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New Gameboy discussion

Z

ziran

Member
i've been thinking about this for a while and i'm unsure what nintendo will do for the next gen gameboy.

a portable gc is doable, and could be released now, but would there be any point? why would a portable gc get more support than the existing gc? i don't think it would and dev cost is becoming a limiting factor for handheld development given the current structure for delivery, i.e. retail. the ds has good support and represents a platform to developers where they can set a small team for a year, sell around 100k and make a profit.

however, if nintendo created a gameboy based on the gc, with an internal hard drive, wifi and full cartridge compatibility with the gb line, i think it could be a good start to full downloadable games for handhelds. removing the distribution and retail profits, developers could make a decent amount from a game with a bigger, current gen type, development budget.

nintendo could also make it compatible with the virtual console concept of revolution, so you could play the nintendo catalogue on the go. nintendo could also adapt the gc library for download (which i think it is doing) so they could be downloaded onto the handheld.

what are you thoughts for the next gameboy?

if you're just going to try and turn this into another ds vs psp topic or say the usual anti nintendo sentiments please stay away.
 
DaCocoBrova said:
Why do you think a portable GC is possible now?
Click to expand...
i mean the technology is there. the gc circuit board is very well designed, so i'm sure a portable version of gc is doable, it's probably not profitable enough for nintendo yet, but that will probably happen by 2007.

i'm pretty sure nintendo designed the gc internals to eventually be portable.
 
Well now that the DS has proven to be a viable standalone product, I'm more curious as to how they will handle merging the handheld line. Will they just go back to using the Gameboy name, retire that and stay with DS or come up with something else? I really don't see the need for 2 distinct product lines for the next gen. The DS expirement was a success.
 
Dracos said:
Well now that the DS has proven to be a viable standalone product, I'm more curious as to how they will handle merging the handheld line. Will they just go back to using the Gameboy name, retire that and stay with DS or come up with something else? I really don't see the need for 2 distinct product lines for the next gen. The DS expirement was a success.
Click to expand...
There's another problem : The PSP. If Nintendo doesn't change the concept of the GB, it'll be essentially a cheaper PSP
 
Dracos said:
Well now that the DS has proven to be a viable standalone product, I'm more curious as to how they will handle merging the handheld line. Will they just go back to using the Gameboy name, retire that and stay with DS or come up with something else? I really don't see the need for 2 distinct product lines for the next gen. The DS expirement was a success.
Click to expand...
i agree to an extent.

i think the ds could survive without ever having a graphical upgrade. imo it was designed as a device to attract non gamers and expand the market and give something new for existing players. so nintendo could keep it going as long as there's interest in the software, that way there's always a cheap development platform available.
 
GC costs are not necessarily porhibitive for a handheld. By this point in the generation, the tools are mature, and developers trained. I think a portable GC would be cool.

And even cooler-- if it actually played GC discs. They're small enough, and voila! Instant library. Control might be an issue, and you'd have to release new games for multiplayer-- but it should simple enough to do.

That could effectively prolong the life of the console *and* make for a great handheld library.

And yes, I'm aware this has been tried twice and failed both times. But this is Nintendo we're talking about.
 
it will be close to NGC in 2-3 years, shit maybe even 5. If they do it now no one will buy it. The problem is cost. It is cheap to make old tech games that is why there are so many GBA games that sell. Handhelds should always be a look back on how it was in my opinion.
 
I think they will eventually merge product lines. The fact is, its much easier to support 1 handheld than two.

Here's what I expect from the next GameBoy (I predict 2007 or 2008, after a DS redesign)

- clamshell design, 2 screens, one is a touchscreen
- slightly larger screen than the DS, still smaller than the PSP
- built in 256mb flash RAM, with external flash ram slot
- uses DS carts, backwards compatible with DS
- Gyro built in, IR sensor so it can be used with revolution
- WiFi built in
- no GBA cartridge slot, but works as a virtual console for GB/GBC/GBA/DS but also NES/SNES which can all be downloaded from Nintendo's network

I don't think we'll see a portable GC for awhile. The fact is that the controller layout will pose some problems, and power consumption is always an issue.
 
