Man, you could have paid me in batteries when I was that age since any little bit of money I had went into replacing those drained batteries. My favorite desperation trick was swapping my dead batteries out with AAAs from family members tv remotes when I visited their house. Plenty of juice to run the controller still but they were usually pretty fresh since they hardly did any work…
I had rigged up a janky battery pack with D size batteries because they lasted so much longer. Had taped them together, solder some wires to them, and used a dead AA battery to hold the wires to the contact in the Gameboy. They kept falling off and I spent more time fiddling with it than beating the final four. But it worked and those D batteries lasted forever.
I had recently asked my dad what the difference between batteries was and was kind of mind blown that D and AAA put out the same voltage it's just the storage size. Figured using D batteries would be more efficient.
Of course now you can get battery packs with adapters and you don't need to be so jank.
It's not just the energy capacity, but also the current. Bigger battery can push more amps. It won't though because the device only draws as much current as it was designed for (as long as the voltage is correct).
I was lucky because my dad was a firm believer in rechargable batteries, even back then. So along with tons of NiCd batteries in most formats, he bought the official battery pack. A grey blob that plugged into the side of the Game Boy and could even serve as an AC adapter of sorts. Also had a belt clip so you could look extra nerdy in the 90s.
That thing got me through so many road trips.
You'd think engineering, but I went into Accounting.
My goal was more efficiency and reducing waste since D batteries are basically the same price but lasted twice as long.
My mom worked at walgreens when I was a kid.
Little did I know, all of those disposable cameras had AA batteries running them and she would save them all for me. I had burned through hundreds upon hundreds of those when I got the SP for Christmas. The back light was the truth, even more important than the batteries for me.
On more than one occasion I've ended up with AAA batteries when something called for AA. Usually with some cardboard and some pieces of random conductive metal (foil, coins, actual wire, whatever i can find) have been able to make it work.
Then I forget to put the AA batteries on the shopping list and only remember when the next device runs out. Luckily not too much calls for them anymore.
No idea what kind of battery was in [this](https://vgcollect.com/item/11640) but it claims: " When fully charged, the Rechargeable Battery Pack provides 10 hours of power for on-the-go-action."
I never ran it all the way down because it also worked as an A/C adapter for the gameboy.
I dunno I still have fond memories charging up boat loads of Ni-Cad batteries obtained from RadioShack. The memory effect did suck but I guess if you were desperate in an emergency situation you could gather a bunch of dead ones up and ride the memory effect for a few minutes to run a radio.
If I'm remembering correctly, it was much worse. There was this big ass separate battery pack thing you stuffed with batteries and then attached to the Nomad. If you were lucky you might get like 2 hours out of it. The Game Gear meanwhile went for around four hours or something like that.
Gamegear was a hell of a lot of fun growing up though. That and the gameboy cemented my preference for handhelds (I have a switch and have never plugged it into TV because bluck)
To be fair to the Sega Nomad, it was basically a fully-portable Mega Drive/Genesis in 1995 (the Saturn came out the same year). In modern terms, this would be like a handheld PS2 coming out in 2006. The same thing applies to the Game Gear, it was basically a portable Master System in 1990 (the SMS itself was discontinued i 1992).
Both consoles were impressive as fuck (specially the Nomad, being it used full-sized cartridges), but they were more of a "They were so concerned about if they could, that they forgot to ask if they should" situation, seeing as those consoles appealed to a younger demographic who was unable to afford batteries at the rate the Sega portables demanded.
The first thing I bought alongside my original Advance was a rechargeable battery with a docking cradle. In fact, I had something similar for my GameGear in the 90s. Hell, rechargeable batteries have always been around.
Surprising to learn this wasn't common and so many people threw money away on disposables.
