extra zero. Oh well.
    • But wouldn't it be easier just to make education GBA games?

      And pay Nintendo how much in licensing fees per cart? And how much per dev station?

      Not to mention having the titles stocked in the same shelf as Super Mario Brothers, where parents may never see them or understand what they are?

      • Re:I know this is stupid... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Thursday October 30, 2003 @10:53PM (#7354975) Homepage Journal
        "And pay Nintendo how much in licensing fees per cart? And how much per dev station?"

        You think either of those is going to be more expensive than R&D + parts to build systems?

        I agree with you that the games will be a tough sell, but the other arguments are ridiculous.

      • Re:I know this is stupid... (Score:1, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        And pay Nintendo how much in licensing fees per cart? And how much per dev station?
        And sell 1/50,000th the number of copies they might potentially sell otherwise? Seriously, who would want to do something like that?
        Not to mention having the titles stocked in the same shelf as Super Mario Brothers
        Where they'll probably end up anyway?
      • Not to mention having the titles stocked in the same shelf as Super Mario Brothers, where parents may never see them or understand what they are?

        I think this is likely the real reason. It's not like Leapfrog isn't already making plenty of their own custom hardware, what's one more product? Plus they already have dedicated shelfspace in many (most?) toy stores. It just wouldn't make sense for them to let themselves get lost among all the other Game Boy games.

    • Ah, the typical myth that's been pushed around the Internet for years now because Sega once accused Sony of dumping PS1's due to a change in the exchange rate - and people are still using it...and even extending it to the handheld market!

      EDUCATE YOURSELF: How do you know that they are not making a profit on the hardware? Do you even know what is inside one of these things? The widespread myth that all consoles are sold at a loss (and apparently you've extended this belief to the handheld market as well) is

  • hackability (Score:3, Interesting)

    by enigmatichmachine ( 214829 ) <enigmaticmachineNO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Thursday October 30, 2003 @10:26PM (#7354839)
    can some one give the tech specs for it, i couldn't find it on the web site....(but what 4 year old would care it has a 33 mhz dragonball processor?) seems like it has a nice screen, and is cheap... but then again so are many handhelds these days, what makes this one different?
  • ... before it outsells N-Gage.
  • Give it a dumb knock-off name ending in -ster. This will ensure that your users think it's hip and that using it makes them badasses.
  • Santa still loves you and won't be bringing you any of these lame "educational" games.

    Good old-fashioned cops and robbers for all of you this year! Yay! And you get to choose whether you want to be the good guy cop or the bad (fun!) guy robber!

    Now come sit on Santa's lap!
  • N-Gage, Tapwave, PSP...now, Leapster? It took these companies how long to figure out that there's a handheld market?

    So, I hear that you can pick up a new handheld console in Corn Pops all this month.
  • Launching their own system? Why not develop software for the GBA? There is already a monster user base, kids already think the GBA is cool, it seems like a no brainer.

    By making their own handheld, all they are going to do is make life miserable for the poor kid who's parents buys him/her one of the leapfrogs while all his friends get the GBA's. "Ha ha Jimmy got the baby game boy" Please! lets think of Jimmy here!
  • I don't know why this irks me, but what is really wrong with something like Zelda on the GBA, from an educational standpoint? Sure, it might not have "hard" educational material, but I think that it can help teach basic reading, problem resolution, memory, hand/eye coordination, etc.

    The Leapfrog solution seems to a shortcut with questionable intent. It seems like a parent would give this to their child and say, "Here, I bought you this, now go learn something with it," instead of teaching them using real-

  • You guys are missing the point... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SoCalChris ( 573049 ) on Friday October 31, 2003 @02:34AM (#7356023) Journal
    Leapfrog doesn't make things for teenagers. The users that Leapfrog is aiming for would tear a GBA to shreds in a few hours.

    My 16 month old son LOVES Leapfrog toys. They keep his attention far longer than any of the other toys he has. They are also educational, brightly colored, and fun looking. GBA's are small, have tiny buttons, are boring to look at from a toddler's point of view, have many opening to stick crumbs and other things into, and the clamshell design on the new ones would almost immedeately get torn in half.

    Looking at it from the perspective of a parent, I think my son would love one of these. When he's a teenager, he'll want something more advanced, but for now this would be great for him. I think Leapfrog knows what they're doing here.
    • I think 16 month is a little too young for educational video games. We went all out and bought our kids V-tech stuff. All the adults liked the toys; the kids could care less. I have a 3 and 5 year old. They mainly play 3 different games: Blue Clues (Education), Sponge Bob (God I hate SB), & Bob the Builder ( at least Bob can fix things, even if he is clueless about Wendy.)
      They enjoy playing Final Fanstany games after I've gotten to a point where the characters are near invicible.

      They also loved Kingd
    • Leapfrog doesn't make things for teenagers. The users that Leapfrog is aiming for would tear a GBA to shreds in a few hours.

      Actually, Leapfrog says their target market is 4 to 8, not 16 months. With a touch-sensitive screen and an attached pen, the Leapster is likely MORE fragile than the GBA. The GBA, by comparison, has a double-hulled screen and a solid-state design, whose durability should be legendary by now. The GBA is more durable than the old Tiger Electronics LCD games sold towards kids, and i
      • Leapfrog says their target market is [ages] 4 to 8

        If I had a kid about to enter kindergarten I would certainly buy one for him or her... And wouldn't buy them a GBA until they were in the 3rd grade or higher (if ever).

        If I recall correctly, kindergarten to 3rd grade is about the same as ages 4 to 8. So what exactly is your gripe?

  • A whole generation of "leapsters" getting bullied for having parents that got them the leapster instead of a gba for x-mas.

    Poor bastards.
  • So who else thinks this will sell more than N-Gage?
  • Napster was 5 years ago... why must that 'ster suffix still be so popular? Isn't it about time to come up with something new?

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