Oni Jazar said:
Can't just shrink a Game Cube. Most of those games use streaming which will kill a battery.
Click to expand...

The next Gameboy will not use discs. Solid state will become affordable for the sizes that next gen Gameboy will require.
 
My guess is something along the lines of ...

- Fold out design (ala GBA SP)
- About the size of an Apple i-Pod (pocket friendly)
- 4-inch 16:9 LCD touchscreen
- ATi chipset/GameCube-ish graphics
- Card based format (no discs) 1 GB-ish size
- SD Card Slot/Play-Yan type functions (MP3/MP4 video)
- Game Download Service ala Revolution
- $149.99 (DS will be $79.99-$99.99)

Spring 2007-ish launch (Japan).

I see touchscreen basically being standard on all portables from here on out (even PSP2), really no different from the analog stick or rumble on console controllers. Even if its just for functions like a virtual keyboard/text messaging/web surfing, a touchscreen is very useful.

The dual screen thing I think will be dumped though. It just makes a portable too awkward and sacrifices portability IMO. You could still play a lot of the games on the DS (Nintendogs, Kirby DS, etc.) with one screen since the second screen is often just used as a map. The GB Next having a larger, widescreen will also make up for the loss of the second screen ... it a developer wants, you could still split the screen in half (only horizontally).

The designers of GB Next should definitely make it a point to make the system much more pocket friendly, PSP/DS are too bulky. Something the size of a regular iPod would be ideal, and still accomodate a very large 16:9 screen in a fold out display.
 
soundwave05 said:
I see touchscreen basically being standard on all portables from here on out (even PSP2), really no different from the analog stick or rumble on console controllers. Even if its just for functions like a virtual keyboard/text messaging/web surfing, a touchscreen is very useful.

The dual screen thing I think will be dumped though. It just makes a portable too awkward and sacrifices portability IMO. You could still play a lot of the games on the DS (Nintendogs, Kirby DS, etc.) since the second screen is often just used as a map, especailly since the GB Next screen should be larger.
Click to expand...

As long as we got a nice big touch screen area to play with, you could always go with PIP (picture in picture) for games that required a second screen.
 
GDGF said:
As long as we got a nice big touch screen area to play with, you could always go with PIP (picture in picture) for games that required a second screen.
Click to expand...


Yep, I just added that. I think Dynasty Warriors on the PSP has something like this as a map.
 
soundwave05 said:
My guess is something along the lines of ...

- Fold out design (ala GBA SP)
- About the size of an Apple i-Pod (pocket friendly)
- 4-inch 16:9 LCD touchscreen
- ATi chipset/GameCube-ish graphics
- Card based format (no discs) 1 GB-ish size
- SD Card Slot/Play-Yan type functions (MP3/MP4 video)
- Game Download Service ala Revolution
- $149.99 (DS will be $79.99-$99.99)

Spring 2007-ish launch (Japan).

I see touchscreen basically being standard on all portables from here on out (even PSP2), really no different from the analog stick or rumble on console controllers. Even if its just for functions like a virtual keyboard/text messaging/web surfing, a touchscreen is very useful.

The dual screen thing I think will be dumped though. It just makes a portable too awkward and sacrifices portability IMO. You could still play a lot of the games on the DS (Nintendogs, Kirby DS, etc.) with one screen since the second screen is often just used as a map. The GB Next having a larger, widescreen will also make up for the loss of the second screen ... it a developer wants, you could still split the screen in half (only horizontally).

The designers of GB Next should definitely make it a point to make the system much more pocket friendly, PSP/DS are too bulky. Something the size of a regular iPod would be ideal, and still accomodate a very large 16:9 screen in a fold out display.
Click to expand...

