CNN asks: Next Game Boy this year?

[jarrod]

And they are competing for the same money, no matter what Nintendo says.

Read the article, it's not simply Nintendo's line that DS is complimentary (rather than cannibalistic) to GBA.

Have you forgotten that PSP has indeed been outselling DS since beginning of the year?

That's due almost entirely to a protracted launch honeymoon thanks to SCEI's inability to meet demand. Comparatively, DS simply met demand faster thanks to having more than double the product available. After all, DS sold more in it's first 2 weeks than PSP had in it's first 2 months.

IA GBASPSP seems kinda stupid, especially if released at the same pricepoint. I don't even know what kinds of upgrades they could really do to make it worth purchasing. Any ideas?

-HDD
-WiFi/Motorolla Wireless
-SD Media Adapter (MPEG4/MP3)

...there's plenty that can be done with GBA still. I think an iGBA would do rather well with consumers.

 

[Kalin]

Here it is (GBA2 - 2006/2007), a little old (June 2004), but still sounds a lot more credible and believable to me that the analysis on CNN:
http://www.the-magicbox.com/game061804.shtml

David Gosen of Nintendo confirmed that the company is already developing a successor of GameBoy Advance, and it is a different system from Nintendo DS. The launch time of the system will base on how well the Nintendo DS will do in the market. If Sony PSP gains more market share, Nintendo will launch the successor of GameBoy Advance as early as 2006, otherwise the launch time will push back for another year (which is 2007).

So basically it's 2006, not 2005, if PSP gains more market share than the DS, which isn't the case as of now... And also, as cthellis42 said (if I understood him correctly - I agree), it's a little too early to judge if and how successful the DS actually is.

 

[Evil_Cloud]

The creator of Game Boy Advance was already talking about GBA 2 in 2003 in Edge magazine.

 

[Lazy8s]

A GC-compatible system would be ideal for this kind of scenario. For software development and for consumers, Nintendo's platform would transition without interruption, and a ramping up of development support for yet another platform wouldn't be necessary.

 

[jarrod]

A GC-compatible system would be ideal for this kind of scenario. For software development and for consumers, Nintendo's platform would transition without interruption, and a ramping up of development support for yet another platform wouldn't be necessary.

I dunno, I still think GameCube compatibility would throw up too many hurdles to really be a viable solution. The GOD drive would ensure a larger formfactor and more battery requirements than going with solid state again plus it would make the whole setup far more fragile and costly all around. Then there's the issue of software sales, DS software is already suffering thanks to GBA compatibility... publishers might be scraed away if consumers simply buy budget GameCube titles instead of new releases.

I think the best solution would be a GC comparable chipset (maybe an ARM/ATi combo) with 3DM card media and "similar to GameCube" OpenGL based toolsets. That could allow for a painless R&D transition, relatively easy ports (from either GameCube or PSP actually) and would encourage 3rd party publishing too from a software performance stand point. Why allow backwards compatability when you can simply resell the same games again? It worked for GBA...

 

[Iron Tiger]

They announced that deal with ATI to create a GBA 2 a while back didnt they?

But the most advanced chip that they have is the imageon 2300, and that is nowhere near gamecube level graphics its about on par with goforce.

So how are they gonna achieve these GC level graphics?

The only technology out there right now that can beat the PSP is the PowerVR MBX.

The PVR MBX is hardly a match for the PSP.

Have you done a spec comparison?

Actually I have.
PSP
PVR MBX

That's not to say I believe Sony's far-fetched performance numbers. But going on what I've seen of the PSP (around DC quality from the best looking titles) and what I've seen from the MBX (the Lite version in my Dell Axim X50v), I'd say the PSP is defintitely packing more gaming power.

 

[darkblu]

That's not to say I believe Sony's far-fetched performance numbers. But going on what I've seen of the PSP (around DC quality from the best looking titles) and what I've seen from the MBX (the Lite version in my Dell Axim X50v), I'd say the PSP is defintitely packing more gaming power.

iron tiger, comparing mbx on a pocketpc platform to the psp gpu on the, erm, psp console platform is hardly a good comparison, as the utilisation of the two parts is vastly defferent on those platforms -- buses, bandwidths, latencies, etc.

