I believe it was the GBA that rescued Nintendo and that has accounted for its current success.  One could really sense a change in Nintendo's fortunes with the great games that were on the GBA in its first year, then when continued great first party games from Nintendo combined with Square's beginning to design games for the GBA, you could really feel a change headed Nintendo's way which I feel has culminated in the amazing success of the Wii and DS lines.  Say what you want about the success of the DS and Wii, I feel that the GBA started the Revolution.  Share your love for the GBA here.

not GBA

Pokemon

man i love the fckn gba...tons of great games
best handheld nin ever made...im not selling mine at all
why the fck they brought out the successor so quick ???? WTF

I can't say I agree with "save", since Nintendo have posted profits consistently. But yeah, GBA was great and Nintendo sure must've made a lot of cash on it.

IMO GBA is Nitendos weakest system. ( which iv'e played anyway) although i think i did make some bad game choices for it.

The GBA didn't save Nintendo. The GC made ~2 billion in profit in its life and the GBA made about ~8 billion. Wonderful handheld though. I like it more than the DS and Gameboy.

I was gonna say the exact same thing.

If it wasn't for Pokémon, well...

that's a likely reason for nintendo staying in the game. personally, i owe more of it to the success of the ds, but the gba is incredibly important as well.

 I'm personally tired of the 'Pokemon saved Nintendo." garbage.  If the series didn't exist, I'm about 99% sure, Nintendo would still be here.  Look at the best sellers on the N64 and GC.  A Pokemon game isn't even the top 3 for the N64 or the top 5 for the Gamecube.

I think the GBA is highly inflated but I do remember reading that 80% of profits were made via handhelds.