That sounds like an upgraded DS-SP and that's what i think a lot of people would want. There isn't a need for a new Game Boy yet, DS is doing well enough to combat the PSP and I'd want the next Game Boy to bring something new to the table again and not just be a PSP/DS hybrid.
 
there isnt gonna be a new gameboy. the DS is it. There will be a DS2.

If you say that nitnendo promissed a new gameboy was still coming, that's true. And it's here. It's called the Micro.
 
Game Boy is still Nintendo's largest and best known hardware brand.

They'll drop the "Game Boy" brand right around the same time Sony drops "Playstation".

Hell even Microsoft didn't drop the "XBox" brand ... brand names like Game Boy just don't go away.
 
a pocket GCN is more than possible from a cost effective chipset point of view.

a cost effective pocket-display for such a chipset is another thing.

it will probably be at least 2-3 years before Nintendo can come up with something using such a display that can be sold for <$150.
 
Portable disc based GCN is never going to happen. Besides Nintendo would never do it, even if they could. They would want you to re-buy games or buy new ones, not just use old GCN titles.

A portable Game Boy with a GameCube level chipset would probably be more than doable in a year though.

Hell, IBM/ATi might even have to shrink down the current GCN chipset into the Revolution (similar to how the PS2 has the PSOne chipset) ... if that's the case, they could probably just take that same shrunken down GC chipset and put it into a portable as well.
 
soundwave05 said:
Game Boy is still Nintendo's largest and best known hardware brand.

They'll drop the "Game Boy" brand right around the same time Sony drops "Playstation".

Hell even Microsoft didn't drop the "XBox" brand ... brand names like Game Boy just don't go away.
Click to expand...


The day they release a new gameboy with PSP level hardware, DS development dies. So either they release a new gameboy in three or four more years and abandon the DS concept (highly unlikely given the success of the DS) or they simply drop Gameboy and make DS thier new standard for portables, and the gameboy remains froever a compact, scaled back kids system.

Any thinking person would realise there is never going to be a new high powered gameboy.
 
bummyhead said:
The day they release a new gameboy with PSP level hardware, DS development dies. So either they release a new gameboy in three or four more years and abandon the DS concept (highly unlikely given the success of the DS) or they simply drop Gameboy and make DS thier new standard for portables, and the gameboy remains froever a compact, scaled back kids system.

Any thinking person would realise there is never going to be a new high powered gameboy.
Click to expand...


Not really. By 2007, the DS will have what? Like a 20-30+ million userbase in all likelyhood and will just replace the current GBA SP/Micro as Nintendo's "budget" handheld in the $79.99-$99.99.

They'll probably redesign the DS and drop it to $99.99 next year, then in 2007, they can drop to $79.99.
 
i think the gameboy name is here to stay. it's still a very important branding for nintendo.

soundwave05 said:
Not really. By 2007, the DS will have what? Like a 20-30+ million userbase in all likelyhood and will just replace the current GBA SP/Micro as Nintendo's "budget" handheld in the $79.99-$99.99.

They'll probably redesign the DS and drop it to $99.99 next year, then in 2007, they can drop to $79.99.
Click to expand...
this is what i was thinking. it's a good strategy.

it makes sense to keep the ds around for a long time, as long as there's interest from consumers and developers.
 
Maybe they are going to take them into different directions. For example, the Game Boy would from now on be a stylish (not exclusive to just Game Boys), expensive multi-media machine and the DS would be the innovative, relatively cheap, gaming-only machine. I can see them adding a gyroscope (or something similar) in the next DS.
 
you know what's really sexy? that GBASP-esque render ofa portable gamecube someone made. hand windwaker showing on the screen. Anyone have it?
 
SpiffyG said:
Maybe they are going to take them into different directions. For example, the Game Boy would from now on be a stylish (not exclusive to just Game Boys), expensive multi-media machine and the DS would be the innovative, relatively cheap, gaming-only machine. I can see them adding a gyroscope (or something similar) in the next DS.
Click to expand...

