I sincerely hope you enjoy this video, I really love making it! Sorry I can't release them more often, but I'm trying to make them as high-quality as possible (I'm sorry if my English isn't perfect; it's not my first language) Made by myself(Sakharu), voiced over by Brad Ziffer.
Are you going to make some NON nintendo content? I subbed due to thinking i found a channel that makes vids on various consoles and companies, but it's been mostly nintendo. If you're just going to be another nintendo channel, let me know so that i can unsub.
My Mom had a translucent purple GameBoy Color and a translucent pink GBA. She used to spend hours sitting in her chair in the living room playing Dr. Mario. She was disabled, so she spent much of her later years in a wheelchair…so, lots of Dr. Mario time, lol. It’s also worth noting she was the sweetest little person to ever grace the Earth. A couple years after she passed, I found a small satchel in my basement. I opened it and found both of her GameBoys and all of her games. She must have given them to me in the year before she passed…and in the turmoil of her passing I had forgotten about them. I was overjoyed. I gave the purple GBC to my little sister…along with Dr. Mario and a couple other games…and I held on to the GBA. I still have it, and after some TLC, it’s in top shape. Thanks for this video, and thanks for bringing back some happy memories of my Mom!
I developed about twenty titles for the GBA, including Doom2. I remember getting one of the early IS development kits that was just a large PCB with a LCD screen in the middle. Originally the GBA was only going to have 64K of RAM. With all my pleading to Nintendo to increase it they refused and informed me that it was going to market with only 64K. However, at the last minute they got spooked by all the competition and rumors about Sony entering the hand held market which caused them to upgrade it to 256K. It would have been crippled without the larger memory. Over all my years developing games, the GBA was my favorite console and best time to be in the industry.
Did you have a working prototype of the doom engine running within the restrictions of only 64kb of internal work ram before the ewram was added? Ive also read in the internal sdk docs that it wasnt 64kb of iwram, but instead 48kbytes. If the title in question wasnt doom you couldnt work with only 64k, what title was it?
@@mariowario5945 No, Nintendo updated the GBA to 256K before any of the games we were developing were published. The first title we were trying to fit into 64K was Planet of the Apes. Sorry, I should have said Doom2 that was a year later.
@@stephenwhite506 you programmed for the iron man game on gba, how well optimized was this engine? I love how loud they were able to make the sound in that game Also, was gba your favorite platform to play its games, or to code for?
Great documentary! The one error i picked up was that the first SP did NOT have a Backlit screen. This is repeated a few times when you discuss the first SP release. It had a Front lit screen. It made the screen much more usable, but it also washed out the colors a bit compared to a typical backlit lcd. It was the same technology as what the Afterburner mod did to the original GBA design. The SP revision released after the micro, the AGS-101, was the only version that had a Backlit screen, which was much better than the front lit version, and miles better than the original gba, with well balanced and vibrant colors. Still, excellent documentary. I'm super impressed and super happy someone took the time and dedication to make such an in depth documentary. The gba is my favorite console of all time, and the pixel art truly hit a sweet spot that has endured in its appeal even today. Thank you!
The original DS was the only way to play GBA games with a backlight for about the first year, and that's what I mostly used it for at the time once Wario Ware Touched got boring.
The original GBA design is still one of my absolute favorite handhelds, so much that I just got the recent Anbernic clone for me and my kids. I had a Game Gear and a Gameboy Pocket as a young kid and enjoyed them briefly but didn't have too many games or any killer app that stuck out to me. When Pokemon blew up in the US, for some reason I associated Red/Blue as GBC games and had already moved on to a Neogeo Pocket Color and only played Pokemon when I traded some cards for a GBC and copy of Red at school. Didn't really get anything else for GBC except DBZ Legendary Super Warriors that was surprisingly kickass for a licensed title but mostly missed out on that library. The NGPC was severely underrated though and I played the hell out of it (Sonic and Dark Arms mostly) until I picked up a GBA with Mario World and Castlevania and amassed a huge library over the next few years. Between the solid Mario ports, Castlevania series, Metroid, Advance Wars, Golden Sun, etc it still has one of the strongest libraries of any console and several of my top favorite games ever were on it and would have sold me on picking up a GBA for any one of them. My brother got a GBA SP a bit later and honestly I wasn't really into it. The lit screen was nice but I hated the control layout and wanted an Afterburner kit instead for mine but they cost a ton at that point and installation looked beyond my skillset. I missed out on the DS entirely, guess I'd aged out briefly and if I had a portable device with me it was my mp3 player not a game. Then got into emulation and even pre-iPhone I had 8/16-bit games running on my MotoQ (think Blackberry) and phone emulation only got better over the years.
A huevo valedor a huevo!!!! Es un BACILON de mamey pinches carnales pinches valedores de mamey pinches carnales pinches valedores de mamey pinches carnales pinches valedores de mamey pinches carnales pinches valedores de mamey pinches carnales pinches valedores de mamey pinches carnales pinches valedores de mamey pinches carnales pinches valedores locos están locos porque son unos pinches valedores de mamey.
gba and sp will always be special to me because they helped me get through a very bad time in my life it was the only thing that helped me escape the reality and dealing with the fact i was forced out of my group home because i was turning 18 and that was the only place i felt like i truly belonged and had real friends and made real connections because everyone there was like me and had the same issues i did so having something i could take anywhere and just lose myself in just helped me immensely get used to my new life
Excellent work! The gba is my favorite console of all time, and its so great to see a comprehensive documentary like this. I think the only thing that could make it better was if it had interviews with the people mentioned, or had more first person accounts, whether voiced answers to published interviews, or videos of people from the executives actually discussing the gba, or even just footage from the time of people playing it. I also think a visual timeline would've helped a lot. Still, there were a ton of publication and magazine references which was nice to see, and overall I'd say it was an excellent documentary. Very impressive to have been made by a single person. Thank you for making this
Stellar video. I am floored by the quality. In the future, I suggest reaching exclusively for songs that come from games exclusive to the system being discussed, especially particularly obscure ones.
Well done. You did your homework and gou touched on important points in the timeline. Also, somewhat unrelated. Seeing Gumpei, Iwata, and Reggie hit hard on the nostalgia spot❤️
Literally yesterday I was wishing someone would make documentary about gba and now there is what are the odds you just earned yourself a sub very good job
I'm so glad I came across this channel. What another brilliant documentary - you did a fantastic job of capturing the zeitgeist of the early 00s and it was fascinating to learn about the pressure Sony was applying to Nintendo. I can't wait to see what you cover next Sakharu!
I fucking love my GBA, I got one new as a kid as a present from my parents. Now as an adult, I got it modded, replaced the screen with an IPS screen. Now it looks like a Switch from 2001! It’s fantastic.
