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Nintendo's Game Boy Advance SP once had an autostereoscopic screen
It may seem like 3D sprung from the ashes of discontentment -- not to mention red / blue glasses -- but Nintendo never stopped believing. It's been secretly refining stereoscopic tech for years in the likes of the Game Boy Advance and GameCube. And while president Satoru Iwata already mentioned early last year that the GameCube had hidden 3D circuits, he recently revealed that the 3DS's autostereoscopic panel actually dates back to the clamshell Game Boy Advance SP. Which, as you might recall, also once sported a touchscreen. At the time, his story goes, LCD resolution was too low to generate a sharp image, but the optometrist-friendly glasses-free tech was already in place. Of course, if you truly want to consult the history books, you can consider Nintendo's entry into the market to be the Famicom 3D System shutter glasses pictured above... which hit stores in Japan way back in 1986. Yeah, we know.
3DS has a Game Boy/ Game Boy Color Virtual Console [update]
One of the 3DS's killer apps may be ... old games. As has been requested for the original DS and DSi since time immemorial (2004), Nintendo will offer downloadable Game Boy and Game Boy Color games on the 3DS, through a VIrtual Console-style store. In addition, as shown at E3, Nintendo will offer 3D-ified versions of classics like Xevious. Update: The transcript from Nintendo's conference last night show that Iwata specified games from the Game Boy and Game Boy Color -- not Advance. At least, not yet. We apologize for the confusion.
Scan this footage of Super Mario Advance 4's e-Reader content
Why would anyone put their money into a GBA e-Reader and a remake of Super Mario Bros. 3, a game that everyone on Earth already has? The video after the break makes a pretty good case for why people did so, and for why you'll be headed to eBay momentarily.
Visual Boy Zune brings Game Boy emulation to Zune HD (video)
Once hacked, the Zune HD's rabid fanbase wasted no time in ensuring the device could play Doom. Now, the ZuneBoards want to give it Zelda, too. User BackAtIt has taken the wrappings off the first working emulator for Zune, which is currently capable of playing Game Boy and Game Boy Color ROMs, but little else -- though this "Visual Boy Zune" app is ported from the same VisualBoyAdvance code that's enabled handheld emulation since 2004, it's in early alpha with quite a bit of work left to do. A recent update enabled state save emulation and a ROM selector, but there's no audio output, let alone Game Boy Advance support; BackAtIt says he'll need to rewrite much of the codebase to take advantage of the Zune HD's Tegra architecture. Still, it's never too early for a proof of concept video, and you'll find two blurry ones after the break -- unless you'd rather try it out for yourself at the source link. [Thanks, MK1000]
Mega Man Zero Collection zeroes in on June release
Capcom has revealed that the Mega Man Zero Collection for DS will hit its projected "early summer" release, despite its delay in Japan. Specifically, the publisher announced that the compilation of four Game Boy Advance side-scrollers will arrive in North America on June 8 for $30. That's just $7.50 per Zero! Additionally, a new trailer can be seen above, and the (lovely) box art has been added to our gallery. New features in the collection include customizable controls, art gallery functionality (which displays art on the bottom screen and the game on the top screen, so you can look while you play), and a new "Easy Scenario" mode to help new players get through these difficult games. %Gallery-86228%
TUAW's Daily App: Powder
TUAW's Daily App spotlights one great App Store app, every single weekday. Powder probably isn't the most polished roguelike RPG experience on the App Store (Sword of Fargoal is generally considered to be among the best), but what it lacks in graphical quality, it makes up for in ease-of-use. The genre is sometimes tough to get into, but Powder, originally designed for the Game Boy Advance, uses easy buttons and icons to let you guide your turn-based RPG character through random dungeons, killing monsters, gaining XP, and drinking weird potions of various colors, all while trying to avoid cursed gear. It's still not easy (roguelikes are notoriously ruthless affairs, and permadeath is still the rule), but the controls are surprisingly intuitive, and the included tutorial makes an often steep learning curve much more gentle, even if you're new to the genre. Plus, Powder wins points from me for its flexible save state process; it's very easy to work your way through a dungeon floor, exit out to make a call or do something else on your iPhone, and then dive back in and pick up right where you left off. Best of all, it just recently went free; that makes sense, considering the other versions are free as well. If you still want to support programmer Jeff Lait, you can do so by donating on his Web site. Meanwhile, Powder is a free download in the App Store, and definitely worth checking out.
Original Game Boy gets the Advance treatment courtesy of retro-loving modder
The original Game Boy will forever hold a special place in our hearts, but spend a few minutes squinting at an original model and you'll quickly realize that even nostalgia can't make up for that horrible green screen. That's been banished in this custom version, courtesy of modder CRTdrone, which features GBA SP internals housed in an original GB chassis. This gives it compatibility with Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and of course GBA games, along with a rechargeable battery and even working shoulder buttons inserted into the sides. All we have to go on at the moment is this picture plus a few comments from the man himself, but CRTdrone is promising full details of the mod are to come, which entails "just removing parts and re-wiring basically." They always make it sound so simple.
