Editor's note: this article is from the official account "dimensional Research" (ID:ciyuanpotato) of Wechat, author: Hyde36氪Released by authorization.
NintendoIn my mind, the "perfection" of the terminal is never the strongest in performance, but the ability to adapt to as much software as possible in the most economical way, adapt to a variety of use environments and meet the needs of as many users as possible.
Game Boy Advance (GBA) went on sale for the first time in Japan on March 21, 2001. It celebrates its 20th birthday on March 21, 2021.
▲ even today, the exterior design of GBA is still not out of date. Enthusiasts continue to carry out various modifications around GBA to integrate the latest trend into GBA.
Many old domestic players still remember this classic handset of Nintendo. As an orthodox sequel to Game Boy (GB), which went public in 1989, it puts a perfect end to the legend.
Compared with the previous Nintendo handheld GB,GBA performance is greatly improved. The 32-bit ARM processor and 240X160's screen resolution may not be ahead of the times, but they were unbeatable in the handset market at that time.
▲ has a variety of GBA with optional body colors
Japan generated 600000 hot sales in its debut week, and sales have been stable ever since. But three years later, GBA had to compete with its brothers for the market with Nintendo's NDS launched in 2004.
This is too rare in the history of Nintendo handheld. GB (1989) sold well for 12 years before it was taken over by GBA, and the dead Wii U (2012) took five years to be sold.SwitchInstead; players have speculated that Switch Pro will be launched in 2021, but until now there is still no accurate official news. It is inexplicable that the GBA has become the shortest generation of Nintendo handsets.
▲ left: GBA SP top right: GBA bottom right: NDS
Some people say that GBA is a superstar who was terminated prematurely, but its brilliant performance during the short golden period is amazing enough.
Sandwiched between the second-selling GB in Ren Tian's history (118 million) and the world's highest-selling NDS (151 million), the GBA still sold 81.51 million units during the short highlight period, ranking fourth in Nintendo's handset sales list, waiting for the Switch, which has sold 79.87 million units by December 31, 2020, to surpass.
The sales status of ▲, including consoles, of Nintendo game terminals is said to be 20 years. In fact, many products have been released for more than 20 years.
GBA is still the heart of many players, French well-known designers operate streamline frame, L / R key placed on the shoulder of the body perfectly in line with ergonomics, if there is no backlight so that the original GBA screen is too dim, many people will choose it as the best.
As a result, ashes-level enthusiasts tirelessly extract the advantages of past generations and incorporate new adaptation components, and DIY has its own "ultimate GBA" (similar modified models sold on e-commerce platforms cost about 700 yuan).
On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the birth of GBA, a new GBA game, "Goodbye Galaxy (Goodboy Galaxy)," is about to be released. Not for commemorative purposes, there is still a product called Analogue Pocket, which can play more than 2780 games from Game Boy and Game Boy Color to GBA platforms, and is scheduled to go on sale in May.
▲ image left: retro game console Analogue Pocket to be released in May this year right: independent game developer Rik Nicol to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the launch of Nintendo handset Game Boy Advance (GBA) in Japan, a 2D pixel action game "Goodbye Galaxy"
It is not easy to maintain such vitality for 20 years, not to mention the technological level at the time of launch is by no means advanced, and its own weaknesses are obvious. Even so, GBA's story doesn't seem to be that simple.GBA without hardware
As early as 1995, Nintendo had the idea of developing a new model. The development team named the new model the Atlantis Project (Project Atlantis) through the Olympic Games to be held in Atlanta in 1996.
The predecessor of ▲ GBA, the Atlantis Project, which never really entered the market.
After that, the news showed that the Atlantis Project had already configured 32-bit CPU as early as five years of GBA. There are even rumors that the new model is comparable to the N64 and has a 160MHz processor that is more powerful than the GBA and has a battery life of up to 30 hours.
The new model, originally scheduled to be released in 1996, has been on the shelves for seven years and has entered the GB at the end of its product life. But then the reality was that 1996 could be called a meeting:
The backlit version of GB was launched and sold, and the 25-year legendary "Pet Elf" was also released that year, setting off a sales frenzy, and GB sales were dragged back to puberty. Overjoyed, Nintendo immediately announced that it would postpone the launch of the new handset.
▲ Pet Elf debuts on GB, the beginning of a generation of legends
So it was not until 2001 that GBA came out after solving the problem that was not the core problem-high manufacturing costs and excessive energy consumption. And its core technology was no longer advanced at that time.
How "bad street" was GBA in 2001 from a technical point of view? As proof, the GBA package was leaked before it was released, and hackers soon developed a simulator.
At that time, some high-end computers could already run GBA games smoothly. In the following 2 or 3 years, with the popularity of the Internet and the improvement of computer functions, the number of users of GBA simulator has soared.
▲ uses the simulator to play the GBA version of Pet Elf on the computer.
But this has become an excellent footnote for GBA. Even in such a bad environment, the GBA still sells so well that players are still happy to play games on the handset, which is not even backlit.
In contrast, in 2001, Nintendo's old rival, which launched the backlit color handset Game Gear (GG) in 1990, has been pursuing the ultimate in technology, but announced a complete withdrawal from hardware development to a pure game software manufacturer after the death of its home console Dreamcast.
Game Gear, launched by ▲ Sega in 1990, failed to become a hit in the handset market because of the problem of battery life and its larger size.
