Game Boy AdvanceThe Game Boy Advance (GBA) is a handheld video game console developed, manufactured and marketed by Nintendo. It is one of the latest in the Game Boy series of consoles, and the successor to the popular Game Boy Color. It was released in Japan on March 21, 2001, in North America on June 11, 2001, in Europe on June 22, 2001, and in China on June 8, 2004(Not including Hong Kong). Its codename during development was Project Atlantis. HardwareClose-up of Game Boy AdvanceThe Game Boy Advance is backward compatible with most games previously released for the Game Boy or the Game Boy Color, as well as new software developed to take advantage of the new technical capabilities of the system. It is powered by two AA batteries, which give about 15–30 hours of play time, as well as an optional power supply that plugs directly into the GBA's battery bracket. ProcessorsThe GBA has a custom 32-bit 16.8-MHz ARM processor (ARM7TDMI) based on a RISC architecture, which is much more suited to the C programming language than the 8-bit Z80-like processor used in older Game Boy models. The ARM processor can run both 32-bit ARM and 16-bit "Thumb" instruction set encodings. The system also contains an 8.4-MHz Z80-like processor to provide support for legacy GB software; however, both processors cannot be active at the same time. DisplayThe 2.9" LCD is capable of a maximum of 240×160 pixels in 15-bit color (32,768 colors). This display includes more pixels than Game Boy's 160×144; when playing legacy games, the user can press the "L" or "R" button to switch the display between 160×144 with a black border and scaling to 240×144 pixels. Early games had very dark color palettes because the display in the development kits was much brighter than the one in the production units; the production display has a gamma value of 4. Newer titles use gamma correction in their palettes. If the color LCD has a fault, it is that the Game Boy Advance is lit by ambient light. Users quickly learned to tilt the device to take advantage of window or overhead illumination. An aftermarket internal lighting kit known as the Afterburner was briefly popular before the introduction of the Game Boy Advance SP, and influenced the development of the new model. GraphicsThe GBA has hardware support for simple 2D operations using graphical elements called sprites. It can scale, rotate, sum-blend, and alpha-blend sprites against a background (with one alpha value for the whole screen, not the alpha-blending of image edges seen in the PNG format), and it can change the scaling and rotation of sprites and the background on each scanline to give a pseudo-3D effect. The GBA's picture generator has six display modes (three tiled and three bitmap) and 96 KiB of dedicated RAM. In tiled display modes, the system can manage four pixel-to-pixel layers, two pixel-to-pixel layers and one affine layer, or two affine layers, and it uses 64 KiB of RAM for tile and map data and 32 KiB for sprite cel data. In bitmap modes, it can display one large 16-bit bitmap, two 8-bit bitmaps (with page flipping), or one small 16-bit bitmap (with page flipping), and it uses 80 KiB of RAM for bitmap data and 16 KiB for sprite cel data. In all modes, it can show up to 128 sprites (individually controllable small moving objects) of 8×8 up to 64×64 pixels in either 4-bit or 8-bit indexed color. Each sprite can be drawn using either direct pixel mapping or affine mapping; it's possible to fit more direct sprites on a scanline. Later games pushed the GBA to its limits with simple 3D graphics. These games include Wolfenstein 3D, Duke Nukem Advance, and Doom and Doom 2. Utilizing 2D sprites for objects and 3D graphics for architecture, these games usually achieve a passable framerate, although sometimes in large environments or with many objects onscreen the framerate will drop to a very noticeable level. Some feel that such 3D games are a logical and welcome step for the GBA, while others feel that they are overly ambitious and beyond the capabilities of the system. With the release of the DS, future 3D games for the GBA will most likely be limited. MediaThe interface from the GBA unit to the ROM cartridge includes only a 24-bit address bus multiplexed with a 16-bit data bus. (Mattel's Intellivision console had previously used a multiplexed bus.) This setup limits the directly addressable memory to 16 binary megawords (that is, 256 binary megabits or 32 binary megabytes), but bankswitching hardware on the cartridge can extend this by controlling the ROM's upper address lines from software, effectively switching other parts of the ROM into the GBA's address space. Still, as of 2005, no published GBA titles have even executed such bankswitching hardware because 32 MiB of ROM is still too expensive for the price point at which most GBA games are sold. (It would possibly have to retail for $39.99 to $49.99) By early 2002, hardware became readily available for moving user