I wonder if Sega once they get their bottom line rolling again...if they'll get back into the console wars.
They annonced this like a month ago, but I will be one of the people buying one. I actually had the original GBA but sold it in December to pay for Xmas bills.
no. here is where they say the will stay in the console market Nintendo Planning Next Console Quit the console race? Never. Nintendo wants to win it. January 23, 2003 - It appears that Nintendo is finally learning its lessons. In a Reuters interview posted this morning, Nintendo of Japan president Satoru Iwata commented on the company's long-term intentions in the console wars to follow its current GameCube hardware. "We are developing a new home video game console with a plan to release the new system around the same time as rival makers do," said Iwata. "The PlayStation 2 debuted one-and-a-half years ahead of the GameCube. If we had launched the GameCube at the same time as PlayStation 2, the result would have been different. ... We will get ready for a (new) battle in 2005 although foreign game developers are now saying that rival next-generation systems won't come until 2006." Iwata emphasized Nintendo's plans to stick in the console industry by saying, "When we withdraw from the home game console, that's when we withdraw from the video game business." Iwata also commented on Nintendo's current strategy: "Our focus for 2003 is to offer new types of games which allow consumers to play both on the GameCube and Game Boy Advance." Nintendo's newfound focus on the future can perhaps be attributed to its most recent sales reports, which put it in close competition with Microsoft's Xbox for the number two spot in the industry behind Sony's mammoth PS2 market share. Nintendo missed projected sales of 10 million GameCube systems by 10%, as well as falling short of its projected 55 million units of software sales. On a down note, when asked about these lacking sales, Mr. Iwata blamed the videogame market, saying, "Consumers today apparently don't want to sit in front of the television to play games for hours and hours." This comment leaves us completely baffled, as we're not entirely sure how the president of NCL hasn't noticed the millions of PS2 units shipped each month, in addition to the 1.5 million copies of Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto: Vice City that shipped from retailers during the month of December alone. But no matter what the reason for the sliding Nintendo sales at the end of 2002 (and we're fairly confident that it's not a lack of consumer interest in videogaming), we're certainly thrilled to no end to see Nintendo taking an early and aggressive approach to its next console strategy.
Yeah, this has been announced awhile ago. It's nice that it has a frontlight...one of the biggest problems with the original GBA was that its screen wasn't all that great. But, I don't plan to buy the GBA SP. But I DO plan to get this when it hits the US this May... This is the Game Boy Player. It's a peripheral that plugs into the bottom of the GameCube, and allows you to play Game Boy Advance games on your TV by means of the GameCube.