Super fascinating look into this time in gaming history. Had no idea all this was happening in Japan at the time, the history lesson on the WonderSwan was surprising. I just assumed because the WonderSwan never released in the west it didn't have that much of an impact, didn't even know Gunpei Yokoi developed it. Really brings a lot of context around why the GBA was what it was.
My favorite channel. I find myself pausing on every magazine article to read every snippet on screen. Thank you to whoever(s) doing these high quality docs. I very, very much appreciate it.
This was a great video, I really enjoyed it. Having gone back and started emulating older consoles recently what stood out to me is how strong the GBA library is, especially compared to handhelds and even many consoles!
I had gbc and pokemon red as a kid and my parents got me a see through purple gba pokemon ruby and a worm light. I look back to that as my favorite Christmas ever.
I started watching your channel only a week ago and i watched every video expect the Mario and zelda one. There are a lot of documentaries on youtube regarding videogames and consoles but this has to be the best channel and videos regarding this topic.The information provided is really interesting and this videos are fun to watch. Amazing voice over by the way!!!! I am already looking forward to the next video in approx 2 months as it seems according to the release history of your videos :)
The quality of the the video and audio is incredible! Going a long with great research and information. I see the channel has been around for 8 months but it’s going to blow up once more people see how good these videos are.
I find it crazy how the actual timeline lines up compared to what I remember from back in the day. I heard nothing about the gba during Pokémon gold or silver. I remember playing the crap out of those games and collecting all things Pokémon. I’d go to boy scouts and everyone else would bring their game boys and we would show each other how far we had gotten or what we had captured. One gigantic experience we have lost in modern day which completely affects how we approach video games etc is the suprise. We can now go online and know practically down to the chip what’s going to be in something but back then it was insanely hard to get all of that info as a kid or what have you. I mean ask anyone growing up through 80s- early 2000’s and they’ll tell you that you that you gambled on the games from the box art and the back of the case etc lols.
this was some high quality content, much appreciated. I recently started playing/buying games for my GBA again. I've had it for 20 years and it was one of the only things that survived the purge of my losing my home and having to toss/sell or give away 90% of my possessions. It's the only console left I have that isn't a repurchase for myself. It's so fascinating to hear how this is considering the "least" of all the game boys despite all the games and time I enjoyed with it.
bro u deserve more views, they will come for sure cuz this is top tier content, i've seen every console doc you posted, they're amazing, and i'm checking your channel every now and then to see if you posted another vid that youtube decided not to show on my frontpage, like this one. keep it up
I got my first advance in the form of SP in 2003. So to me the DS didn't even exist till 2007 when pokemon came out. So i had a good amount of time with my SP. I had a ton of advance games.
Another video that demonstrates how far ahead Satoru Iwata was in his plans for the game industry. While the older Nintendo President made poor decisions, such as holding a grudge with Square for making games on the PlayStation, and not letting them release stuff on the GBA, as soon as Satoru Iwata took rein of the company, he turned things around for the GBA, by actually working with Square and other companies, to bring as many games as he could to the handheld, and then it was genius of him to make the next Nintendo Handheld be backwards compatible with the previous one, because I still remember all the GBA games I enjoyed on my DS, that I wouldn't have enjoyed had the DS been like the Switch right now, that has no backwards compatibility at all with any of Nintendo's past systems, and I remember how Mr. Iwata let the DS and GBA coexist with each other until almost at the end of support for the DS, which meant that the GBA had not been shelved for a very long time, and that was good for not just the consumers, but also for the stores and stuff, that were still selling GBA games.
@@theothenintendomaster3717 sure, the guy that led Nintendo during N64 and start of GCN was terrible, but what about the guy that led the company during the arcade-NES-SNES days? Seemed pretty competent if you ask me
@@bartelvandervelden9894 I don''t respect Yamauchi a lot because he was either too hands on/strict or waay to lenient, The nes in the Usa had no competition because they literally forced all third parties to work for them which was absoulutely an Illegal monopoly , which probably led to a lot of third parties having rocky relationships with Nintendo in the future. The nes sold less in Europe and Brazil because Sega could actually have third parties on the Master System there unlike in the Usa. His flaws were not apparent with The Arcade era, Game & Watch Nes, Snes and Og Game boy because he had less control, This era was a succes because he Promoted the right people like Miyamoto or Yokoi into office rather than Yamauchi's own skills, Yokoi is way to underrated with him being the inventor of a lot of Iwata's gaming philosophies and a true Genius. The problem with Yamauchi was that from around 1991 to 2002 he became increasingly detached from what consumers actually wanted as well as taking more control of the company. First his handling of the snes addon situation was terrible and the Ps1 was literally created out of Kutaragi being mad about the betrayal even though Sony was effectively planning to buy Nintendo in that deal. The Gci games were also terrible and eroded brand trust, The Virtual boy simply was never going to work with how rushed it was The n64 using cartridges made the console''s games more expensive to produce and sell, Of course many third parties were mad as they wanted, longer games cd quality audio and Fmv''s and those were almost impossible on n64 thus ff7 which was the biggest rpg of that era was released on ps1, not N64. The n64 had like 1 rpg, Pm64 but that was released after the ps2 so who even cared about Pm64. In general he seems to have been anti third party,(especially against Square) and focused on kids at a time when most gamers who grew with the Nes and Snes wanted more mature edgy games. N64 games could use at maximum 64 mega bytes while the ps1 and saturn could use 700 mega bytes that is literally 10 times the space. Interestingly enough the n64 was massively outsold in Japan by the Saturn, yes The Sega saturn. He made the exact same mistake with the Gcn using mini DVD's that could hold only 1.5 Gb while the Ps2 and Og Xbox could use 4.7 Gb (4 times the space) coupled with the Gcn's main console variant being Indigo a color that was massively controversial due to it's association with kids, girls(always hated by ''hardcore gamers') and trans people made Nintendo look Really kiddy.(the lack of a DvD player and Online was also not good in a changing industry) everyone wanted a Mature Zelda game, We got Wind Waker which was rightfully hated by like 90% of the Zelda Fanbase due to the kiddy artstyle, despite being loved now. We wanted Mario 128 instead we got Luigi's Mansion and a janky, unfinished/controversial game in the form of Sunshine, we wanted mario Kart 64 2 instead we got Double Dash a game that also feels janky and dissapointing to long time fans. We wanted Star Fox 64 2 instead we got a terrible reskined version of Dinosaur Planet a game that was never supposed to be a Star Fox game,( with that also being the last RareWare game made for a nintendo home console before Nintendo just let Rare be purchased by Microsoft for no reason) and the very mediocre Star Fox Assault. To many people the Gcn( from late 2001 to late 2003) had a very dissapointing library and one that was all focused towards kids If Iwata did not become President in 2002 The Gcn will be a far bigger disaster than It was in our timeline. Most of the Gcn exclusives whose reputations have allways been positive are games that simply expand on their Snes/N64/Ps1 predecessors rather than trying to do something gimmicky just for the sake of it. Melee is just a way better Smash 64, TTYD same deal, Twilight Princess is a mature Zelda that is literally OOT3 Re4, Metroid Prime 1 and 2 same deal. Gamers wanted a mature Nintendo the problem is that Yamauchi was so ademant about the fact they knew Gaming better compared to everyone else and that Nintendo"'s ''toys'' allways sell based on just 1st party support that he neglected the 3d parties completely on N64. Iwata had to spend like the entire Gcn era rebuilding third party support and The Gcn still had low third party support with no Nintendo home console until the Switch having good third party support. Nintendo's kiddy reputation with The N64 and especially Gcn will not go away until the Switch and damadged the entire brand for Decades. Iwata somewhat saved the Gcn but after that system ended up failing the Blue Ocean strategy had to be adopted for the company to survive and thus the the Company finally achieved succes On the Home console front since the Snes, so yeah Yamauchi was still not a good president in either the 70's , 80's or 90's then he just promoted the right people to run the company under him while as soon as he didn't do that anymore the company started declining massively. I don't want to hate him Im simply stating the facts.
