No more Game Boy?

Jayextee · Post by **Jayextee** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 6:19 am

Brand awareness is such an important thing that it would not be to Nintendo's advantage to throw away such a recognisable thing. And besides, isn't the DS really a continuation of what they started with the Game Boy brand anyway? A rose by any other name, and all that.

Dudley · Post by **Dudley** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 7:10 am

It's only what they already did by dropping the "Nintendo Entertainment system" brand after the SNES.

Antiriad2097 · Post by **Antiriad2097** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 7:26 am

It opens up another avenue for yet another rerelease of the same platform though. They swore that the DS wasn't going to replace the GBA but it was inevitable, so perhaps soon they'll inlude original GB/GBC emulation to support the old carts and rebrand it the GameBoy DS. Retain both brand names and suck in the collector/retro market with it.

Fandenivoldsk · Post by **Fandenivoldsk** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 12:18 pm

Let's hope for Nintendo's own sake that they don't drop the GameBoy brand, or it may end up the same way Sony did, when they "forgot" the Walkman brand and now can't get it back on track because of Apple's iPod. Lessons to be learnt, I'm sure...

DrBlue · Post by **DrBlue** » Thu Jul 26, 2007 4:30 pm

Even if they do drop the Game Boy brand, you can be damn sure they'll be pretty peeved if someone releases a machine that can play Game Boy games but doesn't have the Nintendo brand name on it.

In fairness there are at least 4 distinct Nintendo systems which have the ability to play GB games (GB,GBA,SNES(with the Super Game Boy add on) and the GC(with the Game Boy player add on)) not counting the various iterations of the GB itself. So it's not exactly difficult to play those games should you really want.

Dudley · Post by **Dudley** » Fri Jul 27, 2007 4:29 am

DrBlue wrote:Even if they do drop the Game Boy brand, you can be damn sure they'll be pretty peeved if someone releases a machine that can play Game Boy games but doesn't have the Nintendo brand name on it.

In fairness there are at least 4 distinct Nintendo systems which have the ability to play GB games (GB,GBA,SNES(with the Super Game Boy add on) and the GC(with the Game Boy player add on)) not counting the various iterations of the GB itself. So it's not exactly difficult to play those games should you really want.

GBC doesn't count as a distinct system?

Post by **CraigGrannell** » Fri Jul 27, 2007 4:49 am

Antiriad2097 wrote:so perhaps soon they'll inlude original GB/GBC emulation to support the old carts and rebrand it the GameBoy DS

Hahaha! Yeah, right. Do remember that we're talking about Nintendo here, and as much as I like the company right now, it's never going to do what you suggested there. It would, however, be likely to release some kind of Game Boy Classics series, with botched GB mono conversions at 15 quid a pop.

pipoldchap · Post by **pipoldchap** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 5:37 am

How about the sheer last-ability? (My post MY words)

It's been the one family of handhelds that hasn't fallen by the way side. As far as the main commercial market of casual gamers (not like you hard core types with your GPX2s...) it's always been a favourite.

The original gameboy was so unassuming. Monochrome screen against the colour screens of Lynx and Game Gear. (TV adapter?!) But it didn't eat batteries by the case load. It was small and easy for smaller peoples.

When they released a new version (up until Micro and DS time frame) you could still play the games you had from before and, as previously mentioned, you could play them on the Big system (Snes/GC). Nomad didn't do so good... Why does it work when you convert small to big and not big to small?

I love my game boy.

cyclone5uk · Post by **cyclone5uk** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 10:00 am

I think in truth, my original Gameboy (which I got in about 1991 aged 9) was my most played console of all time.

A few things that pop into my head when I think about my Gameboy:

- As was the case with the NES previously, my cousin got his Gameboy about 6 months before me â€“ though it was playing on his that made me want one in the first place.

- The smell of the polystyrene container when I opened the box for the first time, with Tetris sitting in the corner of the packaging just begging to be played.

- The big, elaborate cabinets in toyshops, with demonstration Gameboys attached that you could try out.

- Wanting Super Mario Land, but realising the shop had sold out and then ending up with Dr Mario instead, just because it was a game with Mario on the cover.

- All those accessories, like magnifying screens, clip on lights, plug in speakers.

- Turning on your Gameboy when you had no game in and seeing the â€œblockâ€

DrBlue · Post by **DrBlue** » Sun Aug 05, 2007 9:53 am

GBC doesn't count as a distinct system?

GBC is a derivative system. Being, as it is, a modified version of existing hardware. I did mention "not counting the various iterations of the original GB hardware" or something along those lines.

Although if we were to include the GBC it makes my point even more valid.

romanista · Post by **romanista** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 7:42 am

Sega2006 wrote:Bare in mind the oh so great DS cannot play the entire GB back catalouge which has some truly worth while titles that are too good to miss

so lets all buy a gba flashcart and put goomba on it or a ds one with lameboy..
problems solved

Sega2006 · Post by **Sega2006** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 9:13 am

It could work, but what about those who cant do things like that?

Steve Halfpenny · Post by **Steve Halfpenny** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 5:32 pm

I hate the way the DS cannot play GBC games. Saying that, I only rate Super Mario Deluxe and R-Type DX anyway so it makes little difference to me. Just annoying that I have to keep my GBA just for those two games.

Dudley · Post by **Dudley** » Tue Aug 07, 2007 5:41 am

Sega2006 wrote:It could work, but what about those who cant do things like that?

There's no-one who can't do things like that.

Heavy Stylus · Post by **Heavy Stylus** » Tue Aug 07, 2007 5:50 am

Good old www.pdroms.de are holding a GBA dev compo at the moment. The concept of the competition is to port a DS homebrew game to the GBA - I'm interested to see how this one will work out...

Anyway, there's life in the GBA homebrew scene yet!

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