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[lunlunqq]

MP3/MPEG4 Player for GBA SP will be released in Feb 05...

Nintendo official announcement:
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/n08/avp/index.html

News report:
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/docs/20041215/nintendo.htm

 

[norinrad21]

kickass?

 

[Joe]

if it really was nintendo's answer then they would have made it for the DS

 

[Defensor]

Cutting the DS short?

 

[Argyle]

But this would work in a DS also...?

Did you guys notice that the media player cartridge has a headphone jack built in? Otherwise most SP owners would be screwed

 

[jiggle]

is it good to play multimedia on a handheld yet?

 

[neptunes]

 

[ourumov]

Cutting the DS short?

I would like them to show a real iteration to GBA at E3...Something really strong to compete with PSP.
Of course people will say this wouldn't be good for them...but I wonder if DS will be...

 

[callous]

That's cool. I definitely want one of those if it's less than €50.

 

[ManaByte]

is it good to play multimedia on a handheld yet?

When it has a nice screen like the PSP, yes.

 

[={<SMOKE>}=]

i imagine this would work on the ds also.

 

[Saki]

Cool

They should create a DS version, afterall, the DS has a higher resolution and the bottom touchscreen can be used for player controls.

 

[The Abominable Snowman]

I believe this is related to the SD card thing in the other thread. In that case, the reason it wasn't "made for DS" is because the DS carts are too small to hold SD cards physically. Plus, it is still compatible with the DS, and still reaches the nearly 70 Million GBA users. Noone's losing out anyway

 

[aoi tsuki]

Cool

They should create a DS version, afterall, the DS has a higher resolution and the bottom touchscreen can be used for player controls.

i'd much rather have controls i can use with looking at them. And designing it for the GBA pretty much gaurantees it'll work for DS.

Also, didn't oli post this a few hours ago?

 

[Joe]

you'd think it would work with the DS but how come none of the press shots show it? i mean it is their new, hot product so they im assuming they would want to expose it as much as possible. say it works for both DS and GBA and show it hooked up to a DS and a GBA.

not saying it wont work but it seems weird they didnt mention DS (as far as i can tell) or even show the DS.

 

[Pimpbaa]

Why does the cartridge have a headphone jack?

 

[DeEJaYMiND]

SD cards

 

[cybamerc]

Well... it makes a better MP3 player than PSP due to size alone. Assuming it takes some kind of flash card.

[edit] Is Nintendo making it?

 

[Timen]

Well... it makes a better MP3 player than PSP due to size alone. Assuming it takes some kind of flash card.

[edit] Is Nintendo making it?

yes!

 

[sc0la]

is it good to play multimedia on a handheld yet?

as soon as we negotiate the acceptable verbage for each the deal is done, multi-medi/connectivity are a few signatures away from being "cool," "Mainstream," and "not so gay anymore"

this is an historic day for reaching accross the aisles of gaiming!

EDIT: The shitty part of this for the DS is that you would have to have the unit open to play it. As soon as you close it the DS goes into insta sleep mode :lol on the GBA sp you have the luxury of turning of the light and closing the top

 

[aoi tsuki]

Well... it makes a better MP3 player than PSP due to size alone. Assuming it takes some kind of flash card.

Also, SD cards are pretty cheap. You can get 512MB for about $50, compared to about twice that for a 512MB MS Duo stick. i would like some options for MPEG-4 audio like AAC for better sound and filesizes, but MP3 will do.

EDIT: The shitty part of this for the DS is that you would have to have the unit open to play it. As soon as you close it the DS goes into insta sleep mode :lol on the GBA sp you have the luxury of turning of the light and closing the top

The DS doesn't go to sleep when closing the lid on a GBA game, one of my gripes with the system. IIRC, GBA carts can be made DS-aware though, so you could possibly close the lid and continue playing music, or maybe have an option to turn the backlight off to save the batteries.

What would really be funny, and of course i'm going off on a tangent, is if someone setup a DS P2P client for trading files. Same could feasibly be done on the PSP, and perhaps easier with the inclusion of a built-in MS Duo slot.

 

[Crazymoogle]

Did you guys notice that the media player cartridge has a headphone jack built in? Otherwise most SP owners would be screwed

Aside from the obvious reason for the port, the multimedia cartridge obviously has it's own audio output engine anyway (the GBA can hardly handle even a medium quality MP3 let alone an MP4 video).

