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The Gameboy advance needs competition for developers to get the best out of the system. Nintendo are taking their dominant position in the handheld market too arrogantly and they’re allowing the flow of second rate titles such as the terrible Ready 2 Rumble and the poor port of Earthworm Jim. Competition would mean that every game that Nintendo would allow to be published would be of a better standard than if the developers thought that the quality of the games wouldn’t affect its sales.
The sheer number of games on the Gameboy colour compared to the actual number of ‘must buys’ shows how bad the handheld industry has become stale.
The Red Jade was supposed to be a handheld that would rival the GBA but it failed miserably in development because it did not have the financial resourses nor the external support from developers. Many of you do not know about this console for the main reason that its development was meant to be secret. The company responsible for the Red Jade claimed to have Quake 3 running at 20fps with little graphical loss, it also claimed that it could run any Pc game made before 1998. Though these assumptions were a little ambitious it was little compared to the scale that they would need in order to shrink a PC esque system into about 12cm by 3cm. The handheld system in order to play Quake 3 would be horrible to control, the complications may be too much for some people. They would have needed a respectable graphics card miniturised and a CPU of PC standards to make Quake 3 run. This would have made the console exceptionally expensive and it was that, that deemed it to failure.
If the Red Jade was to be launched with the specifications of a PC, the ergonomics of a Gamecube controller, the marketing power of Sony and a price that children can afford then I have no doubt Nintendo would be worrying and concentrating on making the quality of all of its future games to a higher standard (like better features in Mario Advance and more courses in Tony Hawks). A good example of the lack of quality of games because of the lack of competition was the PS2. A few months after launch there was nothing that actually interested me and it was quite disappointing. Now that the launches of the X-Box and the Gamecube in the US are forthcoming the quality of the titles and the effort that the developers are putting is a lot more than at the launch. From the disappointing launch we are now seeing titles such as Metal Gear Solid 2, Twisted Metal Black, SSX Tricky, Xenosaga, FF 10 and many, many others.
The fact is is that the GBA could have been made more powerful but it wasn’t. It doesn’t need to be powerful, the public aren’t complaining because they can relive their 16 bit days with games like Earthworm Jim. I think that it’s better that the GBA is a replica of a 16 bit console because I had some of my best gaming days in that time. There is nothing that can be done to stop Nintendo’s dominance and the stale market, if Sega were to make another handheld no matter how powerful it would be, it would not exceed the GBA in terms of popularity and sales. The same would go if the Wonderswan were to get a Western release, it would not be able to Nintendos oppression. The lack of competition at the moment means that Nintendo have 100% control of what we play. This means that we would have to live with hopeless conversions like Earthworm Jim. Looking at the future titles of the GBA there isn’t that much to get excited about except Mario Kart and Golden sun. The rest of the games look to be either second rate or look to be a medicore port.
You could look at Nintendo in the same way as you look at Microsoft by dominating its industry and not allowin the competition it needs to advance the handheld market (games and consoles) at the rate consoles are advancing at. This is not a bash against Nintendo I just think that other developers should not be scared of venturing into the handheld industry. There is room for more than one company just like there’s room for three next generation consoles.
The fact is, is that the handheld market could be advancing faster than it has been, the GBA is no more than a small, unlit Gamegear whereas competition would help to advance the market forward.
If Microsoft or Sony were to make a console what should it be like?
The sheer number of games on the Gameboy colour compared to the actual number of ‘must buys’ shows how bad the handheld industry has become stale.
The Red Jade was supposed to be a handheld that would rival the GBA but it failed miserably in development because it did not have the financial resourses nor the external support from developers. Many of you do not know about this console for the main reason that its development was meant to be secret. The company responsible for the Red Jade claimed to have Quake 3 running at 20fps with little graphical loss, it also claimed that it could run any Pc game made before 1998. Though these assumptions were a little ambitious it was little compared to the scale that they would need in order to shrink a PC esque system into about 12cm by 3cm. The handheld system in order to play Quake 3 would be horrible to control, the complications may be too much for some people. They would have needed a respectable graphics card miniturised and a CPU of PC standards to make Quake 3 run. This would have made the console exceptionally expensive and it was that, that deemed it to failure.
