New Portable GameBoy Advance DVD Player
Tuesday, June 20th, 2006
The new Portable DVD Player was announced a few weeks ago. The main attraction of this DVD Player is that it has a slot in the lid for the GameBoy Advance games. This news was anticipated for a very long time, but nonetheless it’s a brilliant idea.
It is licensed by Nintendo. Their systems are considered to be game systems first and foremost. The GameBoy Advance game library is considered superior than the PSP. Also it plays real DVDs and not UMDs (Universal Media Disk). Many believe that if this feature was announced a couple of years ago, it might have been something different. Everything this device is capable of, Sony PSP handles it even better now. But even possessing the same technical features, the 4.3’ inches Sony PSP screen is no match for 10.2’ inches flip down screen of GameBoy Advance DVD Player.
One of the negative aspects might be the playability. Also one of the concerns is the price of the product (expected to be around $1200). One might buy a separate DVD Player and GameBoy Advance along with a Nintendo DS. But on the other hand, it’s a perfect gift for everyone, especially for children.
At the current stage of development the emulators for Nintendo DS running on PC are not mature enough to run every ROM available, like VisualBoy Advance is for GBA ROMs, but you can find a few games running in decent conditions to test the emulators. The emulators currently available are more appropriate for trying some home-brew games and applications. Generally an emulator duplicates the functions of one system on a different secondary system, so that the second system appears to have the exact characteristics as the first system. Usually some differences regarding booth quality and frame rate may appear. The following versions are currently available:
Generally the first instinct for millions of people worldwide is to turn on electronic games when they want to be entertained. Entertainment is nowadays a fast growing industry with millions of subscribers from different countries. Now TV is no longer the main attraction and a good game can be more captivating than any TV network. The good games are involving interactivity, strategy, thinking, and in many of them a basic story line is followed. The games are not just for young boys but also for girls, and their main advantage is the interactivity. The quality of TV is going down too much and in those conditions 2 in 5 in 10 adults turn their attention to electronic games. Video games are the highest form of art mankind ever has made, because they combine everything: music, art and feelings are melted together and the best part is that you are actually in the game. Movies, no matter how good they get, are not interactive. In video games you actually are in the story instead of just watching it, and people are starting to finally realize the advantages of that.
Because PSP’s built browser has multiple errors, also detected for Pocket IE and for Pocket PC, and a weak support for even the most standard CSS layout code, Nintendo has a sure advantage by offering a portable version of Opera, with full functionality on DS. 
Although almost a fully year had passed since first launched, Nintendo DS Rumble Pak seems today more tempting than any other device. The gaming experience is not complete without a controller constantly buzzing and creating a force feedback. The device is compatible with games like Mario and Luigi, Metroid Prime Pinball, Super Princess Peachor or even Metroid Prime Hunters and fits into the DS Game boy Advance cartridge slot perfectly.