I see it the other way round. The Game Boy brand doesn't really suit a high end multimedia gadget. First of all the name itself emphasize games above all else and 'boy' just won't sound too appealing. Game Boy has always been a massmarket brand and that's how it should stay. I can see, for example, the redesigned DS in 2006 being named 'GB: DS' while a future, more experimental models are called something that reflects their new functions just like the DS label and they will once again gain the Game Boy moniker once it is established. If Nintendo is ever to release a premium handheld product, I think they would need an entirely new brand or they could use the Nintendo label for premium products and Game Boy as a cheaper alternative. Big established brands stick around and I think the biggest advantage the Game Boy name brings is that it has parents' trust, but they aren't always useful for dynamic new products. Sony has the Walkman brand, but that hasn't really helped it topple the iPod.
 
I think next year Nintendo will decide to license the GameBoy Advance name and technology to Nokia and other partners, and make it a de facto standard for cell phones. Games won't be stored on cartridge but will be downloadable through Nintendo's service, which will be made accessable directly by cell phone, or internet-capable phones. This way they will protect their turf, and keep the ongoing cellphone / game convergence from potentially disrupting their market. I can see them owning 60-70% of the cellphone gaming market this way, which will likely be growing substantially by next year.

By mid-2006 a redesign of DS will come out, slightly smaller and sleeker.

2008 Next generation DS, backwards compatible as described in my previous post... They will merge with the Game Boy line, i.e. "Game Boy Dual" or whatever. Simple as that.
 
DaCocoBrova said:
Why do you think a portable GC is possible now?
Click to expand...

I think the PSP proved a portable GC is at least another several years away before a portable with that kind of power can meet the basic criteria of a Game Boy platform, mainly durability, battery life, and relatively low cost of the hardware.


I do think the next Game Boy is going to follow in that tradition, but who knows. Nintendo's never been all that predictable since Yamauchi left. DS was the first major hardware release under Iwata's watch from beginning of the design, market positioning, business relationships of 3rd parties to launch and Iwata has shown he can work outside the old Nintendo mold to keep Nintendo competitive so anything is possible.

The next game boy could also see the first cross industry collaboration between Nintendo and a consumer electronics company. Matsushita, Apple and Nokia are all candidates. They certainly all want a piece of the pie and have old and or new rivalries with Sony.
 
borghe said:
a pocket GCN is more than possible from a cost effective chipset point of view.

a cost effective pocket-display for such a chipset is another thing.

it will probably be at least 2-3 years before Nintendo can come up with something using such a display that can be sold for <$150.
Click to expand...

Christ, even 32X-era Sega's wasn't that dumb. The market rejected the Cube as a platform; hell, even Nintendo has thrown in the towel earlier than ever before. No one, save a minority on internet messageboards, is the least bit interested in seeing it revived as a handheld. Why would Nintendo want to reverse course on almost all of their apparent handheld design philosophies after all these years to miniaturize their least successful console? Why would they poison their last market stronghold?

We get it. The discs are small. Handhelds are small. There's a bit more to the equation, though.
 
The Nintendo name itself can still sell, IMO, so I don't know if they'll stick with the Gameboy name. But their next handheld is going to have a simple interface, nothing like GameCube because that would alienate all the accessibility of GBA. I think that's what happened after the NES/SNES era and they don't want to repeat that. So I think Micro and Revolution are where their thinking is at right now in terms of hardware design.

Micro is Nintendo's iPod and imagine an iPod cluttered with buttons. It will probably have a touchscreen, a storage device for a download service and a couple more buttons. If they can think of a new kind of control that will be universally accessible, they'll use that, but gyros it ain't. It's too disorienting when you move the screen. The download service itself could be the major hook.
 
DjangoReinhardt said:
Christ, even 32X-era Sega's wasn't that dumb. The market rejected the Cube as a platform; hell, even Nintendo has thrown in the towel earlier than ever before. No one, save a minority on internet messageboards, is the least bit interested in seeing it revived as a handheld. Why would Nintendo want to reverse course on almost all of their apparent handheld design philosophies after all these years to miniaturize their least successful console? Why would they poison their last market stronghold?