code onto the GBA. For example, in December 2001, a flash memory cartridge plus writing hardware could be had for less than $200 U.S., and a $50 device emulates a netbooting master. By April 2003, the prices had come down to under $100 for the flash cartridge and writer and $30 for the boot cable. Because of this, a homebrew software development community has sprung up (see gbadev.org). Nintendo, however, has a history of viewing such devices as nothing more than piracy tools, since they can be used to copy cartridges containing copyrighted software. In February of 2002, Nintendo began sending threatening letters to some United States resellers of such devices. Previous lawsuits had banned the importation of similar devices for the 8-bit Game Boy. Connectivity4-Player connection with 2 GBAs, 1 GBA SP, and 1 GameCube with a Game Boy Player attachedThe GBA also has a serial port for connecting to other GBA units in a setup similar to a token ring network over a bus physical topology. A GBA can also receive up to 256 KiB of bootstrap code through the port, even when no cartridge is present (sometimes known as multiboot or netboot). This is used for multiplayer GBA connections, where multiple GBAs can play with only one cartridge; one GBA with a cartridge sends boot code to the other cartridge-less GBAs. The serial port can (with a suitable cable) also connect to a standard RS-232 serial port for debugging purposes and (hypothetically) Internet play, although a TCP/IP stack has yet to be implemented in a GBA game. To link GBA games, a GBA link cable is required. To link regular GB or GB Color games, the older GB link cable is required, even if you're using two GBAs. A wireless adapter was released on September 7, 2004 in the U.S. It allows GBAs to be linked without cords, and with more than four players at a time. It came bundled with Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen. However, a game has to be designed with the wireless adapter in mind, and there are only a few such games. ModelsGame Boy Advance (original model)The Game Boy Advance sold at a base price of $100 USD when it was released in North America. Prior to the release of the Game Boy Advance SP, the GBA was the fastest-selling game console in history. Despite its success, many criticized the original Game Boy Advance for still not adopting a lighted screen, which Nintendo would rectify with later models. As of 2005, the original (non-lighted) model GBA has been discontinued. Game Boy Advance SPGame Boy Advance SPIn early 2003, Nintendo upgraded the Game Boy Advance giving it an internal front-light that can be turned on or off, a rechargeable lithium ion battery, as well as a folding case approximately half the size of the GBA. It was designed to address some common complaints with the original GBA. Interestingly, complaints about the original GBA screen being hard to see prompted a cottage industry of lighting solutions. This included the Afterburner Frontlighting Kit. This was a kit that sold for $30 and needed to be installed inside the original GBA. This Front-light turned out to be almost identical to Nintendo's solution to lighting the GBA SP. Around the same time as the release of the Game Boy micro, an improved version of the SP that (finally) utilized a proper backlit LCD screen was released. The switch that controls the light now toggles between "normal" (which itself is already brighter than a Nintendo DS's screen), and "bright", an intense brightness level similar to LCD television sets. The light cannot be turned off completely while the system is on. Battery life was actually improved in this new model. This new backlit model was originally available in two colors, Graphite and Pearl Blue. Nintendo quietly released these new screens so as not to confuse customers. They did, however, label the new boxes with large text reading "Now with a Brighter Backlit Screen". This new screen makes the old front-Lit GBA SP screens look dark and washed-out. Game Boy microGame Boy microIn September 2005, Nintendo released a second redesign of the Game Boy Advance. This model again goes back to the Game Boy Advance horizontal orientation, is much smaller and sleeker, and was the first Game Boy model to feature a backlight. The Game Boy micro also offers the user to switch between several colored faceplates to allow customization, a feature which Nintendo advertised heavily around the micro's launch. Unlike the previous models it does not support Game Boy or Game Boy Color titles. AccessoriesNintendo has released many add-ons for the Game Boy Advance (GBA). These include: Wireless Adapter - Released in 2004, this adapter hooks up to the back of the Game Boy Advance. It replaces link cables and allows many people to link up to each other. It markets for $20 and came included with Pokémon FireRed and Pokémon LeafGreen. Because it was released so late in the GBA's life, less than 20 games support this hardware. The adapter's