Great documentary man it’s hard to believe that there was a time when Nintendo was starting to have competition in the handheld space with the wonder swan and the Neo Geo pocket colour.
Yes! I've been waiting so long for the next video and you didn't disappoint! I remember I got a GBA ags 101 model for christmas of 2006 I think? I never had many games for it but I really loved that console, I still have it to this day! A few months later my dad got a DS for my youngest sibling but he enjoyed playing the Mario minigames so much that he eventually got one for each of us LMAO It was so fun, we could all play together with Mario kart, mario party and a bunch of other games with only a single cartridge! Wow my comment just made me realize how much the GBA was actually overshadowed by the DS 😅
@@Cedalus The only complaint I have about the device is there are a handful of GB games that were designed to have custom color schemes to work on the Super Game Boy. This didn't get carried over to the Game Boy Player unfortunately.
@@SerpentNight yeah I agree, seems like a missed opportunity. I feel like the GBA should have had Super Game Boy colorizing hardware too. But it really is a treat to see some of my favorite handheld games from my childhood on a big screen without the use of emulation.
Amazingly well made video! Sat through the whole thing while playing my Nintendo Switch Lite. Pretty amazing how far we've come since the GBA days, and with so many handhelds coming out now from so many different companies the competition is more fierce than ever before. I did have a little laugh though when I saw the Game Boy Micro unveiled again. That one didn't age too well.
I remember as a kid, gba and snes were by far the best looking and still functioning emulated consoles on smartphones for the longest time with basically the whole library available on sketchy rom sites. Add to the fact that most pokemon fangames were gba roms. It is by far my favourite handheld bar none
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God, I loved the GBA so much, spent so many hours on it and the GBA SP, some of the best memories ever. Those were the good times.
I remembered skipping over the Gameboy color entirely to wait for the Gameboy advance. My sister bought it for me, it was white. I played a little bit of Mario, but got really into f zero. I had no idea they released the sp shortly afterwards. And I found a brand new Gameboy micro at a flea market sale. I bought it for $20 and gave it a try. I quickly stopped because the screen was way too small and it was hurting my eyes. Thank you for the video. It brought me back to memory lane. One of my favorite games on the GBA was Golden Sun and minish cap.
I think the sp is the definitive version of this era and encapsulates what it was like to game back then. I bought my wife One last month and it's amazing how modern the console feels despite being 20 years old. The backlight and rechargeable battery really feel like consumer first decisions that have transcended the past two decades and it still feels like no one makes consoles like this anymore. hell no one makes anything like this anymore.
Hey love your vids - they’re so thorough and I can tell you put your heart and soul into them. Would love to see current gen consoles such as the history of the Nintendo Switch
This timeline is suspiciously similar to the lifespan of the Switch. The way it's looking, the Switch 2 will seem a lot like the equivalent of GBA. I'm curious what sales will look like for the first three years of Switch 2 and if it will really pick up off the ground or not. Nintendo has traditionally sold severely underpowered consoles very well whereas their focus on higher power tends to be their downfall for some reason.
The Rapid release of the DS meant I basically completely had to skip that generation of Nintendo handheld as a kid, as I had gotten the Advance SP after The Gameboy Color and my mother, who was kinda strict when it came to gaming, didn't see a justification to get another handheld so shortly after the last one. Thus, with the GBA's games drying up, so did my interest for handhelds for the most part. I only came back to handhelds when I started university many years later and had full authority over my spending and got the 3ds. Funnily enough, part of the reason I got the 3ds was to double as a music player during the train commute, but the awkward headphone jack placement and general bulkiness nade that too much of a hazzle (and risk to the console). The 3ds did get me back into Pokemon and heandheld gaming tho, to the point that I started bying models of gambeoys/DS that I didn't get as a kid after I started working, as well as modding some of them.
I watched this while grinding out 99 firemaking in Old-School Runescape and absolutely loved it. Important correction though: The Gameboy Advance SP had a frontlight at launch, not a backlight. The SP didn't switch to a backlit screen until 2005.
By the end of the video I understood why you called GBA the sacrificed console because of its short life span and displacement due to the DS but I’d say the GBC fits that bill even more because it was just a stop gap between the GB and the GBA which was equally short lived.
Yes. GBC: 1998 GBA: 2001 and DS: 2004. GBC was capable even fmv and speudo 3D games if properly developed. GBA even ok real 3D games like open lara. If GBC released in 1995 and GBA 2000 and DS 2005 developers can use the hardware real capacity. But somehow ... I can recall kinda real 3D fighting games on GBA like mortal kombat and tekken. this genre does not exist on DS. Many good fps games like James bond nightfire, Ecks vs Sever, dark arena, duke nukem advance exist on GBA. But i can't recall good fps game on DS what used the hardware for real outside Metroid Prime. (The call of duty DS was shovelware quality port)
The mods for the original GBA at that time were almost entirely front lights, not back lights. Additionally, the original release of the GBA SP (the AGS-001) were also using front lights. It was not until the second model of the SP (the AGS-101) that a back light was used, and that was its only real improvement; they even advertised it on the box. Please do not refer to front lights as back lights. It is important in the context of discussing the GBA in particular.
Still have my Arctic white launch model GBA. I even bought a Japanese import of Sonic Advanced from my local comic shop because i didn't want to wait, so many memories for me on this handheld, wario land 4, Golden sun, the minished cap, pokemon, this system is one of the GOATS THE GOATS
Another fun fact about the GBA... there was a (only just BARELY) functional GBA emulator BEFORE it was released. There was a ton of super simple homebrew games and demos out before the system even came out.