We get it. The discs are small. Handhelds are small. There's a bit more to the equation, though.
Click to expand...

Good point.
It's possible Nintendo could also design a new platform from the ground up. Nintendo had N64 on a chip solution which they used foriQue and that would seem like an obvious choice for the DS but they chose to go with a different chip configuration for the DS.
 
Portable cube would only work if all cube games would work on it...
The problem is new games (if there are any :\) won't be sold that much.

I honestly think Nintendo should stop the GameBoy line. There's nothing to get there anymore. They'd better just go on with DS.
 
They'll probably stick with the DS concept and just call it a Gameboy in the future. Or they'll come up with another goofy concept. This IS Nintendo, after all.
 
I hope the next Game Boy has no 3D capabilities. Someone/thing needs to keep the dream alive :(

Instead I'd like advanced 2D rendering capabilities. For example when I sprite is rotated it wont pixelate in peculiar ways like it does now on current hardware (snes, gba, ds). To see what I mean paste an image into Photoshop and press ctrl+t and then rotate the image. Notice how it pixelates? But when you press enter to accept the transformations you've made the image is resampled and looks more accurate to the original image, without the pixelation.

That's the sort of thing I want to see in the next Game Boy.

Oh and the screen dimensions should be similar to what the GBA or DS screens are now, but the resolution should be a fair bit higher.

A man can dream...
 
There's alot of speculation here, but I think another portable anytime soon would confuse people and dilude NDS's efforts. Not only that, but it could effect the Revolution launch...a launch that could probably be Nintendo's most important as a company. The NDS still has tons of life left in it despite not being on par with PSP graphically. And the GBM is really new and profitable as well as still somewhat desirable. As long as developers are making cheap celphone games, the GBM should have a market to feed on too...it could evolve into a GBM/celphone/gaming portable with cheap downloadable content: an iBoy if you will. So there's still growth there that could be had.

So what I'd propose is...for those who want an "upper-tier" portable option is to just release a nice portable LCD for Revolution. Sure, it's not really a handheld option, but it would indeed have better graphics than the PSP, as well as a bigger screen and the option of it being a portable DVD player. It would help give the Revolution a selling edge over competing consoles as well 'cos they'd be too power consuming and too large to be passed as mobile systems. Give the LCD conventional controls and built in memory to play "virtual console" games on it's own, give it advanced Play-Yan capabilities or to be used as a normal controller with the Revolution. With the Revolution, it would make the system portable as well as double as a portable DVD player.
 
DrGAKMAN said:
There's alot of speculation here, but I think another portable anytime soon would confuse people and dilude NDS's efforts. Not only that, but it could effect the Revolution launch...a launch that could probably be Nintendo's most important as a company.
Click to expand...
i honestly don't expect a new handheld from nintendo till sometime after the rev, say in the space of a year.
 
Hard-drive, or at least large flash memory, based. That's my only prediction. The Revolution's retro download service seems the perfect trial-run for moving to a purely download-based distribution method. With WiFi built into the Revolution, it could easily be used as a hub to download games onto the new GameBoy. Given the commercial success of the iPod, and the company's obvious Apple inspiration in its recent product design, I would see it as a natural progression of Nintendo's business model.
 
Downloadable GBC/GB/GBA games might be used and the GBA slot dropped. But if game sizes grow with an optical based media or even higher capacity 3DM roms, I don't think downloading 128 or 256 or 512 MB or content is going to be feasible.

And I don't mean the technical constraints, but the time issue vs. the width of most people's internet connection. 1 to 10 MB downloads would not be a big issue.
 
argon said:
I think they will eventually merge product lines. The fact is, its much easier to support 1 handheld than two.

