Nintendo Drops GBA SP Price!

GBA

September 1, 2004, 1:25 pm EDT
Total comments: 15

There's a new ad campaign too.

NINTENDO DROPS PRICE OF BEST-SELLING GAME BOY ADVANCE SP TO $79.99!

Companion Marketing Campaign Urges Players to ''Start Mayhem''

REDMOND, Wash., Sept. 1, 2004 - The hottest video game system in history is getting the best price in the universe. Starting Sept. 2, Nintendo's record-breaking Game Boy® Advance SP will sell at an all-time low manufacturer's suggested retail price of just $79.99, a full $20 less than its current price. The reduction significantly expands the potential audience of an already-dominant consumer electronics device to a wider range of consumers.

At the same time, Nintendo also paves the way for more "Mayhem" - the watchword of the new "Start Mayhem" Game Boy Advance SP marketing campaign that debuts with the new price point, showcasing different personalities for each of the GBA SP colors.

"This new price point makes Game Boy Advance SP affordable for the vast majority of the mass market, and gives people a 'gotta-have' gift to automatically put at the top of their holiday gift lists," says George Harrison, Nintendo of America's senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications. "Nintendo has always owned the portable video game market, and this further strengthens our leadership position."

Game Boy Advance SP, which is front-lit and sports a clam-shell design, has sold more than 20 million units worldwide, and will continue its dominance this fall with an impressive lineup of games. Before the end of the year, Nintendo will launch titles like Pokémon® FireRed, Pokémon® LeafGreen, F-Zero® GP Legend, Mario Pinball Land™, Kirby™ & The Amazing Mirror, Donkey Kong® Country 2, Final Fantasy® I & II: Dawn of Souls and Classic NES® Series 2, which features old-school games like Metroid®, Castlevania®, Dr. Mario® and Zelda II™: The Adventure of Link®. Added to this will be more than 50 titles hitting the market from Nintendo licensees.

In addition, Game Boy Advance SP continues to expand its range, with the Game Boy® Wireless Adapter that comes packaged with Pokémon FireRed and Pokémon LeafGreen, as well as Game Boy® Advance Video, novel video paks that let users watch cartoons right on their Game Boy Advance units.

The "Start Mayhem" campaign features CGI-animated Game Boy Advance SP units brought to life in a variety of fun situations. Each color unit demonstrates a different personality. The campaign kicks off with videos featuring the Flame and Onyx systems. To view the videos, log onto www.startmayhem.com starting Sept. 2.

Talkback

UncleBobRichard Cook, Guest ContributorSeptember 01, 2004

Wonder how much the regular GBA is now....

KDR_11kSeptember 01, 2004

It's been discontinued.

MarioSeptember 01, 2004

GBA SP will make a killing at this price. Damn.

I hope this means the DS will be $99.

Cheat FreakSeptember 02, 2004

there is no way that the ds will $99 im betting $149-$179
and to stay on topic
this is great now i can get my own (my wife always has mine)

LUEshiSeptember 02, 2004

why would anyone buy a sp now when they could wait a few months and get DS

Koopa TroopaSeptember 02, 2004

I wonder if this extends to the NES edition SP as well.

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why would anyone buy a sp now when they could wait a few months and get DS

1. DS doesn't play GB/C games (negligible, I know)
2. We have no confirmation that the DS will linkup with the Cube as the GBA does.

joshnickersonSeptember 02, 2004

Hrm, this would probably mean that retailers are gonna be trying to dump their stock of original GBAs, so if there are any system collectors out there, you should probably keep your eyes open over the next few months...

Bill AurionSeptember 02, 2004

I thought the "DS not being able to play GB/C games" was dubunked not too long ago...Someone enlighten me...

ruby_onixSeptember 02, 2004

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I thought the "DS not being able to play GB/C games" was dubunked not too long ago...Someone enlighten me...

AFAIK, Nintendo has never officially cleared up this question. Somebody asked Reggie to clear it up in that Camp Hyrule chat thingy, but the question got disqualified for being a minute too early, or something like that.

Anyways, Nintendo seems to only be boasting about the DS being able to play GBA games. Which is why the issue came up in the first place.

The GBC was backwards compatible because the GBC's CPU (called a "Z80") emulated the black-and-white GameBoy, and added a cool Metroid-optimized color scheme to it.

The GBA has an "ARM7" as it's main CPU, and is flawlessly backwards compatible with the GBC, because Nintendo included a Z80 specifically for that purpose in the GBA hardware, and it gets activated by pressing a tiny switch in the cart slot. Things like the Advance Shop in the Zelda Oracle games were unlocked because they detected the "version number" of the slightly-newer Z80 chip, not because they were running off the GBA's superior ARM7.

The DS boasts both an ARM9 and an ARM7, apparently for flawless GBA compatibility, and for easier operations of two seperate screens.

It seems possible that Nintendo may have cut the Z80 out of the picture, since it's rather obsolete and GBC games aren't really a selling point anymore. But some GBA games apparently hacked their way into using the GBA's Z80 chip, just "because it was there". Like, one of the Castlevania's supposedly used it as a makeshift "sound chip".

It's possible that Nintendo might have dealt with this issue by having the DS's ARM9 emulate the usually-inactive Z80 chip while in "GBA mode", but at that point, the ARM9 might be able to play GBC games too (possibly not "flawlessly", but whatever).

So basically, we don't know. Unless I'm wrong.

DweditSeptember 02, 2004

The GB/GBC does not have a real Z80, it has a different processor similar to the Z80. It lacks some instructions that the Z80 has, and also has a few instructions that the Z80 does not have.

Also, there is no version number on the GBZ80. A GBC game can tell if it's running on a GBA based on the bootup content of the B register (B=0 on gameboy, B=1 on gba).

The GBZ80 is just the CPU, the ppu is drawing all those 2-bit backgrounds and sprites. The sound chip is doing all the sound.

The GBZ80 is inaccessable to any GBA games, but the GB sound chip is still accessable. The old gb sound channels even have new features which not too many gba games have used.

It's still unclear whether the DS will support running the old gameboy games or not though. Even if the DS doesn't support running GBC games, it's still possible to emulate some of the classic monochrome gameboy games in Goomba running on a gba flash cartridge.

joeamisSeptember 02, 2004

Quote
Originally posted by: KDR_11k
It's been discontinued.

Yes but there are still tons of them for sale at retail stores, not to mention the multitude of online stores stocks of them. and another thing why Cheatfreak might want to get a second SP is for linking up with his wifes SP, so far the DS doesn't have a link port for linking to gba's, there is speculation that the gba wireless adapter may be able to link up with DS but only for GBA wireless games.

I sure hope they don't make the Classic Edition cheap now, I just got mine. Oh well, atleast this means DS could go for at or under 150. Who knows... could still be 180.

ssj4_androidSeptember 02, 2004

What happens to all the stores selling them used for $80? How much does Blockbuster charge now?

Kirby_PopStarSeptember 03, 2004

I think this is going to hurt sales of the Nintendo DS in the begining.

Common gamers who still haven't really heard about the Nintendo DS see that the GameBoy Advance SP has dropped down in price and they go buy it. Immediately after, the new system comes out? Are those particular people, immediately after getting their discounted console, going to shell out more money for the new Nintendo DS?

BlkPaladinSeptember 03, 2004

Well it may, for causal gamers. It will be a great boon for the SP. But the early adapters will still buy the DS no matter what. I was planning on buying an SP at the end of the year before Nintendo announced the DS, now I will be buy the DS.

KDR_11kSeptember 03, 2004

If those people needed a pricedrop to buy the SP they wouldn't have bought the DS, anyway.

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