I really enjoyed this, but you are incorrect that the GameBoy Advance was sacrificed. My overall impression from your analysis is that the GBA was snubbed in favor of the GameCube and later the DS. Nintendo tried to showcase the GameCube at E3 against Sony to prove they were still a dog in the fight of the current generation. The GBA wasn’t being ignored, it just wasn’t the highlight. It’s the same with Nintendo’s unveiling of the DS when they knew they were competing with the PSP. The PS1 outsold the N64 three-to-one in the previous generation. Sony has never been more dominant than with the PS2, so it makes sense that Nintendo had to meet their challenge. You’re making a false assumption that showcasing the DS equated to the sacrifice of the GBA. Nintendo put out multiple models of the GBA, an official GBA Player, and offered backwards compatibility for it all the way until the DS Lite. You even stated yourself at the end of the video that GBA sales were in line with the original GB/GBC sales, which was incredibly successful. Your data doesn’t support your conclusion. A variety of corrections and comments: The Sega Nomad did not run any Mega Drive games. It was only released for the NTSC region therefore it only ran Genesis titles. You claimed the GBA SP dropped after the GBA had been out for “just over a year”. The Gameboy Advance came out March 21st, 2001 and the SP released on February 14th, 2003. That’s effectively a two-year difference, which did not feel strange at all for the hardware refresh that was given. In regards to the release of the SP you said “everyone had been waiting for the backlighting” but it was front lit. Nintendo’s own announcement said so on the page you showed. The AGS-101 backlit model was released years later. The Wonderswan sold 3.5 million units over four years. The N-Gage was roughly 3 million units in three years. The N-Gage was also notoriously expensive on release. Neither console could hold a candle to GB/GBC/GBA sales - it’s not even worth calling them competitors. “Though GBA games continued to release, there was little reason to buy the console when the DS was only twice the price.” This isn’t a logical argument. I think you're making the assumption that the DS would cannibalize GBA sales with backwards compatibility but that's simply not the case. The DS was brand-new and hadn’t cemented itself as a powerhouse - it didn’t even have a dozen games by the end of 2004. The GBA library was already established and impressive - if you could play it for half the price, or if you could *gift* someone the option to play it for half the price, you would. The fact that the GBA kept selling until 2010 is indicative of this. “By the end of 2005 the GBA had effectively bowed out.” This is just not true. There were 173 titles released in the US in 2005, compared to 175 the year prior. The DS had roughly half those numbers for 2005. In fact, there were another 200+ titles to come on the GBA in 2006/2007. A large host of the best-rated or most technically impressive games came out then, not to mention that's when Nintendo's partnership with Square really came to fruition.
The dim screens and game price points were legitimate concerns. If I recall the games were something like $40 a game, so I only ever got maybe 3 of them back then. By comparison a PS2 game on the best selling list you could get for $20 if you were willing to put up with a black and white manual.
Super taff et c'est un plaisir d'avoir une voix-off humaine par Brad Ziffer plutôt qu'une version IA (qui aurait fait le taff, mais bon, on sent encore la rigidité dans la voix des IA).
My mother worked in a hotel in Anaheim CA in the mid/late 90’s and had a lost and found bin that was over the time limit and she was allowed to keep some things, she brought me a game boy and a blue game cartridge that was called Pokémon….by then I had moved on from playing my old game boy but the blue color of the cartridge and the name of a game I had heard little whispers about peaked my curiosity. I played it and was hooked. The master ball glitch was awesome when someone showed you at school. We didn’t have the internet as we know it yet (If you know you know)I eventually bought the official strategy guide that I still have somewhere (over 25 years old stickers still on it)and it is still one of my favorite games of all time. The other colors/sequels that came along were cool and all but the original ones were something special. You had to be there.😢
This is such a great document and I really adore the GBA which was special special to me because it was literally the first Nintendo system I have got a launch. I had the purple coloured GameBoy advance.
Gap filler is probably the best way to describe this console. But for me and most of my English school friends, it filled an even bigger gap. Most of us had a Megadrive and PS1 (some of us a Master System too). Those SNES ports in a portable, and often multiplayer form were a massive gap being filled. Add that to the amount of RPGs we didn't get in Europe until this time and I can see why it became a lot of our favourite handhelds. Everything was fresh for us. Sleepovers would often be Advance Wars, Pokemon battles, Mario Kart Super Circuit - this despite us having the main consoles.
I absolutely adore the GBA SP. I know the OG GBA is more ergonomic, but the SP is just so special in my heart. I worked at an EB Games when it released.
I sincerely hope you enjoy this video, I really love making it!
Sorry I can't release them more often, but I'm trying to make them as high-quality as possible
(I'm sorry if my English isn't perfect; it's not my first language)
Made by myself(Sakharu), voiced over by Brad Ziffer.
Beautiful work, Sakharu. ☝🏻
Are you going to make some NON nintendo content? I subbed due to thinking i found a channel that makes vids on various consoles and companies, but it's been mostly nintendo. If you're just going to be another nintendo channel, let me know so that i can unsub.
Im really happy you made this. It clearly took a lot of work and you did a great job!
@@tical2399only 5/8 of his videos have been about Nintendo
english isn't ur first language? no way, u talk perfectly
My Mom had a translucent purple GameBoy Color and a translucent pink GBA. She used to spend hours sitting in her chair in the living room playing Dr. Mario. She was disabled, so she spent much of her later years in a wheelchair…so, lots of Dr. Mario time, lol. It’s also worth noting she was the sweetest little person to ever grace the Earth. A couple years after she passed, I found a small satchel in my basement. I opened it and found both of her GameBoys and all of her games. She must have given them to me in the year before she passed…and in the turmoil of her passing I had forgotten about them. I was overjoyed. I gave the purple GBC to my little sister…along with Dr. Mario and a couple other games…and I held on to the GBA. I still have it, and after some TLC, it’s in top shape. Thanks for this video, and thanks for bringing back some happy memories of my Mom!
This is what it's all about thanks for sharing your mom sounded like a cool gal🙏
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Genuinely enjoyed you sharing those memories. Thank you. Not many experience the joy of a translucent purple Gameboy being a family heirloom.
@ It’s the simple, fun and happy things that remind us most of our Mom! She was a simple, fun and happy human being.
I developed about twenty titles for the GBA, including Doom2. I remember getting one of the early IS development kits that was just a large PCB with a LCD screen in the middle. Originally the GBA was only going to have 64K of RAM. With all my pleading to Nintendo to increase it they refused and informed me that it was going to market with only 64K. However, at the last minute they got spooked by all the competition and rumors about Sony entering the hand held market which caused them to upgrade it to 256K. It would have been crippled without the larger memory.
Over all my years developing games, the GBA was my favorite console and best time to be in the industry.