Now theoretically Nintendo could devise some sort of DS mode recognition so it could be considered a DS peripheral through the GBA slot (and we've seen hints of that sort of thing already), but I'm not exactly holding by breath. (looks at those useless X and Y buttons in GBA mode)

The most impressive thing to me, though, is that they've obviously got some substantial playback hardware inside a near-normal sized cartridge. The 3rd party solutions out there are huge, slow, and basically a complete embarassment from start to finish.

 

[ImNotLikeThem]

id say for further proof this is directly by nintendo:

hopefully someone will come along and tell us exactly what it is this can actually do.

 

[Zenny]

Something to think about. . .

Why the hell would I buy an MP3 player for the GBA SP. . .
When I can buy a dedicated MP3 player for $25 - $30 bux. . . :lol

SERIOUZLY that's just plain LAME :lol

 

[M3wThr33]

Something to think about. . .

Why the hell would I buy an MP3 player for the GBA SP. . .
When I can buy a dedicated MP3 player for $25 - $30 bux. . . :lol

SERIOUZLY that's just plain LAME :lol

Mp4 = Video.

 

[sc0la]

Something to think about. . .

Why the hell would I buy an MP3 player for the GBA SP. . .
When I can buy a dedicated MP3 player for $25 - $30 bux. . . :lol

SERIOUZLY that's just plain LAME :lol

GBA already in your pocket/packback?

EDIT: WTF is a packback? :lol

 

[Argyle]

Aside from the obvious reason for the port, the multimedia cartridge obviously has it's own audio output engine anyway (the GBA can hardly handle even a medium quality MP3 let alone an MP4 video).

True - and doesn't the GBA have 8-bit DACs? Listening to music through those would suck ass...

The most impressive thing to me, though, is that they've obviously got some substantial playback hardware inside a near-normal sized cartridge. The 3rd party solutions out there are huge, slow, and basically a complete embarassment from start to finish.

I'm a lot less impressed by this - I think that there are a lot of off the shelf solutions for decoding MPEG 4 video being developed for things like portable media players, camcorders, cellphones, and the like...you can look at the PCB and it looks like a single chip decoding solution, an audio DAC, and maybe some RAM...

It's still pretty cool though, but it feels like "too little too late" to me.

 

[JackFrost2012]

On the one hand, I think this is a good move by Nintendo and shows they're willing to be competitive and try new, cool things. cybermerc is correct that, for music at least, GBA > PSP for size and portability. The PSP widescreen makes it better for video, though.

On the other hand, the fact that Nintendo SUDDENLY decided to announce this product kind of lays bare the obvious lie of the "GBA and PSP aren't competing" mantra.

 

[Scrow]

hey look what i found on the first page!

http://ga-forum.com/showthread.php?t=27770

 

[aoi tsuki]

id say for further proof this is directly by nintendo:

hopefully someone will come along and tell us exactly what it is this can actually do.

Not sure what the Epson chip does, but looks like AlphaMosaic (http://www.alphamosaic.com/products/VC01/) is providing the chip. i was thinking that the GBA might actually be used to display the OSD, but the chip is practically does everything but actually display the video itself.

Key Features:
- Optimised architecture for high quality video and multimedia
- Single chip solution for fastest time to marke
- MPEG4 encode from only 15mW
- Full Development Environment available (hardware and software)
- Enables 3G-324M video phones
- Audio/video player supporting a wide range of codecs
- Video on demand -- live Audio/video streaming
- Digital video camera
- Multi-megapixel Digital still camera
- 64 polyphony MIDI player
- Interfaces for storage media
- Full duplex operation up to CIF, 30 fps
- Host and operating system independent
- High quality graphics acceleration for 3D games
- 100% programmable

LCD Controller & Interface
- Support for multiple displays
- 8 / 9 / 16 / 18 bit video RGB data bus (6:6:6)
- Configurable refresh rate up to 80Hz
- On Screen Display (OSD) with 264K colors
- 256-level OSD alpha blending
- Power save OSD only mode
- Up to VGA resolution (640x480)
- Video and/or OSD 90° rotation
- Picture controls (brightness, contrast and saturation)
- LCD display Gamma adjustment
- Color depth: true-color (RGB8:8:8), 260,000 (RGB6:6:6), 65,536 (RGB 5:6:5), 4096 (RGB 4:4:4)

It sucks that the GBA's screens are so low res though.