usefulness is most evident in Pokémon; FireRed/LeafGreen feature a "Union Room" where up to forty people can enter to battle or trade Pokémon. The adapter itself was not backward compatible, leading to criticism that this accessory was more novel than useful, only available on a few games. A Game Boy micro version has also been released - it can interact fully with both models of the Wireless Adapter. Play-Yan - The Play-Yan is an MP3/MPEG4 player for the GBA and Nintendo DS. The cartridge is slightly bigger than normal GBA cartridge and includes a built-in headphone port as well as an SD Card slot. Music or videos that users have downloaded from the Internet can be transferred onto an SD Card and slotted into the Play-Yan device. Nintendo has released several mini games for the Play-Yan that can be downloaded from their website, although Nintendo later removed all mini-game functionality through a firmware update. The Play-Yan is currently available in Japan only, but a European release has been confirmed for early 2006. Since Play-Yan did not have a U.S. release to coincide with Game Boy micro as rumored, an American release has been speculated for 2006 as well. e-Reader - The e-Reader is a rather bulky scanning device that plugs into the game cartridge slot of the Game Boy Advance. Specialized cards with codes along the side and bottom are slid through the slit, scanning the card into the Game Boy Advance. Many ideas for the e-Reader have included cards that scan classic games like Donkey Kong and Excitebike onto the handheld ready to play, as well as a collaboration with Super Mario Advance 4 to have cards that unlock content. GameCube games like Animal Crossing had cards with unlockable content as well, and the Pokémon Trading Card Game playing cards also adopted the e-Reader codes. The e-Reader works with the Game Boy Player as well as the Game Boy Advance SP, but cannot fit into the Nintendo DS's Game Boy slot. It was discontinued in America in early 2004, but is still quite popular in Japan. It was not released in Europe. Game Boy Advance Video - These highly popular cartridges contain two episodes of 30 minute cartoon programs. First released in America in May of 2004, they cost $19.99 and included cartoons such as Pokémon, SpongeBob SquarePants, Sonic X, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The movies Shrek, Shrek 2, and Shark Tale are also available for GBA Video and all three movies are in full. Unfortunately, these cartridges display an error when inserted into a GameCube via a Game Boy Player. Unofficial accessoriesGBA Movie Player - The GBAMP is a versatile gaming cartridge that allows people to play NES/Famicom games, watch movies (e.g. MPEGs), see .txt files, hear sound clips, etc. TV Tuner - Not much is known as of yet, but it does what it implies. It will most likely be what is being sold now on the Game Boy Advance, and that is to make the portable system into a portable television. Unofficial Game Boy Advance flash cartridges are also available. While they enable the distribution of homebrew applications and content, they may also facilitate the illegal distribution of copyrighted games. Sales and marketingThe Game Boy Advance, along with the Game Boy Advance SP and the Game Boy micro, has sold well. As of September 2005, the Game Boy Advance series has sold 70.04 million units worldwide.[1] GamesThe Game Boy Advance has become the modern flagship of sprite-based games. With hardware superior to the Super NES it has proven that sprite-based technology could improve and live side by side with the 3D games of today's consoles. The Game Boy Advance not only has one's typical platformers, but also a huge collection of SNES-style RPGs. It has also become a popular system for old-school gamers due to the increasing amount of games ported from various 8-bit and 16-bit systems of the previous era. Through the use of flash cartridges and emulators the Game Boy Advance can even play NES and PC Engine games, as well as AGI-based Sierra On-Line PC adventure games. Standout original titles include:
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Standout original titles include:. Oddly, all are named somethinggray except lightgrey: this can cause unexpected errors (this discrepancy is inherited from the X11 color list). Through the use of flash cartridges and emulators the Game Boy Advance can even play NES and PC Engine games, as well as AGI-based Sierra On-Line PC adventure games. There are several shades of grey available for use with HTML and CSS. It has also become a popular system for old-school gamers due to the increasing amount of games ported from various 8-bit and 16-bit systems of the previous era. . The Game Boy Advance not only has one's typical platformers, but also a huge collection of SNES-style RPGs. In an afterimage, which can be seen after seeing the picture for about 30 seconds, the colors will switch to their complements. With hardware superior to the Super NES it has proven that sprite-based technology could improve and live side by side with the 3D games of today's consoles. Grey is its own complement. The Game Boy Advance has become the modern flagship of sprite-based games. Other sets of complementary colors include:. As of September 2005, the Game Boy Advance series has sold 70.04 million units worldwide.