Did you have a working prototype of the doom engine running within the restrictions of only 64kb of internal work ram before the ewram was added? Ive also read in the internal sdk docs that it wasnt 64kb of iwram, but instead 48kbytes. If the title in question wasnt doom you couldnt work with only 64k, what title was it?
@@mariowario5945 No, Nintendo updated the GBA to 256K before any of the games we were developing were published. The first title we were trying to fit into 64K was Planet of the Apes. Sorry, I should have said Doom2 that was a year later.
You use asm or C mainly?
@@Nicholas-nu9jx Asm for engine code and C for game code. The 3D games were all asm.
@@stephenwhite506 you programmed for the iron man game on gba, how well optimized was this engine? I love how loud they were able to make the sound in that game Also, was gba your favorite platform to play its games, or to code for?
I love when youtube reccomends quality stuff
Great documentary! The one error i picked up was that the first SP did NOT have a Backlit screen. This is repeated a few times when you discuss the first SP release. It had a Front lit screen. It made the screen much more usable, but it also washed out the colors a bit compared to a typical backlit lcd. It was the same technology as what the Afterburner mod did to the original GBA design. The SP revision released after the micro, the AGS-101, was the only version that had a Backlit screen, which was much better than the front lit version, and miles better than the original gba, with well balanced and vibrant colors. Still, excellent documentary. I'm super impressed and super happy someone took the time and dedication to make such an in depth documentary.
The gba is my favorite console of all time, and the pixel art truly hit a sweet spot that has endured in its appeal even today. Thank you!
The original DS was the only way to play GBA games with a backlight for about the first year, and that's what I mostly used it for at the time once Wario Ware Touched got boring.
The original GBA design is still one of my absolute favorite handhelds, so much that I just got the recent Anbernic clone for me and my kids. I had a Game Gear and a Gameboy Pocket as a young kid and enjoyed them briefly but didn't have too many games or any killer app that stuck out to me.
When Pokemon blew up in the US, for some reason I associated Red/Blue as GBC games and had already moved on to a Neogeo Pocket Color and only played Pokemon when I traded some cards for a GBC and copy of Red at school. Didn't really get anything else for GBC except DBZ Legendary Super Warriors that was surprisingly kickass for a licensed title but mostly missed out on that library. The NGPC was severely underrated though and I played the hell out of it (Sonic and Dark Arms mostly) until I picked up a GBA with Mario World and Castlevania and amassed a huge library over the next few years. Between the solid Mario ports, Castlevania series, Metroid, Advance Wars, Golden Sun, etc it still has one of the strongest libraries of any console and several of my top favorite games ever were on it and would have sold me on picking up a GBA for any one of them.
My brother got a GBA SP a bit later and honestly I wasn't really into it. The lit screen was nice but I hated the control layout and wanted an Afterburner kit instead for mine but they cost a ton at that point and installation looked beyond my skillset. I missed out on the DS entirely, guess I'd aged out briefly and if I had a portable device with me it was my mp3 player not a game. Then got into emulation and even pre-iPhone I had 8/16-bit games running on my MotoQ (think Blackberry) and phone emulation only got better over the years.
Your documentaries are always top Notch quality I really appreciate them!
A huevo valedor a huevo!!!! Es un BACILON de mamey pinches carnales pinches valedores de mamey pinches carnales pinches valedores de mamey pinches carnales pinches valedores de mamey pinches carnales pinches valedores de mamey pinches carnales pinches valedores de mamey pinches carnales pinches valedores de mamey pinches carnales pinches valedores locos están locos porque son unos pinches valedores de mamey.
gba and sp will always be special to me because they helped me get through a very bad time in my life it was the only thing that helped me escape the reality and dealing with the fact i was forced out of my group home because i was turning 18 and that was the only place i felt like i truly belonged and had real friends and made real connections because everyone there was like me and had the same issues i did so having something i could take anywhere and just lose myself in just helped me immensely get used to my new life
Womp Womp
Your documentaries are so professionally done, genuinely some of the best on youtube. I'm surprised you aren't bigger
Excellent work! The gba is my favorite console of all time, and its so great to see a comprehensive documentary like this. I think the only thing that could make it better was if it had interviews with the people mentioned, or had more first person accounts, whether voiced answers to published interviews, or videos of people from the executives actually discussing the gba, or even just footage from the time of people playing it. I also think a visual timeline would've helped a lot. Still, there were a ton of publication and magazine references which was nice to see, and overall I'd say it was an excellent documentary. Very impressive to have been made by a single person. Thank you for making this
Oh my god the legend returns! I love ever documentary you put out!
I love your documentaries. This is an awesome topic
Stellar video. I am floored by the quality. In the future, I suggest reaching exclusively for songs that come from games exclusive to the system being discussed, especially particularly obscure ones.
Well done. You did your homework and gou touched on important points in the timeline.
Also, somewhat unrelated. Seeing Gumpei, Iwata, and Reggie hit hard on the nostalgia spot❤️
Literally yesterday I was wishing someone would make documentary about gba and now there is what are the odds you just earned yourself a sub very good job
I'm so glad I came across this channel. What another brilliant documentary - you did a fantastic job of capturing the zeitgeist of the early 00s and it was fascinating to learn about the pressure Sony was applying to Nintendo.
I can't wait to see what you cover next Sakharu!
I fucking love my GBA, I got one new as a kid as a present from my parents. Now as an adult, I got it modded, replaced the screen with an IPS screen. Now it looks like a Switch from 2001! It’s fantastic.
Super fascinating look into this time in gaming history. Had no idea all this was happening in Japan at the time, the history lesson on the WonderSwan was surprising. I just assumed because the WonderSwan never released in the west it didn't have that much of an impact, didn't even know Gunpei Yokoi developed it. Really brings a lot of context around why the GBA was what it was.
My favorite channel. I find myself pausing on every magazine article to read every snippet on screen. Thank you to whoever(s) doing these high quality docs. I very, very much appreciate it.
GBA was the 1st system I got on launch day.
Finally a new video 🎉🎉🎉 one of the best content/documentary in video game on TH-cam 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
This is the type of content we were missing…the gaming historian left a huge void and you sir are doing an incredible job….thanks and keep it up
This was a great video, I really enjoyed it.
Having gone back and started emulating older consoles recently what stood out to me is how strong the GBA library is, especially compared to handhelds and even many consoles!
I had gbc and pokemon red as a kid and my parents got me a see through purple gba pokemon ruby and a worm light. I look back to that as my favorite Christmas ever.
Since no one else has mentioned it, it should be sacrificed, not sacrified.
