GBA: Compact fun
By John Gaudiosi -- Video Business, 5/18/2001
MAY 18 | Nintendo's 32-bit sequel to its best-selling 8-bit Game Boy Color launches June 11 with a $99.95 price tag. Game Boy Advance (immediately available in white, translucent blue and violet and in translucent pink in July) ships with 17 launch titles and is backward compatible with hundreds of Game Boy and GBC games. Its sound and graphics are also a huge improvement over previous Game Boy models, which have sold more than 110 million units and 405 million games since it was introduced in 1989.
Although GBA is about the same size as GBC, it boasts a 2.9-inch reflective color LCD screen that's 50% larger than GBC's. GBA also consumes less power, getting 15 hours of gaming out of two AA batteries compared to GBC's 10 hours.
GBA sports two shoulder buttons for added game control. Since the Communication Cable port allows one cable to link four GBAs, some games will offer four-player gaming via one cartridge. This port also allows GBA to work as a discrete controller for GameCube games, Nintendo's next-generation console, which is due this fall.
While sound has never been one of Nintendo's strong points, especially on portable systems, GBA changes that with stereo and Dolby Surround Sound through the headphone jack.
The real difference between GBA and GBC is the graphics. GBA's 32-bit processor enables developers to create games on par with some PlayStation titles. GBA displays 511 simultaneous colors in character mode and 32,768 in bitmap mode, compared to GBC's 56. Although pseudo-3D games will be released, GBA is primarily a 2D gaming system. The result is a lineup of launch and early GBA games that look better than many of Nintendo's 16-bit Super NES games. (Thanks to ease of translation, a lot of enhanced SNES games will head to GBA.) Nintendo's games will retail for $29.95, and third-party games will sell for $39.95.
In addition to the impressive array of 17 launch titles, another 43 GBA games hit shelves before Christmas. The standouts include Ubi Soft's Rayman Advance, Activision's Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, Atlus' Super Dodge Ball Advance and THQ's GT Advance Championship Racing.
The price tag on Nintendo's third-party games--the same price as top PS games--opens up the rental market to portable gaming. Although the small cartridge size may cause problems with rental, there will be a market for this system for at least four years. Nintendo plans to sell 24 million GBAs worldwide this year and 100 million in four years.
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