Nintendo DSi XL review
Since Nintendo first asserted sole domination over the handheld gaming market with the release of the paperback-sized Game Boy in 1989, the company has striven time and again to make its pocket systems smaller, meeting fantastic financial success along the way. Nintendo did it with the Game Boy Pocket, the Advance SP, the Micro, the DS Lite and again ever so slightly with the DSi -- the last even at the expense of backwards compatibility and battery life. Now, for the first time in the company's history, it's made an existing platform bigger, with questionable reasons as to why. Does the Nintendo DSi XL squash its predecessors flat? Or is Nintendo compensating for something? Find out inside. %Gallery-89058%
Lunar: Silver Star Story Harmony trailer turns back the clock
The game once called "not just the best Sega CD RPG ever, but one of the best on any Sega system" has eventually moved to almost all of the systems, as Lunar: The Silver Star has been remade and re-released on the Sega Saturn, the PlayStation, the PC, and even the GBA. And now here it comes again on the PSP as Lunar: Silver Star Harmony. This time around, the graphics have been given a complete makeover, and cutscenes have been added in, along with new voicework and music as well. Although going by the video above, XSEED might not have even bothered -- the new anime style turns a console RPG relic into something that looks like Ranma ½. But the gameplay is still there, and the story is a good one. Lunar: Silver Star Harmony should be out in stores on March 2nd, available both for $29.99 and as a limited edition for $39.99. %Gallery-80575%
Mega Man Zero Collection arrives in North America in 'early summer'
In the mood for several more Mega Man games simultaneously? Capcom just announced its plans to localize the Mega Man Zero Collection for Nintendo DS. The collection contains all four games in the Mega Man X spinoff series Mega Man Zero, originally released on Game Boy Advance between 2002 and 2005. The press release promises "new modes," though it doesn't specify what those modes are. We know that the Japanese version includes some kind of artwork collection. The collection will be released in "early summer 2010," just in time for us to have given up on trying to complete Mega Man 10.
Video: iPhone crammed into Game Boy Advance
At first glance, this iPhone / GBA mod by Goteking seems pretty novel. It has the classic charm of the Game Boy Advance coupled with the technical wizardry of the iPhone. And, as many Joystiq staffers noticed, it handily conjures up hilarious memories of the Nokia n-gage. However, upon realizing that the mod is literally just an iPhone crammed into an empty GBA shell, the cruel joke is revealed. You see, despite the lovely, responsive physical buttons surrounding the display, you'll still be forced to use the awful, unintuitive virtual buttons to control your games. Ah well, we're sure it's still good for at least a few sidetalking jokes. See a video of the mod in action after the break. [Via TinyCartridge]
Put your Fear Factor GBA cartridge to good use (turn it into a thumb drive!)
Look, we all buy crappy games every now and then ... it just happens. But instead of hiding those titles under a pile of dirty clothes or trading them in at GameStop for almost nothing, you can now convert them into thumb drives. That is, if they're the right size and shape, like the Advance Wars 2 cartridge you see above (via Go Nintendo). We don't know why someone would ruin that game to do this, so we suggest you target Fear Factor: Unleashed instead.
Video: GBA SP gets touchscreen hack, turns Nintendo concept into reality
The DSi seems to be getting all the cool mods and appendages these days, so we're pleased to see the other portable Nintendo gaming system getting some love. We've tracked down video of an Arduino-powered touchscreen hack for the Game Boy Advance SP that brings to life one of Nintendo's own concepts and -- while not quite on par with the GamePack -- comes with all the exposed hardware and blinking lights you'd expect from a quality mod. Though there's no interface or game compatibility to speak of, the coolness factor alone should be enough for you to check out the video after the break.
The question of emulators
Gizmodo recently posted this video, which is beautiful to any PSX-era gamers: it's Final Fantasy VII running right on the iPhone, like buttah thanks to the 3GS hardware. How is this possible? Through the magic of emulation -- ever since computers got powerful enough to pretend to be other computers, people have resurrected old consoles and hardware by writing code that makes old games and software think its right at home in the computer it belongs in (an old NES system, a Genesis, or even a Playstation or Nintendo 64). As a result, by loading up ROMs into an emulator program, you can play old games you can't find (at least working) in the store any more.But the problem, as it usually does, lies in the legality. Even though those games are hard to find, companies still often own the copyrights on them (Square, for example, just released FFVII in an official emulator on the PSP, and they wouldn't be very happy with someone else releasing it on the iPhone). So while it's very easy for someone to write software that pretends to be an old NES (and there are lots of jailbroken apps around that will do just that), it's not easy to get all the rights and legal sign-offs to make it legit. Legit enough for Apple to keep it in the App Store, anyway. And while the video Gizmodo shows is awesome, and is possible on a jailbroken phone, it's not likely we'll ever see that app make it through Apple's approval. Not to mention that even when people jump through the legal hoops, Apple isn't happy with running other systems' code on their hardware anyway. Lame.That doesn't mean that the old games are gone forever -- there are certainly emulators of open-sourced or expired hardware on the App Store (here's one for Chip-8), and obviously there's a commercial reason for companies who do own the copyrights on popular games to bring them into the App Store officially. But as great as it would be to have a GBA emulator that automatically played any GBA game ROMs you loaded into it, that kind of stuff will have to stay in the jailbreak underground for now.