In contrast, Nintendo, which did not pursue the launch of corresponding products at the cutting edge of technology, survived. Is this just a conservative victory, or does Nintendo have something more important than technology?Ren Heaven-style "perfection"
In 2001, Nintendo began its marketing campaign with the slogan "The Nintendo Difference" at E3 2001. The goal is to distinguish yourself from other entertainment companies.
Satoshi Iwata, who took over as president of Nintendo in 2002, said that the game industry has become more and more closed, and various technological innovations in game systems are widening the gap between experienced and new players. Someone has to do something to bring people back together.
▲ is playing with the prototype cassette of Satoshi Iwata on the GBA.
Satoshi Iwata firmly believes in the belief that everyone can have fun. His early experience of developing games with another Nintendo legend, Mario's father Shigeru Miyamoto, made him realize early: "hardware technology is far less important than imagination."
So back to the original question, what are the advantages of GBA, which was released in 2001 without technical superiority?
The answer is that there are a lot of adaptive game software. On the day of GBA's debut in Japan, 25 games were released on the same day to protect it. These include Super Mario 2, F-ZERO and other masterpieces. In its short life cycle, GBA has a dreadful library of 1500 games. Although more than 1400 of them are portable games, all of them are well adapted for GBA. Many new players have no idea that these are transplants and are lamented by the lack of depth in the GBA game library.
▲ GBA and a large lineup of game cassettes
The second is the product layout that allows GBA to adapt to a variety of environments. Before GBA came out, Shigeru Miyamoto, developed by responsible Paradise Game Box (NGC), was ordered that the game box must be perfectly suited to the GBA. So, after the release of NCG in September 2001, players can play GBA games on the big TV screen in the living room through simple peripherals. It can be said that 15 years ahead of time, GBA has already given players a glimpse of the shock brought by Switch.
▲ connects GBA games played in video games through NGC.
At the same time, Nintendo also launched a car-mounted GBA player "Visteon Dockable Entertainment" to extend the use of GBA to vehicles. Play GBA on the car screen, the journey is no longer boring.
▲ is installed in the car and can play Visteon Dockable Entertainment of GBA games through the big screen in the back row.
In addition, there are the most abundant peripherals to expand the possible uses of GBA. The introduction of wireless adapters to meet the needs of multiplayer games; the launch of e-reader with card games; and the unofficial device Glucoboy has even turned the GBA into a blood sugar monitor-built-in games that make the needling process commonly feared by teenagers bearable.
▲ can detect blood sugar glucoboy, built-in games
In addition, because GBA is forward compatible with GB tape, the external functions previously designed for GB, such as photo printing and document input, have also been updated and extended on GBA. For this reason, many researchers regard GB and GBA series as the ancestors of smartphones.
Thus it can be seen that in Nintendo's mind, the "perfection" of the terminal has never been the strongest in performance, but to be able to adapt to as much software as possible in the most economical way, and to adapt to a variety of use environments with the support of various peripherals. to meet the needs of as many users as possible.
This has been implemented by Nintendo for the previous 20 years. Until the latest Switch, and the various peripherals and applications around it, we can still see the continuation of this spirit. (in this regard, the article "the eternal god of Nintendo, the victory of 40 years of persistence" in the whole present is also detailed.)After 20 years
After the initial launch of GBA in 2001, Nintendo launched GBA SP in 2003. While the core technology remains the same, different styles of GBA SP have added brighter LCD screens, support for rechargeable lithium batteries, and front lights that can be "on / off", as well as backlit versions.
With the solution to the problem of screen brightness, coupled with a more mature and portable folding design, GBA SP has been popular with more older users as soon as it is launched. However, the original GBA is still respected by another group of ashes-level players for its better gaming feel.
▲ GBA SP appearance diagram
In 2005, Nintendo launched a lighter Game Boy Micro, which seemed to be affected by theAppleThe influence of iPod Mini concept. However, because GBA cannot complete screen adaptation through code when it is forward compatible with GB works, a physical toggle button must be added, and the smaller Game Boy Micro has no room for this toggle button, so it is not compatible with GB games forward. This limitation, coupled with a price that is not cheaper than the average model, has caused it to sell only more than 2 million units.
Launched in 2004, NDS is forward compatible with the GBA game, which extends the life of the GBA game and sentences GBA to death. More technical updates have been made to bypass GBA and give it directly to NDS, such as the "cover hibernation" technology on hardware.
This does not affect people's love of GBA. For many years, players still use improving simulators to play games such as "reverse trial" and the previously archived GBA version of Pet Elf, which will be lost once the memory battery runs out.
▲ 's "reverse trial" was first launched on GBA on October 12, 2001, and then became a classic series in the minds of players.
Although officials have stopped producing GBA hardware and software since 2010, enthusiasts and manufacturers have continued to introduce third-party improved GBA models to this day. Even in an era when mobile phones are becoming more and more powerful and have shaken the foundation of handsets, they are still willing to pay more than Rmb600 for a modified GBA.
All kinds of accessories of ▲ modified GBA and even the whole machine are still very popular on e-commerce platform.
As a game console, 20-year-old GBA is happy. People not only commemorate it, but also keep using it to play games. what could be better than that?
(original title: GBA20 is old, why is it the most perfect handset under Nintendo)