Here's what I expect from the next GameBoy (I predict 2007 or 2008, after a DS redesign)

- clamshell design, 2 screens, one is a touchscreen
- slightly larger screen than the DS, still smaller than the PSP
- built in 256mb flash RAM, with external flash ram slot
- uses DS carts, backwards compatible with DS
- Gyro built in, IR sensor so it can be used with revolution
- WiFi built in
- no GBA cartridge slot, but works as a virtual console for GB/GBC/GBA/DS but also NES/SNES which can all be downloaded from Nintendo's network

I don't think we'll see a portable GC for awhile. The fact is that the controller layout will pose some problems, and power consumption is always an issue.
Click to expand...
This is pretty much what I'm expecting. A nice dovetailing of the GB and DS product lines into one unified brand, after the PSP threat is sufficiently neutered.
 
despite what the nintendo PR department has led consumers to believe, the DS is the successor to the GBA. all the GBA series (castlevania, that mega man battle network thing) are switching to the DS, and as more proof, alot of games being developed on the GBA have been transferred to DS development midway in the making of the game. the micro will keep the official Game Boy name in the scene for another year or so, so it could arguably solidify the DS as a "third pillar," and the new FF ports won't hurt, ... but yeah, the DS is pretty much the third incarnation of the Game Boy.
 
I would like it to have a big widescreen touchscreen instead of 2 screens. You could still use it for FPS games by sectioning off a side of the screen and having the game displayed in a 4:3 ratio. Plus they can stll make new games like Nintendogs and whatnot. Without the touchscreen I think it would struggle angainst the bigger PSP userbase.
 
bigNman said:
I would like it to have a big widescreen touchscreen instead of 2 screens. You could still use it for FPS games by sectioning off a side of the screen and having the game displayed in a 4:3 ratio. Plus they can stll make new games like Nintendogs and whatnot. Without the touchscreen I think it would struggle angainst the bigger PSP userbase.
Click to expand...

Or it could still have dual screens.. The bottom being a touchscreen (same size as the DS), and top being a larger widescreen
 
I will be EXTREMELY surprised if either Sony or Nintendo release a new handheld before 2010; they'll be shooting themselves in the foot by artificially limiting the DS' and PSP' ability to fully penetrate the market. And even if Nintendo releases a new handheld in 2007/2008, it'll barely match (let alone eclipse) the PSP's power if Nintendo hopes to maintain the low price points that have made their handheld lineups successful; Nintendo also lacks the capital and/or supplementary business to take as risky a venture as that would entail.

Hence, IMO, as Nintendo is fully aware they simply cannot compete with Sony when it comes to the technological side of things, they're much better off sticking with the DS as long as possible and slowly allowing the GBA to die off.
 
I think the next gameboy will stick with the single screen design. The DS brand might stick around as an integrated high end Game Boy.
 
argon said:
I think they will eventually merge product lines. The fact is, its much easier to support 1 handheld than two.

Here's what I expect from the next GameBoy (I predict 2007 or 2008, after a DS redesign)

- clamshell design, 2 screens, one is a touchscreen
- slightly larger screen than the DS, still smaller than the PSP
- built in 256mb flash RAM, with external flash ram slot
- uses DS carts, backwards compatible with DS
- Gyro built in, IR sensor so it can be used with revolution
- WiFi built in
- no GBA cartridge slot, but works as a virtual console for GB/GBC/GBA/DS but also NES/SNES which can all be downloaded from Nintendo's network

I don't think we'll see a portable GC for awhile. The fact is that the controller layout will pose some problems, and power consumption is always an issue.
Click to expand...

That would be a sweet portable. I especially like the idea of having a virtual console built in. Not having to keep track of cards/carts/discs would be a huge plus; just grab and go.
 
They should just kill off the Gameboy franchise name. The DS proved successful even without the Gameboy branding. "Gameboy" is also too "kiddy" sounding now, it was good in 1988.

However, I don't see that happening. Instead, the DS will be killed off. The next Gameboy will be an evolution of the current DS. I'm thinking it will have the following specs:

1 Touchscreen. Wider and larger than the DS screen but not as large as the PSP.
More powerful than the GC but there will be fewer graphics effects.
Built-in Tilt and rumble.
Optical media (GC disc size)
Built-in HDD (10GB)
Will be a virtual console.
 
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