I started watching your channel only a week ago and i watched every video expect the Mario and zelda one. There are a lot of documentaries on youtube regarding videogames and consoles but this has to be the best channel and videos regarding this topic.The information provided is really interesting and this videos are fun to watch. Amazing voice over by the way!!!! I am already looking forward to the next video in approx 2 months as it seems according to the release history of your videos :)
Oh wow I caught up on your channel yesterday. What a treat
The quality of the the video and audio is incredible! Going a long with great research and information. I see the channel has been around for 8 months but it’s going to blow up once more people see how good these videos are.
I find it crazy how the actual timeline lines up compared to what I remember from back in the day. I heard nothing about the gba during Pokémon gold or silver. I remember playing the crap out of those games and collecting all things Pokémon. I’d go to boy scouts and everyone else would bring their game boys and we would show each other how far we had gotten or what we had captured. One gigantic experience we have lost in modern day which completely affects how we approach video games etc is the suprise. We can now go online and know practically down to the chip what’s going to be in something but back then it was insanely hard to get all of that info as a kid or what have you. I mean ask anyone growing up through 80s- early 2000’s and they’ll tell you that you that you gambled on the games from the box art and the back of the case etc lols.
Great content. You packed a lot of details into this video.
this was some high quality content, much appreciated. I recently started playing/buying games for my GBA again. I've had it for 20 years and it was one of the only things that survived the purge of my losing my home and having to toss/sell or give away 90% of my possessions. It's the only console left I have that isn't a repurchase for myself. It's so fascinating to hear how this is considering the "least" of all the game boys despite all the games and time I enjoyed with it.
bro u deserve more views, they will come for sure cuz this is top tier content, i've seen every console doc you posted, they're amazing, and i'm checking your channel every now and then to see if you posted another vid that youtube decided not to show on my frontpage, like this one. keep it up
Crazy how this thing was a sacrificed console but its game library and the amount of games it had is bonkers
I got my first advance in the form of SP in 2003. So to me the DS didn't even exist till 2007 when pokemon came out. So i had a good amount of time with my SP. I had a ton of advance games.
Amazing episode! Thanks for all the work you put in this ❤
That was an amazing doc. Superior quality - instant sub
Incredible as always. You are the goat of video game docs.
Really enjoyed this video and appreciate the work you put into it. You’ve got a new subscriber!
Another video that demonstrates how far ahead Satoru Iwata was in his plans for the game industry. While the older Nintendo President made poor decisions, such as holding a grudge with Square for making games on the PlayStation, and not letting them release stuff on the GBA, as soon as Satoru Iwata took rein of the company, he turned things around for the GBA, by actually working with Square and other companies, to bring as many games as he could to the handheld, and then it was genius of him to make the next Nintendo Handheld be backwards compatible with the previous one, because I still remember all the GBA games I enjoyed on my DS, that I wouldn't have enjoyed had the DS been like the Switch right now, that has no backwards compatibility at all with any of Nintendo's past systems, and I remember how Mr. Iwata let the DS and GBA coexist with each other until almost at the end of support for the DS, which meant that the GBA had not been shelved for a very long time, and that was good for not just the consumers, but also for the stores and stuff, that were still selling GBA games.
Yamauchi was terrible and killed both the N64 and Gcn due to his pride and hubris.
@@theothenintendomaster3717 sure, the guy that led Nintendo during N64 and start of GCN was terrible, but what about the guy that led the company during the arcade-NES-SNES days? Seemed pretty competent if you ask me
@@bartelvandervelden9894 I don''t respect Yamauchi a lot because he was either too hands on/strict or waay to lenient, The nes in the Usa had no competition because they literally forced all third parties to work for them which was absoulutely an Illegal monopoly , which probably led to a lot of third parties having rocky relationships with Nintendo in the future.
The nes sold less in Europe and Brazil because Sega could actually have third parties on the Master System there unlike in the Usa.
His flaws were not apparent with The Arcade era, Game & Watch Nes, Snes and Og Game boy because he had less control, This era was a succes because he Promoted the right people like Miyamoto or Yokoi into office rather than Yamauchi's own skills, Yokoi is way to underrated with him being the inventor of a lot of Iwata's gaming philosophies and a true Genius.
The problem with Yamauchi was that from around 1991 to 2002 he became increasingly detached from what consumers actually wanted as well as taking more control of the company.
First his handling of the snes addon situation was terrible and the Ps1 was literally created out of Kutaragi being mad about the betrayal even though Sony was effectively planning to buy Nintendo in that deal.
The Gci games were also terrible and eroded brand trust, The Virtual boy simply was never going to work with how rushed it was
The n64 using cartridges made the console''s games more expensive to produce and sell, Of course many third parties were mad as they wanted, longer games cd quality audio and Fmv''s and those were almost impossible on n64 thus ff7 which was the biggest rpg of that era was released on ps1, not N64.
The n64 had like 1 rpg, Pm64 but that was released after the ps2 so who even cared about Pm64.
In general he seems to have been anti third party,(especially against Square) and focused on kids at a time when most gamers who grew with the Nes and Snes wanted more mature edgy games.
N64 games could use at maximum 64 mega bytes while the ps1 and saturn could use 700 mega bytes that is literally 10 times the space. Interestingly enough the n64 was massively outsold in Japan by the Saturn, yes The Sega saturn.
He made the exact same mistake with the Gcn using mini DVD's that could hold only 1.5 Gb while the Ps2 and Og Xbox could use 4.7 Gb (4 times the space) coupled with the Gcn's main console variant being Indigo a color that was massively controversial due to it's association with kids, girls(always hated by ''hardcore gamers') and trans people made Nintendo look Really kiddy.(the lack of a DvD player and Online was also not good in a changing industry)
everyone wanted a Mature Zelda game, We got Wind Waker which was rightfully hated by like 90% of the Zelda Fanbase due to the kiddy artstyle, despite being loved now.
We wanted Mario 128 instead we got Luigi's Mansion and a janky, unfinished/controversial game in the form of Sunshine, we wanted mario Kart 64 2 instead we got Double Dash a game that also feels janky and dissapointing to long time fans.
We wanted Star Fox 64 2 instead we got a terrible reskined version of Dinosaur Planet a game that was never supposed to be a Star Fox game,( with that also being the last RareWare game made for a nintendo home console before Nintendo just let Rare be purchased by Microsoft for no reason) and the very mediocre Star Fox Assault.
To many people the Gcn( from late 2001 to late 2003) had a very dissapointing library and one that was all focused towards kids If Iwata did not become President in 2002 The Gcn will be a far bigger disaster than It was in our timeline.
Most of the Gcn exclusives whose reputations have allways been positive are games that simply expand on their Snes/N64/Ps1 predecessors rather than trying to do something gimmicky just for the sake of it.
Melee is just a way better Smash 64, TTYD same deal, Twilight Princess is a mature Zelda that is literally OOT3
Re4, Metroid Prime 1 and 2 same deal.