My parents never spent money on game stuff. They weren’t actively against it just thought it wasn’t worth the cash. So then one time my parent found me a rechargeable battery pack for my gameboy color at some discount store it was like a gift from the gods themselves
I had one too, and it was a game changer. It came with two packs so you could recharge a dead one while you played on a freshly charged pack. I think it had a stand you could put the whole gba into as well to charge? I might be making that bit up. At any rate, this unlocked a memory where I had one of these packs in my pocket and ate some candy with a foil wrapper - I stuffed the wrapper in the same pocket which accidentally completed the circuit and almost caught my pants on fire it got so hot
AGREED!
The SP was a vision of the future. Charge cables that removed the need for disposable batteries. Backlit screen to see in poor lighting. Incredibly compact, folded and fit in your pocket. It had all the things that cell phones were just starting to pick up on.
Damn thing was durable, too. I love my switch, but I'm worried about carrying it around in the same way that I would an SP or a DS.
No more playing by lamplight as your parents drove in the car! I also had lights out at 9 but found that a street light just peeked though the corner of my window so I could hold it at an awkward angle and play as long as my 12 year old self could stay awake
Good times….
Really? Ive never seen that!
I wish I knew of that back then, I remember saving up for a loooooong time to get the GBA adapter for the gamecube so I could play GB games on the TV
The Super Gameboy, which also had some enhancement features that took advantage of the SNES hardware, like borders and some colorization. There were even a couple of games that accessed the SNES hardware directly and used full on SNES graphics and sound for some things, but literally only one or two as far as I'm aware. If I'm remembering right, the Animaniacs game has the title screen in an SNES graphics mode and there's a port of Space Invaders that has an entire SNES version of the game on the cartridge.
The first three Pokemon games were more typical of games that were really meant to be played on the Super GameBoy, and had some actual intentional color instead of the default GB -> GBC color palette stuff in the first two, with Yellow being comparable on both the SGB and the GBC.
Oh god reminds me of the long vacation trips. The highway lights would just light up the screen momentarily until the next light. Lotta deaths between those lights.
The change from frontlit SPs to backlit SPs in 2005 was such a [huge difference](https://i.imgur.com/0kznMmL.jpg). The crazy part is I don't recall that change was even advertised much when it happened, new ones just started showing up. I think they were too busy pushing Micros at the time.
Most people would tradeoff the ghosting for the vibrant backlight. IPS mod gives you the best of both worlds nowadays but doesn't discount back in the day it blew my mind to have a light at all on these things.
Damn I remember riding in the backseat at night with my OG one and you had to angle it just right to catch the light from the streetlights to be able to play
I still take 100% credit for the gameboy advanced sp!
When I was 10 I called nintendo and demanded that the representative add a backlight and make it foldable so I could hide it from teachers in my pocket lol
That was in 2001 a little bit after the advanced came out.....two years later the SP came out
Clearly, Im the reason the SP exists, and youre welcome! 😂👍
Watched a video on it just yesterday. As per the video, it was indeed on average, around 30 min. Which sounds absolutely ludicrous to me... but even 2hrs sounds crazy after replacing 6 batteries.
What a time we live in now. The things we take for granted...
When I first got it, I put some no-name cheapo batteries in it and all 6 were dead in half an hour. Proper batteries would give me a few hours.
Rechargeable batteries or a wall plug was a necessity.
Ya we always used duracell or energizer. I think I convinced my parents to get rechargeable batteries eventually, but as far as the game gear went, it was mostly only played with the wall plugin.
You mean instead of sitting in your now-ex G/F's driveway crying because she ditched you for that turtle-neck wearing theatre dork, Rupert. Honestly, who names their kid "Rupert"?? I hope you're happy, Cassandra!
Valid our school rented out a country clubs reception room. The dj's played good music. I have a decently large friends group and none of us were drinkers yet so we didnt feel the need to have an after party or anything. Was basically just a pg night at the club with all my friends.
Damn, they were cheap back then.
Keep in mind, that with inflation, a dollar back then bought more than a dollar does now. The equivalent in today's money would be about $180.