 

[TEXAN]

Another thing to remember is that PSP's innards are all 90nm, a 90nm MBX was shown at ISSCC and was running at 200Mhz.

 

[Clashman]

I dunno, I still think GameCube compatibility would throw up too many hurdles to really be a viable solution. The GOD drive would ensure a larger formfactor and more battery requirements than going with solid state again plus it would make the whole setup far more fragile and costly all around. Then there's the issue of software sales, DS software is already suffering thanks to GBA compatibility... publishers might be scraed away if consumers simply buy budget GameCube titles instead of new releases.

Optical disks also really up the amount of data you can store, so there are positive aspects as well. I don't really buy the "optical disks are too fragile" line, either. People have been using discmans for how long now. Your 3rd point is the most interesting, but I'm still not sure about it. A GC compatible portable, would likely renew interest in GC as a whole. People would bring it back out if they've shoved it in a closet or buy another. Developers would also have the safety of knowing they were developing for 2 systems with somewhat distinct userbases, one of which, (GCP at least), could very well be growing at a faster rate than PS2s. It wouldn't take long for the userbase to reach a level where all the used GC titles would be snatched up and people would have to start buying new titles, (assuming that's the first thing everyone who bought this system did).

I think the best solution would be a GC comparable chipset (maybe an ARM/ATi combo) with 3DM card media and "similar to GameCube" OpenGL based toolsets. That could allow for a painless R&D transition, relatively easy ports (from either GameCube or PSP actually) and would encourage 3rd party publishing too from a software performance stand point. Why allow backwards compatability when you can simply resell the same games again? It worked for GBA...

GBA wasn't competing against PSP, though. GBA2 is going to need something to set itself apart from PSP if they want to beat it and/or bury it, in my opinion.

 

[Lazy8s]

Consumers and publishers will have less goodwill to give for other new platforms and sets of game rereleases in a market already divided among Nintendo's own systems and a PSP on the march. With the Game Boy brand's proven blockbuster sales potential, Nintendo could at once avoid spending against the grace of the market and also revive a prematurely dying Game Cube platform with the release of a Game Boy Cube (tm).

As for an MBX solution for gaming, a SoC product has already been described with performance around twice that of the Dreamcast and additional functionality.

 

[Teasy]

I agree with both Jarrod and Clashman to a degree. IMO the best way to do a GC based portable is to have full compatability with GC games but with a different storage medium. But I do think that storage medium should be disc based, just not GC discs. Make the discs smaller then GC discs but with the same storage space. Better size for the handheld, better power usage, but GC games can still be put straight onto them with no extra development time.

That way all developers can release games they've already made for GC straight onto the system. No development costs, massive launch library and good game sales. Because if the system just played GC discs most people wouldn't even buy a game for it for a year. They'd just play their collection of GC games.

Also this way you still have the advantage of developers being able to develop a game for GC and put it on both GC and GB2 without any extra development time. Which would rejuvinate GC's third party support and keep it alive long after it would normally have died out.

 

[Lazy8s]

The GameCube console itself would still mostly suffer from its competitive sales disadvantage against the others, especially with their next console on its way, and it should be a high priority goal of Nintendo to preserve the existing GameCube market already occupying valuable space at retail. By merging the next Game Boy platform with the GameCube, a sale of cheap GameCube software is still a sale for the overall platform (and discounted GameCube software would suddenly regain value at retail once millions of new users flooded in from the portable side looking for good game deals)

New software sales will continue the same way they always manage to: the release of new Game Cube/Boy games which keep the userbase active.

 

[Ty]

IMO the best way to do a GC based portable is to have full compatability with GC games but with a different storage medium.

If that were to happen, jvd could no longer complain about having just played the same game but now on a portable.

Btw - I'd love a GCN portable - certainly more than the DS anyhow (since I have a library and prefer the much better graphics).

 

[Iron Tiger]

That's not to say I believe Sony's far-fetched performance numbers. But going on what I've seen of the PSP (around DC quality from the best looking titles) and what I've seen from the MBX (the Lite version in my Dell Axim X50v), I'd say the PSP is defintitely packing more gaming power.

iron tiger, comparing mbx on a pocketpc platform to the psp gpu on the, erm, psp console platform is hardly a good comparison, as the utilisation of the two parts is vastly defferent on those platforms -- buses, bandwidths, latencies, etc.