Gamers wanted a mature Nintendo the problem is that Yamauchi was so ademant about the fact they knew Gaming better compared to everyone else and that Nintendo"'s ''toys'' allways sell based on just 1st party support that he neglected the 3d parties completely on N64.
Iwata had to spend like the entire Gcn era rebuilding third party support and The Gcn still had low third party support with no Nintendo home console until the Switch having good third party support.
Nintendo's kiddy reputation with The N64 and especially Gcn will not go away until the Switch and damadged the entire brand for Decades.
Iwata somewhat saved the Gcn but after that system ended up failing the Blue Ocean strategy had to be adopted for the company to survive and thus the the Company finally achieved succes On the Home
console front since the Snes, so yeah Yamauchi was still
not a good president in either the 70's , 80's or 90's then he just promoted the right people to run the company under him while as soon as he didn't do that anymore the company started declining massively.
I don't want to hate him Im simply stating the facts.
Great documentary man it’s hard to believe that there was a time when Nintendo was starting to have competition in the handheld space with the wonder swan and the Neo Geo pocket colour.
Yes! I've been waiting so long for the next video and you didn't disappoint! I remember I got a GBA ags 101 model for christmas of 2006 I think? I never had many games for it but I really loved that console, I still have it to this day! A few months later my dad got a DS for my youngest sibling but he enjoyed playing the Mario minigames so much that he eventually got one for each of us LMAO It was so fun, we could all play together with Mario kart, mario party and a bunch of other games with only a single cartridge! Wow my comment just made me realize how much the GBA was actually overshadowed by the DS 😅
Got my Gameboy Player and Gamecube in the other room. Used it fairly often.
Some GBA games are those weird isometric types that honestly feel a lot better with a stick, even if there is no analog control. I use mine too
@@Cedalus The only complaint I have about the device is there are a handful of GB games that were designed to have custom color schemes to work on the Super Game Boy. This didn't get carried over to the Game Boy Player unfortunately.
@@SerpentNight yeah I agree, seems like a missed opportunity. I feel like the GBA should have had Super Game Boy colorizing hardware too.
But it really is a treat to see some of my favorite handheld games from my childhood on a big screen without the use of emulation.
You have a great voice that perfectly compliments your documentaries.
This video was awesome, so interesting!
This was incredibly done, great job
Amazingly well made video! Sat through the whole thing while playing my Nintendo Switch Lite. Pretty amazing how far we've come since the GBA days, and with so many handhelds coming out now from so many different companies the competition is more fierce than ever before. I did have a little laugh though when I saw the Game Boy Micro unveiled again. That one didn't age too well.
Just in time for the RG34XX, perfect timing
I liked the gba but it desperately needed backlightning
GBA SP solved that
@omgbaxtergames true but that did not help my gba back in the day. And lightning peripherals were not good
Nicely done and edited!
I remember as a kid, gba and snes were by far the best looking and still functioning emulated consoles on smartphones for the longest time with basically the whole library available on sketchy rom sites. Add to the fact that most pokemon fangames were gba roms. It is by far my favourite handheld bar none
God, I loved the GBA so much, spent so many hours on it and the GBA SP, some of the best memories ever. Those were the good times.
I still play my GBA and GBA SP. Its really good, sacrificed or no
Dude this documentary was awesome
I still love that Reggie E3 speech. He was such a sick guy, love him sm
His body was ready
41:30ish shout out for using the music from my fave GBA game red rescue team!
Awesome work! You earned a sub. Can’t wait for the GameCube video
I remembered skipping over the Gameboy color entirely to wait for the Gameboy advance. My sister bought it for me, it was white. I played a little bit of Mario, but got really into f zero. I had no idea they released the sp shortly afterwards. And I found a brand new Gameboy micro at a flea market sale. I bought it for $20 and gave it a try. I quickly stopped because the screen was way too small and it was hurting my eyes. Thank you for the video. It brought me back to memory lane. One of my favorite games on the GBA was Golden Sun and minish cap.
That was a very good video, appreciated❤
Legendary documentary pull
I think the sp is the definitive version of this era and encapsulates what it was like to game back then. I bought my wife One last month and it's amazing how modern the console feels despite being 20 years old. The backlight and rechargeable battery really feel like consumer first decisions that have transcended the past two decades and it still feels like no one makes consoles like this anymore. hell no one makes anything like this anymore.
thank you for the work you do friend these videos are amazing
These videos are perfect for work 😁
Love it
Man these videos are awesome ! i listen to these at work. please keep it up !
Hey love your vids - they’re so thorough and I can tell you put your heart and soul into them. Would love to see current gen consoles such as the history of the Nintendo Switch
This was a fantastic video looking forward to future uploads (hopefully a 3ds video in the future 🤞)
Thank you TH-cam algorithm for blessing me with another quality channel 🙏🏾
A new episode from SB? Let’s go! 😊
Please more, I love your channel
This is an amazing documentary and a love letter to the gb advance
Thanks for the video!
This timeline is suspiciously similar to the lifespan of the Switch. The way it's looking, the Switch 2 will seem a lot like the equivalent of GBA. I'm curious what sales will look like for the first three years of Switch 2 and if it will really pick up off the ground or not. Nintendo has traditionally sold severely underpowered consoles very well whereas their focus on higher power tends to be their downfall for some reason.
This documentary was phenomenal, thank you so much!
All the best wishes for 2025 ^-^
The Rapid release of the DS meant I basically completely had to skip that generation of Nintendo handheld as a kid, as I had gotten the Advance SP after The Gameboy Color and my mother, who was kinda strict when it came to gaming, didn't see a justification to get another handheld so shortly after the last one. Thus, with the GBA's games drying up, so did my interest for handhelds for the most part. I only came back to handhelds when I started university many years later and had full authority over my spending and got the 3ds. Funnily enough, part of the reason I got the 3ds was to double as a music player during the train commute, but the awkward headphone jack placement and general bulkiness nade that too much of a hazzle (and risk to the console). The 3ds did get me back into Pokemon and heandheld gaming tho, to the point that I started bying models of gambeoys/DS that I didn't get as a kid after I started working, as well as modding some of them.
This is a very informative video
The first console I ever saved money for! I saved up birthday and Christmas for it, and still have it.
I had a GBA. That was A magnificent little purple handheld console. In those days I traveled for work and I enjoyed it a great deal.
I watched this while grinding out 99 firemaking in Old-School Runescape and absolutely loved it.
Important correction though: The Gameboy Advance SP had a frontlight at launch, not a backlight. The SP didn't switch to a backlit screen until 2005.
high quality video 👌
Excellent documentary 👏🏽
Legendary console. It will always have a special place in my heart. Our family cat once vomitted on mine.
How long will Pokémania last?? Dec 2024.... it's still going strong.
