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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - GBA killed off too early?

Salnax on 19 March 2013

Nintendo released the DS early so that if it flopped, they could shift all their support to the GBA and next gen Game Boy, which would have been released in 2006. Had the DS flopped in 2004 and earlier in 2005, you could bet the GBA would have seen more games and would have a proper successor in 2006 or so.



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NiKKoM on 19 March 2013
zorg1000 said:
NiKKoM said:
its more the fault of the original gameboy and that the gba was released too late..


i think gba was released appropriatly and gbc was released too late, it should have came out in 1996


neh.. the Sega Nomad was released in 1995 proving that 16bit graphics could be in a handheld form.. and with the release of the Neo Geo Pocket Color in 1999 that one proved that you could have a good battery life and good price (70 bucks)

gba should have released in 1998~1999



 

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Cheebee on 19 March 2013
zorg1000 said:
Cheebee said:
DS was originally meant to be a 3rd pillar, besides the GBA and GameCube. However when it got those crazy games like Brain Training and Nintendogs, plus the Lite redesign, it simply took off like crazy and replaced the GBA altogether.

im pretty sure it was meant tp replace gba, they just werent sure if the touch screen/2nd screen would catch on so they said that just in case

Well, obviously. I'm sure even Nintendo themselves didn't know what exactly would happen with the GBA/DS/PSP out on the market together. The DS was very much meant to go up against PSP, and it was clearly a rushed system because of it, both software and hardware-wise. GBA could've kept on selling for a longer time, but it didn't, so Nintendo fazed it out, and DS replaced it. Had the DS bombed, they could've simply released a traditional follow-up to GBA and fazed out the DS.



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Hasquarl on 19 March 2013

Just to add to what Cheebee is saying, I found this in Nintendo's original Press Release for the DS announcement:

"Nintendo DS will be marketed separately from the company's existing Nintendo Game Boy® Advance portable system and Nintendo GameCube™ home console."

Link: http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/703412/read-the-original-nintendo-ds-press-release-when-ds-was-a-code-name/

They probably wanted to have the GBA running for a few years with the DS, but when the DS went sales crazy, they just dropped the GBA altogether.



zippy on 19 March 2013

Judging by the success of the DS...no



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superchunk on 19 March 2013

I believe they intended for each to coexist which is why they brought out the GBA Micro.



Michael-5 on 20 March 2013
JoeTheBro said:
More like 3 and a half years. Anyway the GBA was a bad design. It wasn't until the GBA SP that it caught on. And yes Nintendo was worried about PSP. Sony made the PS1 and completely dominated with their first attempt so they expected the same in the handheld market.

That basically sums it up. Plus Nintendo was raking in big $$$ on GBA and all handhelds before it. GBA was the first graphical upgrade since the original 1989 model (a GBC was just a bit clearer, and added colours). GBA and GBA SP were cheap to produce.

PSP was a graphical beast compared to GBA, Nintendo didn't want to be outmatched. That's why all the money which used to go into software went into DS hardware, and because GBA had such an impressive library, DS was backward compatible.

If PSP never released, we would of had a localized Mother 3



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Mensrea on 20 March 2013

Well, they took a risk with the DS, and it payed off bigtime. They really played their cards right, and it ended up paying off. Nintendo's strategy in the handheld market has been to eliminate Sony as quickly as possible. They showed this with the DS, and now with the 3DS they are doing the same thing. (Buying every big Japanese game, choking the life out of the Vita)

I wish Nintendo had the same kind of determination with consoles that they do on handhelds. They make incredibly smart decisions most of the time in terms of handhelds.




prayformojo on 20 March 2013

IMO, the GBA>DS, easily. I still have the original, non back lit launch model and it's games? Straight up bliss. Nintendo hasn't released a better handheld yet.