If the Red Jade was to be launched with the specifications of a PC, the ergonomics of a Gamecube controller, the marketing power of Sony and a price that children can afford then I have no doubt Nintendo would be worrying and concentrating on making the quality of all of its future games to a higher standard (like better features in Mario Advance and more courses in Tony Hawks). A good example of the lack of quality of games because of the lack of competition was the PS2. A few months after launch there was nothing that actually interested me and it was quite disappointing. Now that the launches of the X-Box and the Gamecube in the US are forthcoming the quality of the titles and the effort that the developers are putting is a lot more than at the launch. From the disappointing launch we are now seeing titles such as Metal Gear Solid 2, Twisted Metal Black, SSX Tricky, Xenosaga, FF 10 and many, many others.
The fact is is that the GBA could have been made more powerful but it wasn’t. It doesn’t need to be powerful, the public aren’t complaining because they can relive their 16 bit days with games like Earthworm Jim. I think that it’s better that the GBA is a replica of a 16 bit console because I had some of my best gaming days in that time. There is nothing that can be done to stop Nintendo’s dominance and the stale market, if Sega were to make another handheld no matter how powerful it would be, it would not exceed the GBA in terms of popularity and sales. The same would go if the Wonderswan were to get a Western release, it would not be able to Nintendos oppression. The lack of competition at the moment means that Nintendo have 100% control of what we play. This means that we would have to live with hopeless conversions like Earthworm Jim. Looking at the future titles of the GBA there isn’t that much to get excited about except Mario Kart and Golden sun. The rest of the games look to be either second rate or look to be a medicore port.
You could look at Nintendo in the same way as you look at Microsoft by dominating its industry and not allowin the competition it needs to advance the handheld market (games and consoles) at the rate consoles are advancing at. This is not a bash against Nintendo I just think that other developers should not be scared of venturing into the handheld industry. There is room for more than one company just like there’s room for three next generation consoles.
The fact is, is that the handheld market could be advancing faster than it has been, the GBA is no more than a small, unlit Gamegear whereas competition would help to advance the market forward.
If Microsoft or Sony were to make a console what should it be like?
Does any one remember the Game Gear. That is aboiut the only thing so far that has come any were near competing with the Game Boy.
Now all big manufactures or concentrating on the big machines; Sony: Playstaion 2 and Microsoft: X Box. They dont have the time to produce competition to the GBA, and if they were to, could they be sure it was succesfull?
The GBA is one of a kind- it may likely to stay like that too.
Now all big manufactures or concentrating on the big machines; Sony: Playstaion 2 and Microsoft: X Box. They dont have the time to produce competition to the GBA, and if they were to, could they be sure it was succesfull?
The GBA is one of a kind- it may likely to stay like that too.
Well there is one simple reason why there is no competition for the Game Boy Advance and this is it: it's impossible to be successful. The Gameboy has been around for a decade and in this decade has provided great portable gameplay. All of it's forms, the pocket, colour, advance and original, have been successful as they have always been the right size, always had the right battery life and always been great fun to play. The weakness of all the gameboys has to be one thing - the graphics. The original version and pocket were both monochrome and it is only recently that the graphics have become colourful in the forms of the advance and colour however still they are not as good as they could be. The advance yes seems to be getting there I hear the graphics are very good on a majority of games but still they are not perfect.
Competition has been and gone in the form of the Neo Geo pocket and Segas Gamegear. These tried to pick up on the weaknesses of the gameboy in the hope it could be beaten. I remember this came at a great cost to the Sega Gamegear whose battery life was not very long and because of this was expensive to run. It took 4 A4 batteries I remember and the consoles life was not even half as long as the original gameboy. This meant it wasnt really portable and relied on a power supply from the car battery or a socket in your house. This console did come up with some other great ideas like the TV tuner which allowed you to watch television on your gamegear. The Neogeo I never played it but saw pictures of it and the graphics looked much nicer then the gameboy and I hear it also had a very nice battery life. So why did it lose? I'm sure if you ask around about 80% of the people you ask will have a gameboy of some kind. It is the most popular console ever. It has been around a decade and in this time it has created a great image around itself. It has proved reliable and fun over 10 years and if you like has indoctrinated children to believe it is the best around. Children have grown to appreciate it and respect it as it is the only thing they know.