Still going strong despite the slop games that are being pumped out.
I'm still hoping we get a decent mainline game on the switch. 3rd time's the charm? At least Legends Arceus was a lot of fun
Its amazing to think this is 20 years ago
Popular culture has changed so little in the last 20 years
By the end of the video I understood why you called GBA the sacrificed console because of its short life span and displacement due to the DS but I’d say the GBC fits that bill even more because it was just a stop gap between the GB and the GBA which was equally short lived.
Yes. GBC: 1998 GBA: 2001 and DS: 2004.
GBC was capable even fmv and speudo 3D games if properly developed. GBA even ok real 3D games like open lara. If GBC released in 1995 and GBA 2000 and DS 2005 developers can use the hardware real capacity.
But somehow ... I can recall kinda real 3D fighting games on GBA like mortal kombat and tekken. this genre does not exist on DS. Many good fps games like James bond nightfire, Ecks vs Sever, dark arena, duke nukem advance exist on GBA. But i can't recall good fps game on DS what used the hardware for real outside Metroid Prime. (The call of duty DS was shovelware quality port)
The mods for the original GBA at that time were almost entirely front lights, not back lights. Additionally, the original release of the GBA SP (the AGS-001) were also using front lights. It was not until the second model of the SP (the AGS-101) that a back light was used, and that was its only real improvement; they even advertised it on the box.
Please do not refer to front lights as back lights. It is important in the context of discussing the GBA in particular.
Still have my Arctic white launch model GBA. I even bought a Japanese import of Sonic Advanced from my local comic shop because i didn't want to wait, so many memories for me on this handheld, wario land 4, Golden sun, the minished cap, pokemon, this system is one of the GOATS THE GOATS
Another fun fact about the GBA... there was a (only just BARELY) functional GBA emulator BEFORE it was released. There was a ton of super simple homebrew games and demos out before the system even came out.
I really enjoyed this, but you are incorrect that the GameBoy Advance was sacrificed. My overall impression from your analysis is that the GBA was snubbed in favor of the GameCube and later the DS. Nintendo tried to showcase the GameCube at E3 against Sony to prove they were still a dog in the fight of the current generation. The GBA wasn’t being ignored, it just wasn’t the highlight. It’s the same with Nintendo’s unveiling of the DS when they knew they were competing with the PSP. The PS1 outsold the N64 three-to-one in the previous generation. Sony has never been more dominant than with the PS2, so it makes sense that Nintendo had to meet their challenge. You’re making a false assumption that showcasing the DS equated to the sacrifice of the GBA. Nintendo put out multiple models of the GBA, an official GBA Player, and offered backwards compatibility for it all the way until the DS Lite. You even stated yourself at the end of the video that GBA sales were in line with the original GB/GBC sales, which was incredibly successful. Your data doesn’t support your conclusion.
A variety of corrections and comments:
The Sega Nomad did not run any Mega Drive games. It was only released for the NTSC region therefore it only ran Genesis titles.
You claimed the GBA SP dropped after the GBA had been out for “just over a year”. The Gameboy Advance came out March 21st, 2001 and the SP released on February 14th, 2003. That’s effectively a two-year difference, which did not feel strange at all for the hardware refresh that was given.
In regards to the release of the SP you said “everyone had been waiting for the backlighting” but it was front lit. Nintendo’s own announcement said so on the page you showed. The AGS-101 backlit model was released years later.
The Wonderswan sold 3.5 million units over four years. The N-Gage was roughly 3 million units in three years. The N-Gage was also notoriously expensive on release. Neither console could hold a candle to GB/GBC/GBA sales - it’s not even worth calling them competitors.
“Though GBA games continued to release, there was little reason to buy the console when the DS was only twice the price.” This isn’t a logical argument. I think you're making the assumption that the DS would cannibalize GBA sales with backwards compatibility but that's simply not the case. The DS was brand-new and hadn’t cemented itself as a powerhouse - it didn’t even have a dozen games by the end of 2004. The GBA library was already established and impressive - if you could play it for half the price, or if you could *gift* someone the option to play it for half the price, you would. The fact that the GBA kept selling until 2010 is indicative of this.
“By the end of 2005 the GBA had effectively bowed out.” This is just not true. There were 173 titles released in the US in 2005, compared to 175 the year prior. The DS had roughly half those numbers for 2005. In fact, there were another 200+ titles to come on the GBA in 2006/2007. A large host of the best-rated or most technically impressive games came out then, not to mention that's when Nintendo's partnership with Square really came to fruition.
The dim screens and game price points were legitimate concerns. If I recall the games were something like $40 a game, so I only ever got maybe 3 of them back then. By comparison a PS2 game on the best selling list you could get for $20 if you were willing to put up with a black and white manual.
we love you sakharu
Super taff et c'est un plaisir d'avoir une voix-off humaine par Brad Ziffer plutôt qu'une version IA (qui aurait fait le taff, mais bon, on sent encore la rigidité dans la voix des IA).
My first hand held console. Oh the memories!
Im not a gamer but your documentaries sure have entertained.
My mother worked in a hotel in Anaheim CA in the mid/late 90’s and had a lost and found bin that was over the time limit and she was allowed to keep some things, she brought me a game boy and a blue game cartridge that was called Pokémon….by then I had moved on from playing my old game boy but the blue color of the cartridge and the name of a game I had heard little whispers about peaked my curiosity. I played it and was hooked. The master ball glitch was awesome when someone showed you at school. We didn’t have the internet as we know it yet (If you know you know)I eventually bought the official strategy guide that I still have somewhere (over 25 years old stickers still on it)and it is still one of my favorite games of all time. The other colors/sequels that came along were cool and all but the original ones were something special. You had to be there.😢
This is such a great document and I really adore the GBA which was special special to me because it was literally the first Nintendo system I have got a launch. I had the purple coloured GameBoy advance.
Gap filler is probably the best way to describe this console.
But for me and most of my English school friends, it filled an even bigger gap. Most of us had a Megadrive and PS1 (some of us a Master System too).
Those SNES ports in a portable, and often multiplayer form were a massive gap being filled. Add that to the amount of RPGs we didn't get in Europe until this time and I can see why it became a lot of our favourite handhelds. Everything was fresh for us. Sleepovers would often be Advance Wars, Pokemon battles, Mario Kart Super Circuit - this despite us having the main consoles.
I still remember my first gba. It came with Mario advance and it rocked my world ❤️
It won’t be long before you have several hundreds of thousands of subscribers.
Another Great documentary
I absolutely adore the GBA SP. I know the OG GBA is more ergonomic, but the SP is just so special in my heart. I worked at an EB Games when it released.
As far as dedicated handhelds go, the GBA SP was by far my favorite.
Zone of the enders and the mgs 2 demo did a lot of heavy rotation for those early launch months.