Hacker News Reader

Comment by pferdone | Hacker News Reader

Saw it yesterday and as someone already mentioned in the comments, it's crazy to think the Game Boy Advance only lasted 3yrs before it got replaced with the Nintendo DS. This demo blows my mind, and even after watching the video on it I still can't fathom it.

View on HN

The first few generations of DS were fully backwards compatible with the GBA though so the transition wasn't that bad. The Gameboy in general had an amazing run of backwards compatibility through its lifetime. The GBA could play original Gameboy games going back all the way to 1989.

The one annoyance of the GBA at its release and original lifetime was the screen. It wasn't backlit and was very difficult to see without perfect bright lighting in your room. They eventually fixed this with the backlit GBA SP some years later, but gaming on the original GBA was rough. It's easy to forget just how bad things were without backlit screens, we've been spoiled by decades of amazing smartphone screens in the years since.

I know, every Game Boy Advance (variant, except for the micro) was able to play GB/GBC games. Also for backlight: only the SP AGS-101 and the GB Micro were backlit.

Quite early on in the GBAs lifecycle, there were third party backlighting solutions. I fitted a few back in the day for myself and my friends. Even now you can get decent IPS LCD screen replacements from places like AliExpress.

"the Game Boy Advance only lasted 3yrs before it got replaced with the Nintendo DS"

I assume most did not believe Nintendo's statement on the matter.

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/nintendo-ds-not-game-boy-a...

I remember arguing with my friends about this as a kid. A lot of the target audience was naïve enough to believe it, even when it was clear first-party games had moved to DS.

It’s clear that’s what they wanted to do, but I think they really weren’t sure it would work and had a backup “it was GBA all along” plan.

I don't blame them either with the scars of the VirtualBoy still fresh in their minds.

Exactly. The late time they “strayed from their lane” they got slapped hard. Easy to see why they were gun shy.

I disagree! I think Nintendo wanted both consoles to coexist in order to provide an additional revenue stream. When you want to play traditional games, you grab your Gameboy Micro or the still-highly-pocketable GBA SP. When you want a stylus and dual screens to play Nintendogs, you grab your bulkier Nintendo DS.

It didn’t really work and Nintendo pivoted—possibly also to compete with the PSP—but I see the Gameboy Micro as evidence of their strategy. Compare an original model DS and the Gameboy Micro side-by-side—the size difference isn’t entirely unlike that of an iPhone versus an iPad Mini.

It’s not the first time Nintendo tried to create a third category between console and handheld—see also the Virtual Boy.

They said the same thing about the Switch and the 3DS as well :)

The GBA was still sold for four+ years after the DS came out, and games were still popular.

The DS being able to play GBA games was a huge selling point, as people forget how "radical" the dual screens were and how uncertain it was that people would adapt, so having the GBA fallback was nice.

Also, the DS was a better GBA than the GBA.

Depends on the GBA. The original model, sure. With the backlit SP it's less clear. The DS is more comfortable but less pocketable, can't play GBC or GB games and doesn't have a link cable port so no multiplayer and no trading Pokemon.

IMO a backlit SP is the best stock GBA you can get.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com