This ten years cannot be broken very easily, the gameboy has created an image so strong nothing can beat it. This is why there is no competition and nothing will even attempt to beat it. Resistance is futile! Thank you for reading.
Competition has been and gone in the form of the Neo Geo pocket and Segas Gamegear. These tried to pick up on the weaknesses of the gameboy in the hope it could be beaten. I remember this came at a great cost to the Sega Gamegear whose battery life was not very long and because of this was expensive to run. It took 4 A4 batteries I remember and the consoles life was not even half as long as the original gameboy. This meant it wasnt really portable and relied on a power supply from the car battery or a socket in your house. This console did come up with some other great ideas like the TV tuner which allowed you to watch television on your gamegear. The Neogeo I never played it but saw pictures of it and the graphics looked much nicer then the gameboy and I hear it also had a very nice battery life. So why did it lose? I'm sure if you ask around about 80% of the people you ask will have a gameboy of some kind. It is the most popular console ever. It has been around a decade and in this time it has created a great image around itself. It has proved reliable and fun over 10 years and if you like has indoctrinated children to believe it is the best around. Children have grown to appreciate it and respect it as it is the only thing they know.
This ten years cannot be broken very easily, the gameboy has created an image so strong nothing can beat it. This is why there is no competition and nothing will even attempt to beat it. Resistance is futile! Thank you for reading.
Microsoft are supporting the Advance, so no competition there.
Sony may in the Future produce a portableconsole that fits into the PS2, in which case it should be like the GameBoyAdvance. Although we can dream of a day when we will have portable Playstations with 15 hours of life on 2 AA batterys.
Sony may in the Future produce a portableconsole that fits into the PS2, in which case it should be like the GameBoyAdvance. Although we can dream of a day when we will have portable Playstations with 15 hours of life on 2 AA batterys.
The Gameboy advance needs competition for developers to get the best out of the system. Nintendo are taking their dominant position in the handheld market too arrogantly and they’re allowing the flow of second rate titles such as the terrible Ready 2 Rumble and the poor port of Earthworm Jim. Competition would mean that every game that Nintendo would allow to be published would be of a better standard than if the developers thought that the quality of the games wouldn’t affect its sales.
The sheer number of games on the Gameboy colour compared to the actual number of ‘must buys’ shows how bad the handheld industry has become stale.
The Red Jade was supposed to be a handheld that would rival the GBA but it failed miserably in development because it did not have the financial resourses nor the external support from developers. Many of you do not know about this console for the main reason that its development was meant to be secret. The company responsible for the Red Jade claimed to have Quake 3 running at 20fps with little graphical loss, it also claimed that it could run any Pc game made before 1998. Though these assumptions were a little ambitious it was little compared to the scale that they would need in order to shrink a PC esque system into about 12cm by 3cm. The handheld system in order to play Quake 3 would be horrible to control, the complications may be too much for some people. They would have needed a respectable graphics card miniturised and a CPU of PC standards to make Quake 3 run. This would have made the console exceptionally expensive and it was that, that deemed it to failure.
If the Red Jade was to be launched with the specifications of a PC, the ergonomics of a Gamecube controller, the marketing power of Sony and a price that children can afford then I have no doubt Nintendo would be worrying and concentrating on making the quality of all of its future games to a higher standard (like better features in Mario Advance and more courses in Tony Hawks). A good example of the lack of quality of games because of the lack of competition was the PS2. A few months after launch there was nothing that actually interested me and it was quite disappointing. Now that the launches of the X-Box and the Gamecube in the US are forthcoming the quality of the titles and the effort that the developers are putting is a lot more than at the launch. From the disappointing launch we are now seeing titles such as Metal Gear Solid 2, Twisted Metal Black, SSX Tricky, Xenosaga, FF 10 and many, many others.