[1]. The psychological complementary colors are:. The Game Boy Advance, along with the Game Boy Advance SP and the Game Boy micro, has sold well. Two colors are called complementary colors if grey is produced when lights of the two colors are combined. While they enable the distribution of homebrew applications and content, they may also facilitate the illegal distribution of copyrighted games. Depending on the color temperature of the light (measured in degrees Kelvin of a black body radiator), the human eye can interpret the same object as either grey or some other color, with colder light adding a yellow-orange hue and warmer light adding a blue hue. Unofficial Game Boy Advance flash cartridges are also available. In light, or additive color (RGB), it is created by adding equal amounts of R, G, and B, with values below 255. It will most likely be what is being sold now on the Game Boy Advance, and that is to make the portable system into a portable television. In pigment, or subtractive color (CMYK), it is created by adding black. TV Tuner - Not much is known as of yet, but it does what it implies. Grey or gray (in American English) is a color seen commonly in nature. MPEGs), see .txt files, hear sound clips, etc. First released in America in May of 2004, they cost $19.99 and included cartoons such as Pokémon, SpongeBob SquarePants, Sonic X, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The Grey Elves. Game Boy Advance Video - These highly popular cartridges contain two episodes of 30 minute cartoon programs. The Grey Havens. It was not released in Europe. Gandalf is called the Grey Wizard. It was discontinued in America in early 2004, but is still quite popular in Japan. In Tolkien's works:
The e-Reader works with the Game Boy Player as well as the Game Boy Advance SP, but cannot fit into the Nintendo DS's Game Boy slot. The "Grey Lady" is the nickname of the New York Times. GameCube games like Animal Crossing had cards with unlockable content as well, and the Pokémon Trading Card Game playing cards also adopted the e-Reader codes. It can be used during Lent or on special days of fasting and prayer. Many ideas for the e-Reader have included cards that scan classic games like Donkey Kong and Excitebike onto the handheld ready to play, as well as a collaboration with Super Mario Advance 4 to have cards that unlock content. In religion, grey is the color of ashes, and therefore a biblical symbol of mourning and repentance. Specialized cards with codes along the side and bottom are slid through the slit, scanning the card into the Game Boy Advance. The substance that composes the brain is referred to as "grey matter", and for that reason the color is associated with things intellectual. e-Reader - The e-Reader is a rather bulky scanning device that plugs into the game cartridge slot of the Game Boy Advance. Whilst the hair actually becomes white as one ages, it is often misinterpreted as grey (white next to others colors looking comparatively darker), and hence grey is associated with the elderly, and has inspired the name of the Gray Panthers. release to coincide with Game Boy micro as rumored, an American release has been speculated for 2006 as well. Urban camouflage is composed of patches of shades of grey, while country camouflage uses ranges of brown and green. Since Play-Yan did not have a U.S. Grey has been used to describe the industrialism as it is the color of granite, concrete and other city materials, as opposed to green to describe environmentalism, chlorophyll and plants.
Nintendo has released several mini games for the Play-Yan that can be downloaded from their website, although Nintendo later removed all mini-game functionality through a firmware update. positively to balance an all-black or all-white view (for example, shades of grey = magnitudes of good/bad). Music or videos that users have downloaded from the Internet can be transferred onto an SD Card and slotted into the Play-Yan device. pejoratively to describe situations that have no clear moral value, or. The cartridge is slightly bigger than normal GBA cartridge and includes a built-in headphone port as well as an SD Card slot. In a moral sense grey is either used
A Game Boy micro version has also been released - it can interact fully with both models of the Wireless Adapter. "Grey life", meaning mere existence without much sense or goal. The adapter itself was not backward compatible, leading to criticism that this accessory was more novel than useful, only available on a few games. Grey symbolises mediocrity, the background noise.
