Personal Game player

[Myersjessee]

Hey all...looking for some advice....want to get my son a Gameboy type system for Christmas. He'd love to be able to play any Macross/Gundam type of games as well as all the basics. Is the Gameboy Advanced SP the way to go? Is there something on the horizon I should wait for? I saw the pictures of the new PStation Portable..but it sounds like its a couple years away from the US....anyone with news or help to share is appreciated.

[Ghadrack]

PSP, the last time I looked was supposed to hit the US in the first quarter of 2005, christmas 2004 in japan. The problem with it initially will be price and games. EB games says that the first game titles in the US are shipping 01/25/2005 and there are only about ten of them. After that it should be great.

The PSP is rumored to be in the 275 to 400$ price range, it will play movies, games and music on Sony's proprietary UMD discs, sort of like mini dvds. Sony has stated that they will not sell UMD recorders to the public or give them to game developers though, so the only software will be officially released by Sony, this means that game developers will likely have to jump through a lot of hoops to get games to market, as sony did with the PS1.

It should be a solid system, but it will be a slow launch I think.

Game Boy advance SP is the way to go right now, tons of games, relatively cheap for the value (Around $70) and it plays every gameboy cartrige ever made. Thousands of titles.

Nintendo is also releasing a new handheld sometime soon although i am not certain of the date, the Gameboy DS (Dual Screen). This is looking like a beefed up Gameboy SP, it is supposed to be backwards compatible with Gameboy and Gameboy advance titles but I have not seen a working model in action so I can't confirm that.

The Gameboy DS will be supported heavily and if it is Backward compatible then it will certainly have a ton of games right from the get go.

For a Christmas present I don't think you ca go wrong with a Gameboy Advance SP, price and games it is a great little system. If you want to wait and see, then the new Sony and Nintendo systems will be out in early 2005 but games for the PSP will be rare for several months but it will be cool, and the Nintendo DS will surely have a horde of games but will probably not be as graphically or technologically impressive as the PSP.

(My opinions based on what I have read and seen. Don't take it as word of God.)

[Wes]

Gameboy Advance/SP is like a mini Super Nintedo+. Plus it has no region-coding, so you can import.

[Myersjessee]

thank youboth very much!!!!

[Ghadrack]

Glad to be of assistance.

I love my Gameboy Advance SP, they are great little systems. I am a bit of a video game junkie though so I will certainly get a PSP and GBA/DS when they come out.

[Solscud007]

Oh Jesse only thing though, which shouldnt be a problem for your son, In terms of the hard core gamer like myself, sometimes vintage is better than the predecessor. Such as My Neo Geo Pocket is the best handheld for fighting games. Granted they are SD characters, but the timing and physics is jsut right. Fighting games on the GBA are a bit slow. It doesnt have that arcade feel. For instance Guilty Gear on GBA really really sucks. They tried to maintain the arcade proportions but there is somethign lacking. On the other hand Wonderswan (By Bandai) has Gulity Gear Petit 1 and 2. Both SD character fighting but the graphics in terms of background design and character sprites is better than GBA. Its the fact that GG does not utilize GBA's processor. I find many of the Games on GBA are lacking. Onyl a few such as Metroid Zero Mission (beefed up version of Metroid) and Link to the Past are some of the best games on that system. There are a lot of games for the GBA its just sifting through the majority of crap to arrive at the cream of the crop.

haha sorry to confuse you, for the kid go with GBA SP (the light is fantastic!!!!) and rechargable battery is great.

for yourself you may want to check out the GP32. Its a mini emulator handheld. It will play virtually anythign you put on the Smartmedia card.

[Myersjessee]

LOL! Thanks Nick! Do you have one of these mounted in your Valk-car???

[Wes]

Btw, you can get the regular GB Advance on Amazon.com dirt cheap - 35 bucks with the e-reader attachment.