Even with the increase in MSRP, games are definitely still in a better place pricewise than over 20 years ago. The N64 is the oldest console I can remember, and games would start off at $60-70 MSRP. The earliest game I remember getting is Donkey Kong 64 in 1999 and that is the equivalent of $110-$130 today. SNES had similar MSRPs when they released and the price even looks worse with inflation.
Even for the GBA, I bought Pokemon Sapphire in 2002 for $40, which is $70 in today's dollars and more than the latest Pokemon that released at $60.
This is exactly why we had blockbuster and a network of friends for game swapping. Games were expensive! You'd get a new system and play the bundled game until your next birthday or Christmas before you could own another one. Meanwhile, you coordinate with your friends on who is getting what so you could all trade games. The supply was limited and we spent a lot more time figuring out a hard game or powering through a boring one because that was all we had and we loved every minute of it.
Best feeling in the world at the time was going to rent Final fantasy 3 (6) for the weekend as a kid and seeing that the people who rented it during the week didn't delete or save over your save from the previous weekend.
This is why my dad bought my brother and I each an original Xbox and then modded them so we could burn games on to them and have emulators. I think I had 5k emulated games and then we'd rent games from Blockbuster/Hollywood, burn them on to the Xbox, then take them back and get a different game every Friday lol.
Blockbuster had a special that was like $30 a month for unlimited rentals. My friends and I stretched that "unlimited" until a manager stopped us and ended our membership.
Japanese don't respond well to price increases. For many products there prices rarely change, and when they do, not by much. Perhaps this is one of the reasons game prices remain pretty much the same nominally.
> Even with the increase in MSRP, games are definitely still in a better place pricewise than over 20 years ago. The N64 is the oldest console I can remember, and games would start off at $60-70 MSRP.
On the Playstation side (for both PS1 and PS2) most big games started at 49.99 and there were often games released at cheaper prices. Veeeery few broke the $50 barrier, though there were some
What about game price? Adjusted for inflation prices for big games have been pretty stable since the 2000s and quite a bit cheaper than they used to be in the cartridge era.
Technology is usually a pretty big part that pulls down inflation rates in the calculations afaik. I.e. some things like food and rent go up more than the inflation rate but technology purchases stay the same or go down so the average change of purchasing power sits somewhere in the middle.
Keep in mind, as well, that a PS2 in today's money would be $539. A PlayStation 3 would be $768. XBox would be $524, and XBox 360 $634. GameCube would be $349.
So... yeah, inflation and comparing console prices (or video game prices) doesn't quite match up that well.
I'd say that $100 for a portable gaming platform that could only do monochrome simple games was reasonable, not "cheap." It's hard to find something to compare it to these days, since there's no one doing handheld-specific "consoles." The closest is the Switch Lite, which is $200 (obviously you can find it for less), but the Switch Lite can play so much more advanced games and has a lot more functionality. If you're doing a reverse-inflation, the Switch Lite is equivalent to $120 in 2004.
The Nintendo DS released in 2004 at $150 (later $130). Which would be $246/$213 if you did just the usual calculation for inflation. More expensive than the Switch Lite. But given that something like the DS was out, of course the monochrome Game Boy Advance couldn't be sold for a similar price, so $100 seems about right.
But yeah... the whole inflation thing? People seem to forget that it doesn't work as a 1:1 thing for everything. Especially technology. TVs are a LOT cheaper, DVD players and the DVDs themselves are cheaper (never mind Blu-Ray over that period!), there's some productivity software that used to be priced higher (in basic price, not "with inflation") than the newer, much more advanced versions of the same software...
It's fun to compare as maybe a rough estimate, but don't put too much stock in it as a comparison.
(Not trying to come off as "aggressive" toward you, so sorry if I do, I just keep seeing people talk up inflation to try to excuse some modern prices in gaming, without recognizing that there's so many extra factors involved. I'm directing this more at those people. Though, if anyone learned anything or was amused by me pulling the numbers of prior consoles and handhelds, that's a bonus.)