It markets for $20 and came included with Pokémon FireRed and Pokémon LeafGreen. Orange and Azure. It replaces link cables and allows many people to link up to each other. Red and Green. Wireless Adapter - Released in 2004, this adapter hooks up to the back of the Game Boy Advance. Blue and Yellow. These include:. Black and White. Nintendo has released many add-ons for the Game Boy Advance (GBA). Unlike the previous models it does not support Game Boy or Game Boy Color titles. The Game Boy micro also offers the user to switch between several colored faceplates to allow customization, a feature which Nintendo advertised heavily around the micro's launch. This model again goes back to the Game Boy Advance horizontal orientation, is much smaller and sleeker, and was the first Game Boy model to feature a backlight. In September 2005, Nintendo released a second redesign of the Game Boy Advance. This new screen makes the old front-Lit GBA SP screens look dark and washed-out. They did, however, label the new boxes with large text reading "Now with a Brighter Backlit Screen". Nintendo quietly released these new screens so as not to confuse customers. This new backlit model was originally available in two colors, Graphite and Pearl Blue. Battery life was actually improved in this new model. The light cannot be turned off completely while the system is on. The switch that controls the light now toggles between "normal" (which itself is already brighter than a Nintendo DS's screen), and "bright", an intense brightness level similar to LCD television sets. Around the same time as the release of the Game Boy micro, an improved version of the SP that (finally) utilized a proper backlit LCD screen was released. This Front-light turned out to be almost identical to Nintendo's solution to lighting the GBA SP. This was a kit that sold for $30 and needed to be installed inside the original GBA. This included the Afterburner Frontlighting Kit. Interestingly, complaints about the original GBA screen being hard to see prompted a cottage industry of lighting solutions. It was designed to address some common complaints with the original GBA. In early 2003, Nintendo upgraded the Game Boy Advance giving it an internal front-light that can be turned on or off, a rechargeable lithium ion battery, as well as a folding case approximately half the size of the GBA. As of 2005, the original (non-lighted) model GBA has been discontinued. Despite its success, many criticized the original Game Boy Advance for still not adopting a lighted screen, which Nintendo would rectify with later models. Prior to the release of the Game Boy Advance SP, the GBA was the fastest-selling game console in history. The Game Boy Advance sold at a base price of $100 USD when it was released in North America. However, a game has to be designed with the wireless adapter in mind, and there are only a few such games. It came bundled with Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen. It allows GBAs to be linked without cords, and with more than four players at a time. A wireless adapter was released on September 7, 2004 in the U.S. To link regular GB or GB Color games, the older GB link cable is required, even if you're using two GBAs. To link GBA games, a GBA link cable is required. The serial port can (with a suitable cable) also connect to a standard RS-232 serial port for debugging purposes and (hypothetically) Internet play, although a TCP/IP stack has yet to be implemented in a GBA game. This is used for multiplayer GBA connections, where multiple GBAs can play with only one cartridge; one GBA with a cartridge sends boot code to the other cartridge-less GBAs. A GBA can also receive up to 256 KiB of bootstrap code through the port, even when no cartridge is present (sometimes known as multiboot or netboot). The GBA also has a serial port for connecting to other GBA units in a setup similar to a token ring network over a bus physical topology. Previous lawsuits had banned the importation of similar devices for the 8-bit Game Boy. In February of 2002, Nintendo began sending threatening letters to some United States resellers of such devices. Nintendo, however, has a history of viewing such devices as nothing more than piracy tools, since they can be used to copy cartridges containing copyrighted software. Because of this, a homebrew software development community has sprung up (see gbadev.org). By April 2003, the prices had come down to under $100 for the flash cartridge and writer and $30 for the boot cable. For example, in December 2001, a flash memory cartridge plus writing hardware could be had for less than $200 U.S., and a $50 device emulates a netbooting master. By early 2002, hardware became readily available for moving user code onto the GBA. (It would possibly have to retail for $39.99 to $49.99). Still, as of 2005, no published GBA titles have even executed such bankswitching hardware because 32 MiB of ROM is still too expensive for