The OS (and bloody input) may not be designed with gaming in mind, but Intel made a few optimizations to the chip for use with the XScale CPU that it's packaged with. The guts are as optimized for gaming as any MBX device is gonna get. But even the PowerVR Racer tech demo doesn't compare to something like Ridge Racers. I believe in the power of tile-based renderers and all that, but I think it's giving it too much credit to say the MBX can keep up with the PSP, even if it were to be built into a game-centric unit.

 

[Teasy]

Your comparing two GPUs in two different systems though. PSP is not just its GPU after all. Also its hardly fair to compare a tech demo by PowerVR to a game developed by Namco.

BTW as Texan mentioned MBX has been shown at 200Mhz when using the same 90nm process as PSP's GPU. Which would be a lot faster then the MBX in PDA your comparing PSP to.

 

[Lazy8s]

The XScale is x86 and is not going to be competitive with a focused embedded architecture like SuperH.

 

[archie4oz]

The XScale is x86 and is not going to be competitive with a focused embedded architecture like SuperH.

WTF??? Xscale is ARM not x86 (although Intel for a while sure went bonkers with the clockspeed of it). And yes Xscale is all about the embedded market... In fact if you're compiling strictly to Thumb then the code density is comparable to SuperH as well...

And as for a GCN portable.. Meh, I'd prefer the DS, there's more creative paths to be explored there than with a hypothetical GCN mobile. We already have the PSP around for rehashing console games into hand-held titles...

 

[darkblu]

The XScale is x86 and is not going to be competitive with a focused embedded architecture like SuperH.

xscale is arm derived. regardless, a pocketpc is nowhere near a psp in terms of graphics throughput, regardless of what stands at the end of the pipe. and then as teasy mentioned there come in software resources, etc, etc. if we see a psp-class device based on mbx then we can try making experience-based comparisons to the psp gpu.

 

[Jaybird376]

There's the simplest explanation as to why the next GBA won't be a portable gamecube......


It's simply that, as awesome as that portable may be, if it were in Nintendo's long term plans, they would have much more stridently used the handheld market to leverage third party development support.

Can anyone honestly say that developing software for the gamecube wouldn't have been incredibly more popular if developers knew that not only would they get to sell their game to the home market, but re-leverage the game straight to the handheld market with no additional cost?

Any third party developer would be crazy to ignore that large potential market. Early on in the Gamecube's life, I honestly thought that would be Nintendo's long range plans. It's the perfect way to seduce third party support. It likely would have come close to killing the Xbox and made an even run with Sony.


It only makes a bit of sense to do it now, to extend Gamecube support after Revolution is released. In addition, maybe incorporating using the portable as a wireless controller. But if it was going to be done, Nintendo should have had this thought out better in the long term.

And even with the obvious errors in judgement Nintendo has made in the past, they aren't that stupid to not see such a huge lever to use on game developers.

I honestly think the plan could have been incredibly effective, if it were incorporated right from the start.

I'm also currious to see what the Revolution will actually be, looking to see if Nintendo tries to leverage more than one market to influence sales of both products. Hell, the SP as a controller wouldn't have been nearly as bad if it had all the controls necessary to play any game.

If they can use the GBA 2 in some form as a more integrated controller, making true use of it. There might actually be a something very interesting about connectivity.

 

[PC-Engine]

So basically it's 2006, not 2005, if PSP gains more market share than the DS, which isn't the case as of now... And also, as cthellis42 said (if I understood him correctly - I agree), it's a little too early to judge if and how successful the DS actually is.

End of 2005 is only a few weeks away from beginning of 2006. I don't think Nintendo will release it fall of 06 so fall of 05 sounds about right.

IA GBASPSP seems kinda stupid, especially if released at the same pricepoint. I don't even know what kinds of upgrades they could really do to make it worth purchasing. Any ideas?

A better LCD display for one. Maybe something like what's being used in the DS's top screen but a little bigger.

Faster 33MHz ARM7, same as the one used in DS for GBA backwards compatibility. This faster processing power will allow higher quality MPEG4 decode, MP3 decode, etc.

Built-in SD card adaptor for playing those movies, music, pictures.

Built-in headphone jack.