iPhone 3GS PlayStation, Game Boy Advance emulators demoed on video
A final iPhone 3GS jailbreak hasn't been released yet, but that isn't stopping enterprising hackers from trying to get at all that extra horsepower, and some of the first notable hacks we've seen are these updated PlayStation 1 and Game Boy Advance emulator ports, which run way faster than the versions for the original and 3G. The revved up hardware in Apple's latest is apparently capable of running either of these at 150 - 225fps with zero frameskipping, which is pretty impressive. Of course, we'll be way more impressed when the Dev Team releases a 3GS jailbreak and we can hit these up ourselves, but in the meantime there are plenty of videos to with which to while away the time at the read links.Read - Emulator videosRead - ZoTTD blog post with more info
DSiWare to include Game Boy and Game Boy Advance downloads?
We really would like to think this is inevitable, but it's just been sourced from Nintendo itself (albeit at a GameStop meetup) that the DSi might be getting Game Boy and Game Boy Advance titles as downloadable DSiWare -- in addition to previously announced apps like browsers and calculators. This was heard second-hand from a Club Nintendo member, and Nintendo has pointed out to the folks at Kombo that reported it that so far such functionality has only been announced for Japan, but didn't go on the deny it outright. If it does come true we're supposed to expect some first party titles out of the gate, with all games being region locked and ranging from $5 to $8. There were also mumblings of playing downloaded titles off of SD cards, which Nintendo shot down as well, but hopefully we'll at least be able to make backups -- we're still waiting on similar functionality for the Wii.[Via Joystiq]
Nintendo replaces Wii melted in house fire
Nintendo's customer service has a reputation for going above and beyond to satisfy the needs of once-distraught fans. This may be because only the stories of NIntendo awesomeness proliferate online (Not a headline: "Nintendo says it can't do anything for broken DS"), but this stuff makes us so happy that we'd rather not go all cynical. For now.GoNintendo reader PsyduckWarrior's house caught fire, destroying (among other things, of course) his entire video game collection, including almost every Nintendo system and "more than 250 Nintendo games spanning all their consoles". Later, he sent Nintendo a fairly simple inquiry about transferring his account to a new Wii, including pictures demonstrating the circumstances through which he came to require a new Wii.Nintendo responded by offering to send him a new Wii, along with a replacement for his Game Boy Advance SP. It may not be a replacement for his whole game collection, but it is a super-classy move from a company that could have just classified PsyduckWarrior's plight as, "Not our problem."
Brownie Brown interested in DS version of Mother 3
The lack of a localized Mother 3 on the Game Boy Advance must rank as one of Nintendo's more heinous crimes, but that's not to say they can't get out of our bad books. All it would take is, oooh, let's say a DS version of the classic RPG and A MILLION DOLLARS. Or, y'know, just the game.And look, Nintendo, Mother 3 co-developer Brownie Brown is happy to indulge us! Speaking to Siliconera, company President Shinichi Kameoka said Nintendo just needs to give the go-ahead. "If we were asked to make [a DS version of Mother 3]," he said, "then we would definitely like for fans abroad to play the game."The ball is very much in Nintendo's court, then. Until they take a swipe at it, there's only one way to sample (and fully comprehend) Mother 3's myriad delights.%Gallery-34946%
Nintendo planning a game about Napoleon?
Nintendo of Japan recently registered one of its more intriguing trademarks: the right to use the name "Napoleon" in a game. What on earth could Nintendo want with one of the most renowned French military leaders in history [insert French military joke here]? Are we about to receive Napoleon Bonaparte's Military Training? Super Napoleon Kart? Guess what: it's probably neither of these.Siliconera's Spencer, who also found the trademark, predicts that Nintendo could be preparing a title based on a popular card game in Japan, also called Napoleon. A second, more tantalizing possibility: this is a remake of/sequel to the GBA strategy title of the same name. That was developed by Genki, but was published by Nintendo in Japan and France. Nintendo isn't adverse to publishing the odd strategy title, and we hear those turned out okay!
DS shipments surpass Game Boy Advance
The DS has been quite the success for Nintendo since it released. So successful, in fact, that shipments for the handheld worldwide have bested that of Nintendo's Game Boy Advance, as the DS has shipped 84.33 million units by the end of September 2008 (GBA lifetime shipments come in at 81.36 million units). Impressive, sure, but there's still higher places the handheld can climb on Mt. Awesome Accomplishments. While besting the GBA record is noteworthy, the record still goes to the original Game Boy, which has done 118.69 million units. This figure includes the Game Boy Color, as well.
