Nintendo and Visteon Partner for Car Entertainment

by Mike Sklens - January 5, 2006, 9:09 am EST
Total comments: 23 Source: Visteon.com

Playing GBA in your car will never be the same.

At the annual Consumer Electronics Show being held this week in Las Vegas, automotive entertainment company Visteon will announce a partnership with Nintendo that will bring Nintendo technology to Visteon's products. However, the fruit of their partnership is already up on the company's website. Visteon's new Dockable Entertainment system featuring Game Boy Advance will offer the standard features of an automotive DVD player, but also includes a port for Game Boy Advance games. The games will be playable on the system's 10.2 inch screen.

There's no information yet as to how players will control their games, but Visteon's website mentions that the system can "Accommodates additional game units so two or more can play," which implies that this unit features a GBA link port.

Update: Now that the device has been officially unveiled we can offer you some new information. The biggest, and most disappointing, news is the controller. It's triangle shaped and has five face buttons (which translates to 3 A buttons and 2 B buttons according to Visteon) and a large circular D-Pad. There are also L and R buttons on the rear of the controller. It's also been revealed that the controller links to the base over an infrared connection (as opposed to the much more reliable RF technology found in modern wireless controllers).

As far as video, the GBA image is stretched to fit the 16:9 aspect ratio of the unit's screen, however the image does not fill the entire screen. It should be noted that Visteon claims the final unit will have a larger, sharper picture.

Thanks to Joystiq for the details.

Talkback

ToruresuJanuary 05, 2006

Very cool. But why not DS? Large screen for all players, touch screen for control. They could even make original games for it.

Bill AurionJanuary 05, 2006

This sounds kind of cool...

*stares in wallet*

;_;

JonLeungJanuary 05, 2006

If you count the GBA SP and the brighter GBA SP as two separate GBA designs, this makes it...hmmm...what, seven official ways to play GBA games?

GBA
GBA SP
GB Player
DS
GB Micro
GBA SP with brighter screen
And now this in-car thing... o_0

BlackNMild2k1January 05, 2006

They should release a PSP GBA attachment next.
That could be a big seller, I'm sure PSP owners are starving for (good)games

jakeOSXJanuary 05, 2006

hmm. wonder how you control it? separate NES style pads?

my first thought was "a game boy with a 10.2 inch screen...."

=D

vuduJanuary 05, 2006

I imagine you'd control it with your GBA. All it's doing is replacing the screen. The hardware and such remains in your GBA. In other words, I assume you'd already need a GBA and a game to take advantage of this. I also imagine that if more than one person wants to play either (a) it has to be a game where both players see the same screen (such as Advance Wars or a fighter) or (b) the second player has to use his regular GBA screen.

I wonder if the Micro will be supported or if it will be left odd-man out.

Ian SaneJanuary 05, 2006

Seems like a waste of effort to me. Guess what? GBAs are ALREADY playable in a car! It's a portable. I can play it ANYWHERE. If anything they should put a home console in the thing.

Plus the GBA is old technology that is soon to be completely neglected. So why put a GBA in there? Why not put a current system that is actually, you know, still supported in a serious way instead?

I remember years ago I saw a commercial for a mini-van with a Playstation in the back seat. I think I saw the ad twice and never saw it again. Why did it likely never appear again? Because at the time the PS2 was already out. There's no point putting in old technology when it comes to videogames. They might as well put a VCR in there as well.

vuduJanuary 05, 2006

Quote
I remember years ago I saw a commercial for a mini-van with a Playstation in the back seat. I think I saw the ad twice and never saw it again. Why did it likely never appear again? Because at the time the PS2 was already out. There's no point putting in old technology when it comes to videogames. They might as well put a VCR in there as well.

That, and everytime you went over a bump your game froze and you had to restart.

PaleMike Gamin, Contributing EditorJanuary 05, 2006

Quote
Originally posted by: vudu
I imagine you'd control it with your GBA. All it's doing is replacing the screen. The hardware and such remains in your GBA. In other words, I assume you'd already need a GBA and a game to take advantage of this. I also imagine that if more than one person wants to play either (a) it has to be a game where both players see the same screen (such as Advance Wars or a fighter) or (b) the second player has to use his regular GBA screen.

I wonder if the Micro will be supported or if it will be left odd-man out.

Not true... it has a slot for just games and has a seperate controller. Its just GBA hardware stuffed in a portable DVD player.

Ian SaneJanuary 05, 2006

What's with the five face buttons? What is the point of doing that? This whole thing sounds like something Nokia would come up with.

Why is it that corporations outside of the gaming industry have NO IDEA how to do anything involving videogames at all? I'm not involved in the furniture business but I'm smart enough that if someone asked me to build a chair for them I would, just due to common sense, make something reasonably okay and functional. You could sit on it without breaking your spine anyway. But with games it's like if you don't know games you REALLY don't know games and have no idea how a controller should be layed out or what makes a game fun or anything like that. You figure some of this stuff would be obvious. Do none of the engineers have kids? Because the second anyone's kid saw the controller they would laugh at it. I don't have to be an expert at cars to figure out that a wheel should be round. What is it about gaming that makes it so difficult to get the basics right?

BlackNMild2k1January 05, 2006

Quote
Originally posted by: Pale
Not true... it has a slot for just games and has a seperate controller. Its just GBA hardware stuffed in a portable DVD player.

So what you're saying is that this is a giant GBA that can also play DVD's

JonLeungJanuary 05, 2006

Quote
Originally posted by: Ian Sane
Why is it that corporations outside of the gaming industry have NO IDEA how to do anything involving videogames at all?

I notice that too. Maybe that's why they're not in the games industry, thankfully.

It's like everytime there's a drawn picture of a generic game controller, the D-pad is on the right side. WHY? WHY?

I'm sure there are pictures of game controllers drawn by artists that AREN'T dyslexic and can clearly see the D-pad being on the left of, you know, NEARLY ALL GAME PADS that exist (I think the Virtual Boy had two but I'm sure there was still one on the left)...so perhaps I'm just remembering the screwed-up ones more...but I don't see why there should be confusion at all. Are many artists holding their controllers upside-down?

I know nothing about guns but I wouldn't draw a picture of a guy HOLDING A GUN THE WRONG WAY. So why a controller?

Anyway, is there a pic of this triangular, multi-buttoned monstrosity so we can spaz more about people's stupidity? If Nintendo has any say in this at all (which I imagine they should) they should get them to make a decent controller. Even a plain-old rectangle (essentially a NES controller but with L and R) would work better than any triangle I can imagine.

StrellJanuary 05, 2006

Quote
I'm not involved in the furniture business but I'm smart enough that if someone asked me to build a chair for them I would, just due to common sense, make something reasonably okay and functional.

Oh man, my chair would have 17 legs and flame decals. You know, to make it FASTER.

PaleMike Gamin, Contributing EditorJanuary 05, 2006

I'm guessing it has 5 face buttons because each does something different when the system is in DVD mode.

joshnickersonJanuary 05, 2006

Meh. Heard about this the other day, and it still doesn't impress me. All it does is take the Gameboy and makes it... less... portable.

Bartman3010January 05, 2006

Does it link with other Game Boy systems?

If not...then meh, probably isnt worth it. Wish they'd push for 6 face buttons...

NephilimJanuary 05, 2006

"This is a pretty great idea if you ask me. I'm honestly surprised we haven't seen something like this sooner."

You should go to car shows, Inbuilt game systems are nothing new
Its just this is finally offical, but people have been making and selling console kits for cars for over 10years