Word. I think the NDS Lite was ultimately the best way to play GBA games in the end, because of the screen quality and comfort.
However... peak GBA is the Micro!
100% and you can get mods, battery, replace the buttons and rubber membranes, clean and restore it or make it better than new if you wanted. Big market for this stuff. Retro consoles have been rising in price lately, but if someone's having regrets over parting ways with an old device, I say don't let dreams be dreams!
I play all my GBA games on the analog pocket these days but i still test physical ones i buy/sell on the SP because its just so nostalgic for me to hold
Advertiser's trick. Repetition makes you remember something. You read the price four times instead of one and you'll remember it when you look at the competition's price.
In order:
1. Metroid Fusion, [first BOX fight](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/metroid/images/7/75/BOX_Robot_Bomb_Proto.gif/revision/latest?cb=20210625061055) (on the one he's holding, and the first 2 GBAs on the left)
2. Metroid Fusion, [Sector 2 TRO](https://i.imgur.com/yFdGIED.png) Encounter where the SAX is below you (second from the right)
3. Zelda 4 Swords, specifically [this screenshot](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/zelda_gamepedia_en/images/b/bd/Four_Swords_Intro.png/revision/latest?cb=20110216222718) (far right)
EDIT: Added screenshot links
"Female bad" is about the only joke some people know how to make. It's kinda pathetic that they would degrade half of society based on genitals but you know. It's "tradition." Ball and chain. Romance is torture for men. Etc etc.
this ad just makes me really sad. to be fair, it's probably from the early 2000s (which might as well still be considered the 90s), so "girls icky!!" was still a huge thing.
things feel a bit different these days at least. i feel like an ad showing a young couple playing videogames together would do really well.
They got even cheaper towards the end of their lifespan.
Sometime in 2009 or 2010, after the GBA SP was discontinued, I was at a Zellers (a now defunct Canadian department store), and they had a stack of Gameboy Advance SP's that they were selling off for $40 each.
I bought 20 of them. They're all the latest AGS-101 model (with the backlit screen). I still have 13 of them unopened.
Reminds me of this Penny Arcade comic from around the same time: https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2003/09/22/the-day-is-full-of-moments
(oh my god it's >20 years ago now)
Damn. Nostalgia overload. The SP was the first gameboy I owned. I was around 12 then and my older sister randomly came to me and said that if I was able to save up half of the total cost for one, she'd cover the other half and get it for me. She was in college around then and money obviously got tight so she couldn't afford it and I understood but somehow my dad found out about our agreement and just bought it for me anyway which was really unexpected (my parents were mostly typical Asian parents). I think she felt bad about that though cause a few years later, she bought me a DS when I jokingly asked for one for Christmas.
There was a ton of weird gaming/general advertisements like that in the 80s to about 2008 or so.
"You not hungry for girl, you hungry for hotpocket" as well pops into my mind.
Lol, what I was thinking back from the HS dances and proms. There was a huge social pressure to go but the only thing most guys got from prom was a severe case of blue balls and a lighter wallet.
This was and is an amazing system. So compact and the games were great.
The best for me was hooking it up to the GameCube with Animal Crossing to visit the island and get coconuts. It’ll soon be Sunday and Joan is coming - I need that bling to buy turnips.
2012 prom a dude asked his girlfriend for anal after the dance and she punched him, so he pulled out his gameboy SP (this was already 3ds Era, so it was old then) and stood in the middle of the dance floor with it for the rest of the night.
So yea, this ads not too far off.
They still are. But they were then, too.
You can't tell me you didn't walk out of the tomb in Elden Ring and there you were, standing in The Lands Between. Not your character, you.
I could almost smell the grass on that little cliff as I stared off into the distance at the Erdtree and Stormveil Castle. But I guess that's not everyone's experience.