the price point at which most GBA games are sold. (Mattel's Intellivision console had previously used a multiplexed bus.) This setup limits the directly addressable memory to 16 binary megawords (that is, 256 binary megabits or 32 binary megabytes), but bankswitching hardware on the cartridge can extend this by controlling the ROM's upper address lines from software, effectively switching other parts of the ROM into the GBA's address space. The interface from the GBA unit to the ROM cartridge includes only a 24-bit address bus multiplexed with a 16-bit data bus. With the release of the DS, future 3D games for the GBA will most likely be limited. Some feel that such 3D games are a logical and welcome step for the GBA, while others feel that they are overly ambitious and beyond the capabilities of the system. Utilizing 2D sprites for objects and 3D graphics for architecture, these games usually achieve a passable framerate, although sometimes in large environments or with many objects onscreen the framerate will drop to a very noticeable level. These games include Wolfenstein 3D, Duke Nukem Advance, and Doom and Doom 2. Later games pushed the GBA to its limits with simple 3D graphics. Each sprite can be drawn using either direct pixel mapping or affine mapping; it's possible to fit more direct sprites on a scanline. In all modes, it can show up to 128 sprites (individually controllable small moving objects) of 8×8 up to 64×64 pixels in either 4-bit or 8-bit indexed color. In bitmap modes, it can display one large 16-bit bitmap, two 8-bit bitmaps (with page flipping), or one small 16-bit bitmap (with page flipping), and it uses 80 KiB of RAM for bitmap data and 16 KiB for sprite cel data. In tiled display modes, the system can manage four pixel-to-pixel layers, two pixel-to-pixel layers and one affine layer, or two affine layers, and it uses 64 KiB of RAM for tile and map data and 32 KiB for sprite cel data. The GBA's picture generator has six display modes (three tiled and three bitmap) and 96 KiB of dedicated RAM. It can scale, rotate, sum-blend, and alpha-blend sprites against a background (with one alpha value for the whole screen, not the alpha-blending of image edges seen in the PNG format), and it can change the scaling and rotation of sprites and the background on each scanline to give a pseudo-3D effect. The GBA has hardware support for simple 2D operations using graphical elements called sprites. An aftermarket internal lighting kit known as the Afterburner was briefly popular before the introduction of the Game Boy Advance SP, and influenced the development of the new model. Users quickly learned to tilt the device to take advantage of window or overhead illumination. If the color LCD has a fault, it is that the Game Boy Advance is lit by ambient light. Newer titles use gamma correction in their palettes. Early games had very dark color palettes because the display in the development kits was much brighter than the one in the production units; the production display has a gamma value of 4. This display includes more pixels than Game Boy's 160×144; when playing legacy games, the user can press the "L" or "R" button to switch the display between 160×144 with a black border and scaling to 240×144 pixels. The 2.9" LCD is capable of a maximum of 240×160 pixels in 15-bit color (32,768 colors). The system also contains an 8.4-MHz Z80-like processor to provide support for legacy GB software; however, both processors cannot be active at the same time. The ARM processor can run both 32-bit ARM and 16-bit "Thumb" instruction set encodings. The GBA has a custom 32-bit 16.8-MHz ARM processor (ARM7TDMI) based on a RISC architecture, which is much more suited to the C programming language than the 8-bit Z80-like processor used in older Game Boy models. It is powered by two AA batteries, which give about 15–30 hours of play time, as well as an optional power supply that plugs directly into the GBA's battery bracket. The Game Boy Advance is backward compatible with most games previously released for the Game Boy or the Game Boy Color, as well as new software developed to take advantage of the new technical capabilities of the system. . Its codename during development was Project Atlantis. It was released in Japan on March 21, 2001, in North America on June 11, 2001, in Europe on June 22, 2001, and in China on June 8, 2004(Not including Hong Kong). It is one of the latest in the Game Boy series of consoles, and the successor to the popular Game Boy Color. The Game Boy Advance (GBA) is a handheld video game console developed, manufactured and marketed by Nintendo. WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$. Pokémon Ruby / Sapphire. Mother 3. Metroid: Zero Mission. Metroid Fusion. Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga. The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap. Fire Emblem. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. Golden Sun. Boktai. Advance Wars. |