Does it play Game Boy Advance games? How about Game Boy Color games? Only once each? In 1960?
It is notable that the Virtua Boy died out because, although it was an awesome machine (I rented one from Blockbuster and loved it to pieces!), it posed health risks. (Post-preview: Haha, I made a punny! See? “Died out” and then health risks?
Fah. You’re all laughing inside.) The Lynx (who made that?–Atari? Neo Geo? Can’t remember!) seemed to hardly get marketed at all–too much money spent on making it awesome and not enough on advertising. Not too surprising that it bombed. The Game Gear and the Nomad, although enjoying short success (Game Gear for significantly longer), also died out because of a lack of marketing. There was a handheld Neo-Geo I seem to remember, as well, which much like its nonhandheld cousin bombed due to (you guessed it) lack of decent marketing.
Nintendo, much like its well-known American branch’s apps-and-games counterpart in Washington [State], has prospered on almost every system they’ve tossed on the market by putting out [slightly] inferior products that are better-marketed. The only systems I can think of that died premature deaths were the N64 and (yes, it counts, you don’t see it out there much) the Gamecube. The N64 bombed because it didn’t live up to the by-then-universally-accepted standard of games on CD as opposed to cartridges. The Gamecube is dying because Sony and Microsoft, both advertising giants, have pretty much equivalent systems out with better marketing. Sony’s handheld might defeat the DS, but if it does, it will be because Sony can spend more on advertising, not because people won’t shell out bucks for a better system.
The DS has a touchscreen in the base and a views-only screen in the top. They displayed different views of the same game in the demo we saw (some sort of Doom clone?). So for example, the bottom view was a map and locator, while the top was the gamer’s view. Hope that makes sense.
I believe it’s got a demo of Metroid Prime on it. I would skip it for now. They are in short supply, and the only ones I have seen have been sold in bundles with games that your son may not even want. The price I saw was $250. There were 5 of them at my local Best Buy the other day and I had a chance to pick one up, but I didn’t want it bad enough to pay that price. That’s more then I paid for any of my consoles.
The GameCube is thriving. Not only did it see a rise in sales when it dropped to $99, it’s the only system that sold for a profit to begin with. Add that to most of their biggest titles being in-house (Mario, Zelda, Metroid), and you’ll see that Nintendo isn’t doing too shabby in this round.
I might just buy one when the new Zelda comes out. It looks great.
Fetus, the GB DS has two screens, one (or both?) of which is a touch screen. The DS stands for “Double screen”.
As for Virtua Boy…well, I think it died out because it was horrible expensive, and while novel, I don’t think the system itself was very well built. It was flimsy and easily broken. My dad bought one for me a long while back when they were liquidating them at Target for $25-$50. I gotta say, it had some really good games. Mario Tennis, Wario World, and my favorite, Teleboxer, were all great games. Teleboxer should be ported to the GBA SP IMO. Best damn boxing game ever made as far as I’m concerned.
The Lynx was made by Atari. Neo Geo was one I forgot about, and you’re right about it dying because of lack of marketing. I rememeber a great deal of games for that handheld getting 8s and 9s. Too bad about that one dying out. I was considering getting one for myself.
Is the GC really dying? It’s success may not be as great as the PS2 or X-Box, but it has a pretty loyal following and some stellar games for it.
My son, who is 7, got a Gameboy Advance SP last Christmas when he was six. It has held up. It’s a great thing for car trips. For him, anything with Crash Bandicoot or Sypro the Dragon in the title is an automatic winner and doesn’t have gore to warp his little mind. Crash Nitro Kart might be the absolute favorite. The Shrek 2 side-scroller was also well received.
Thanks. Last night we watched a couple of minutes of one of the Highlander movies. I was explaining that they were immortals and the only way you could kill them was cutting off their heads. He responded, “Well, if you can kill them, then they’re not immortal, are they?”
I just bought a GameBoy Advance for my son for Christmas. I was wondering about any other game suggestions than have already been made. He’s nine, and enjoys a wide variety of games on the PS2.
I grabbed the new Star Wars game, knowing nothing about it. Any thoughts on that one?
Oh sure, blame me! This thing was on life support before I put my heel into it. At this point, unless anyone tells me that the Star Wars game absolutely sucks, I’m going to go with that one. (Or if there is another one that a nine year old gamer would absolutely definitely certainly love).
I did exchange a Jimmy Neutron game for the new Spongebob movie game because my three year old requested it.