The fact is is that the GBA could have been made more powerful but it wasn’t. It doesn’t need to be powerful, the public aren’t complaining because they can relive their 16 bit days with games like Earthworm Jim. I think that it’s better that the GBA is a replica of a 16 bit console because I had some of my best gaming days in that time. There is nothing that can be done to stop Nintendo’s dominance and the stale market, if Sega were to make another handheld no matter how powerful it would be, it would not exceed the GBA in terms of popularity and sales. The same would go if the Wonderswan were to get a Western release, it would not be able to Nintendos oppression. The lack of competition at the moment means that Nintendo have 100% control of what we play. This means that we would have to live with hopeless conversions like Earthworm Jim. Looking at the future titles of the GBA there isn’t that much to get excited about except Mario Kart and Golden sun. The rest of the games look to be either second rate or look to be a medicore port.
You could look at Nintendo in the same way as you look at Microsoft by dominating its industry and not allowin the competition it needs to advance the handheld market (games and consoles) at the rate consoles are advancing at. This is not a bash against Nintendo I just think that other developers should not be scared of venturing into the handheld industry. There is room for more than one company just like there’s room for three next generation consoles.
The fact is, is that the handheld market could be advancing faster than it has been, the GBA is no more than a small, unlit Gamegear whereas competition would help to advance the market forward.
If Microsoft or Sony were to make a console what should it be like?
The sheer number of games on the Gameboy colour compared to the actual number of ‘must buys’ shows how bad the handheld industry has become stale.
The Red Jade was supposed to be a handheld that would rival the GBA but it failed miserably in development because it did not have the financial resourses nor the external support from developers. Many of you do not know about this console for the main reason that its development was meant to be secret. The company responsible for the Red Jade claimed to have Quake 3 running at 20fps with little graphical loss, it also claimed that it could run any Pc game made before 1998. Though these assumptions were a little ambitious it was little compared to the scale that they would need in order to shrink a PC esque system into about 12cm by 3cm. The handheld system in order to play Quake 3 would be horrible to control, the complications may be too much for some people. They would have needed a respectable graphics card miniturised and a CPU of PC standards to make Quake 3 run. This would have made the console exceptionally expensive and it was that, that deemed it to failure.
If the Red Jade was to be launched with the specifications of a PC, the ergonomics of a Gamecube controller, the marketing power of Sony and a price that children can afford then I have no doubt Nintendo would be worrying and concentrating on making the quality of all of its future games to a higher standard (like better features in Mario Advance and more courses in Tony Hawks). A good example of the lack of quality of games because of the lack of competition was the PS2. A few months after launch there was nothing that actually interested me and it was quite disappointing. Now that the launches of the X-Box and the Gamecube in the US are forthcoming the quality of the titles and the effort that the developers are putting is a lot more than at the launch. From the disappointing launch we are now seeing titles such as Metal Gear Solid 2, Twisted Metal Black, SSX Tricky, Xenosaga, FF 10 and many, many others.
The fact is is that the GBA could have been made more powerful but it wasn’t. It doesn’t need to be powerful, the public aren’t complaining because they can relive their 16 bit days with games like Earthworm Jim. I think that it’s better that the GBA is a replica of a 16 bit console because I had some of my best gaming days in that time. There is nothing that can be done to stop Nintendo’s dominance and the stale market, if Sega were to make another handheld no matter how powerful it would be, it would not exceed the GBA in terms of popularity and sales. The same would go if the Wonderswan were to get a Western release, it would not be able to Nintendos oppression. The lack of competition at the moment means that Nintendo have 100% control of what we play. This means that we would have to live with hopeless conversions like Earthworm Jim. Looking at the future titles of the GBA there isn’t that much to get excited about except Mario Kart and Golden sun. The rest of the games look to be either second rate or look to be a medicore port.
You could look at Nintendo in the same way as you look at Microsoft by dominating its industry and not allowin the competition it needs to advance the handheld market (games and consoles) at the rate consoles are advancing at. This is not a bash against Nintendo I just think that other developers should not be scared of venturing into the handheld industry. There is room for more than one company just like there’s room for three next generation consoles.
The fact is, is that the handheld market could be advancing faster than it has been, the GBA is no more than a small, unlit Gamegear whereas competition would help to advance the market forward.
If Microsoft or Sony were to make a console what should it be like?