That's always a good thing right?

Here's a neat idea: store the game on the DS cartridge and FMV cutscenes can be stored on a seperate GBA cartridge using that technology they use for those TV show cartridges. You could even use multiple GBA cartridges that are swapped as you play the game to store a lot of FMV. Of course this would be pretty ambitious and would be a really expensive game. The GBA slot could also be used to make expansions for games. Sure if blatantly misused like with the Sims expansions it would be annoying but imagine this: you buy a sports game and if you don't want to buy next year's game you can get a GBA cartridge roster update that works with the engine for the "old" game you're using. Or say a DS game gets ported to the PSP with some new content. The publisher could release a GBA cart expansion to give DS owners the option at a cheaper price to get the new content.

Though developers will probably use this like they use the GBA/GC linkup. Buy the GBA game to unlock features in the DS game.

GBA carts could be manufactured soley to store game saves.

Pokemon... transfering info from GBA to DS and back

"Pokemon... transfering info from GBA to DS and back"

No good. Doesn't involve selling redundant remakes.

a gba cartridge memory card eh? I'd like if sports games had the new rosters on the gba cart, but sports games on portables haven't reached anything that great yet as far as the game's engine. I think a 2nd generation sports game could make huge strides as far as the game engine and gameplay. After that though, the gba roster would be cool, but can't the DS access online? Meaning you could just download the new roster online? Anyways, I don't see any of the mentioned roster ideas actually happening for sports games.

I think it would be cool if there was a DS game enhancer cartridge (in the DS slot), that allowed you to play your old gba games (in the gba slot), with new features exclusive to the DS, enabled by the DS game enhancer cartridge. It could sell for the price of a DS game or a bit lower, and be compatible with like 5 games. Or they could release them for certain franchises, like Advance Wars, Golden Sun, Mario Advance series, Castlevania, etc. It would be much like the super gameboy and gameboy advance player. One idea of the top of my head would be to let you use the stylus to play Advance Wars 1+2, and have other DS additions, etc.

I don't think we're going to see that used much, GBA carts are expensive and DS carts are cheap. Expansions and the like are unlikely. Maybe some connectivity-style stuff, but not much more.

This same information was explained at the Nintendo Press Conference.

1: Memory Card. (Sega did the exact same thing for the Genesis after the Sega CD freed up the unused cart slot, so it's not copying Sony.)

2: Expansion Pak. (Very much like the N64's one. I just hope Nintendo releases it earlier in the DS's lifespan, and bundles it for free with a good killer-app, so it has a chance to catch on.)

3: Super FX Chip. (Possibly combined with the RAM expansion pak.)

>This same information was explained at the Nintendo Press Conference.

I thought I heard this somewhere awhile ago....

i think we already heard this since e3... you know the eCard Reader stuff, a camera, etc for examples

Rumble pack maybe?

as a GBA homebrew developer, and someone who's pretty interested in Nintendo's newest... I have to say that I am QUITE intrigued at this possibility. I knew when I bought my GBA flash cart that it would probably need upgrading when the DS came along, but now, the possibility of running DS code on my GBA flash cart is QUITE intriguing, to say the least.

Obviously, this hardware capability is intended to read from existing GBA games, such as transferring save files from Golden Sun GBA to Golden Sun DS, or things like that... but if it can be modified to allow homebrew code, then it would be quite good for me.

However, the downside of that is that it makes it quite easy to hack the system GBA-style. I fear for early piracy on the DS, as we saw on the GBA.

I doubt you could feasibly put games not designed for this on the GBA cart.

I can't believe that all of you, including Sane, missed the hot tamale! This opens the door for a portable, wireless version of that new arcade game, Quest of D! The arcade game has a screen that has touch screen capabilities used for activating magic cards and such, which could be easily sourced out to the 2nd screen. Most importantly, the biggest hurdle to porting this game to a home console is that you use real playing cards (sold separately), and the game has a sensor that reads these cards. With the GBA slot open, and hopefully backwards compatibility with the Card Reader (or a much needed, improved card reader "2.0"? ), a port of this game is now virtually guaranteed!

Nintendo, if you're listening, Quest of D has the potential to be a killer app for this system....look into it.

Planet Gamecube staff, if YOU'RE listening, please pass this idea on to your connections and hopefully it will get to someone who can influence the right people.


Thank you for your time.

Knoxximus

Well, considering there is no card reader in Europe...

IT'S TEH CONNECTIVITTY!!!
Since it's built right in to the system at no extra cost this feature can't hurt, but I don't think it will amount to much. I think the possibility of using the slot for new peripherals is probably the most interesting thing that could happen.

All I want in terms of connectivity is the DS connecting to the Cube while emulating a GBA. Means second controller for FFCC.

"All I want in terms of connectivity is the DS connecting to the Cube while emulating a GBA. Means second controller for FFCC."

Now why would you want to do that when there's an FF:CC game on the DS itself?

With 4 button control, no less. Hopefully they find some way to make use of it.

Because it's very unlikely that my friends will buy DSes.

Hmm, It would be cool if the DS hardware could access and display stuff from both carts at the same time, Like you could be playing a GBA game on one screen and have a strat guide or a map on a DS cart(if it allows it) and playing on the other.

If the DS cart tells it to do that that's exactly what it'll do.

If it's a Player's Guide for an older GBA game on a DS card, then yeah, that would totally work. You could use the touchscreen for the guide's interface, and the regular controls for the game as usual. Almost anyone could probably make it, although they'd probably need "permission" from a couple involved parties, but "official" player's guides always get that all the time anyways.

If it was a Player's Guide for a DS game on a GBA cart, they'd probably have to set things up for that in advance, while making the DS game, and the guides on GBA carts would probably be considered "too expensive" for anyone to try making (unless Nintendo ends up with a bunch of surplus GBA carts sitting around their factories).

Of course, I'm sure a lot of publishers would probably say that there's no money to be made in coming out with a Player's Guide more than a week after the game hits the shelves, and they're probably right, but I know that I'd buy them (assuming they were well made).

Solely the idea of requiring a more expensive system just to use the player's guide sounds absolutely idiotic.