 

[DDayton]

Something to think about. . .

Why the hell would I buy an MP3 player for the GBA SP. . .
When I can buy a dedicated MP3 player for $25 - $30 bux. . . :lol

SERIOUZLY that's just plain LAME :lol

Well, it reduces the amount of stuff you have to carry around.

I'm wondering if this has anything to do with the SongPro -- at e3 2003, I spoke with the SongPro guy... the GBA version of the SongPro MP3 WAS the same size as a GBA cart, with a mic jack on it. It looked very similar to Nintendo's device. I was surprised, as it was housed in a -real- GBA cart... he said that Nintendo was working with them now.

I didn't see them at e3 this year, and I assumed it had fizzled... however, perhaps it didn't.

 

[sc0la]

I think the most potentially bizzare side effect I could think of from this would be GBA carts with their own headphone output for mp3 music in game. :lol

Castelvania: Aria of Sorrow Substance

 

[Kobun Heat]

Just like how GBA Video was initially shown off as an unlicensed third party doohickey, featuring crappy programming, at E3 2003.

Unfortunately, Nintendo really can't aim this at the kids' market because it does require that you have an SD card reader for your PC to be able to do much of anything with it...

 

[Zenny]

The only thing that'll make it worth it. . . IF IT'S CHEAP.

But I bet I could buy another GBASP for the money. :lol

 

[Late Stage Marxist]

 

[Kobun Heat]

Betcha it won't work, just like the GBA Video carts.

 

[aoi tsuki]

Well, it reduces the amount of stuff you have to carry around.

I'm wondering if this has anything to do with the SongPro -- at e3 2003, I spoke with the SongPro guy... the GBA version of the SongPro MP3 WAS the same size as a GBA cart, with a mic jack on it. It looked very similar to Nintendo's device. I was surprised, as it was housed in a -real- GBA cart... he said that Nintendo was working with them now.

I didn't see them at e3 this year, and I assumed it had fizzled... however, perhaps it didn't.

i think SongPro became an actual product. i remember first reading a blip about them in a 2000-2001 MCV.

Edit: SongPro was originally named "Songboy". Nintendo sued (IP infringement), delaying its release until an eventual settlement and name change.

Came with a default 32MD SD card, which of course was removable for larger cards.

 

[AndriaSang]

When using this to play movies, the GBASP gets less battery life than the PSP

 

[The Faceless Master]

well, from those ever so eloquent translations...

Battery drive time is animation reproduction 4 hours, music reproduction is in liquid crystal OFF at the 15-hour and liquid crystal display time, and it is 8 hours. MPEG-4/MP3 can be suspended during reproduction and resume reproduction can be carried out from the interrupted place.

 

[Kobun Heat]

When using this to play movies, the GBASP gets less battery life than the PSP

I'll swap you.

 

[AndriaSang]

And the audio during movie playback is single channel... ugh.

 

[Defensor]

Gamespot reports 90 minutes of playback.

 

[Scrow]

what sort of power consumption will the mp3 and mpeg features have on GBASP and DS batteries?

edit:
Defensor
Member
(Today, 07:32 PM)

Gamespot reports 90 minutes of playback.

good timing

 

[lunlunqq]

hehe... not really relevant... but remember how nintendo bitched on PSP's multimedia ability and how PSP is "NOT a game machine"???

So:
MULTIMEDIAO OUT OF THE BOX == SUX!!!!
ADDITIONAL PERIPHERALS THAT COST U $ == DCOOL!!!
:lol :lol :lol

 

[Scrow]

that's because this way you're given a choice and can make a saving if you choose to.

 

[cybamerc]

Something to think about. . .

Why the hell would I buy an MP3 player for the GBA SP. . .
When I can buy a dedicated MP3 player for $25 - $30 bux. . . :lol

SERIOUZLY that's just plain LAME :lol

Well, considering that there aren't that many MP3 players that use flash cards it's actually a pretty attractive product if size isn't your main priority.

 

[neonglow]

Betcha it won't work, just like the GBA Video carts.

Is there a technical reason why GBA Video doesn't work on the player?

 

[The Faceless Master]

now i remember what this reminds me of...

 

[Kseutron]

the SD-card choice just rocks, these are really cheap, u can get 1 go cards for 100$

 

[JackFrost2012]

And the audio during movie playback is single channel... ugh.

MONO? gross. hey go post in my armored core PSP thread