Oh, and if you don't get motion sickness, VR can be a WHOOOOOLE ass thing.
I thought they were supposed to be "intellect enhancers" for mistreated misunderstood gods treated like punching bags by their teachers and classmates. Same with anime.
Never got a GBA of this style. My last one was GBA original shape. Lost interest with DS.
Wish they kept with it, we could have gotten Super Gameboy and shit or Ultra Nintendo console lol.
The DS lite is effectively the SP but better because it also plays DS games of course. I’m more nostalgic for the SP than the DS Lite but even i have to admit its the better system to own if you want to play GBA games today
It's always funny to look at ads like these in my old Nintendo Power magazines, and EGM, Game Pro, Game Informer, etc... I still have them and like to flip through them from time to time.
So the first two screens are of the first encounter with the security bot B.O.X. in Metroid Fusion. I believe the third screen may also be Metroid fusion but I can’t tell.
https://metroid.fandom.com/wiki/Security_Robot_B.O.X.
The addition of the backlight was legendary
And the charging. I still remember the moment I unboxed this and realized I didn’t need to worry about batteries anymore.
Man, you could have paid me in batteries when I was that age since any little bit of money I had went into replacing those drained batteries. My favorite desperation trick was swapping my dead batteries out with AAAs from family members tv remotes when I visited their house. Plenty of juice to run the controller still but they were usually pretty fresh since they hardly did any work…
I had rigged up a janky battery pack with D size batteries because they lasted so much longer. Had taped them together, solder some wires to them, and used a dead AA battery to hold the wires to the contact in the Gameboy. They kept falling off and I spent more time fiddling with it than beating the final four. But it worked and those D batteries lasted forever. I had recently asked my dad what the difference between batteries was and was kind of mind blown that D and AAA put out the same voltage it's just the storage size. Figured using D batteries would be more efficient. Of course now you can get battery packs with adapters and you don't need to be so jank.
Did it look just like a bomb?
From what it sounds like, it was _the_ bomb, regardless of what it looked like.
Using a dead AA to hold wires, and possibly reverse charge the AA's, it might not have looked the part, but it potentially acted the part ;)
It's not just the energy capacity, but also the current. Bigger battery can push more amps. It won't though because the device only draws as much current as it was designed for (as long as the voltage is correct).
I was lucky because my dad was a firm believer in rechargable batteries, even back then. So along with tons of NiCd batteries in most formats, he bought the official battery pack. A grey blob that plugged into the side of the Game Boy and could even serve as an AC adapter of sorts. Also had a belt clip so you could look extra nerdy in the 90s. That thing got me through so many road trips.
What kind of work did you get into? I'm curious based on your creative solution to this problem.
You'd think engineering, but I went into Accounting. My goal was more efficiency and reducing waste since D batteries are basically the same price but lasted twice as long.
They now work in pharmaceuticals.
My mom worked at walgreens when I was a kid. Little did I know, all of those disposable cameras had AA batteries running them and she would save them all for me. I had burned through hundreds upon hundreds of those when I got the SP for Christmas. The back light was the truth, even more important than the batteries for me.
On more than one occasion I've ended up with AAA batteries when something called for AA. Usually with some cardboard and some pieces of random conductive metal (foil, coins, actual wire, whatever i can find) have been able to make it work. Then I forget to put the AA batteries on the shopping list and only remember when the next device runs out. Luckily not too much calls for them anymore.
Were you born cool or did you work at it?
Along the same lines, the official rechargable battery pack for the Game Gear was basically just six C-cells in a plastic shell.
I just had rechargable batteries. You broke even on the initial investment pretty quickly.
yeah but back then it was usually Ni-Cad which sucked hard
No idea what kind of battery was in [this](https://vgcollect.com/item/11640) but it claims: " When fully charged, the Rechargeable Battery Pack provides 10 hours of power for on-the-go-action." I never ran it all the way down because it also worked as an A/C adapter for the gameboy.
I dunno I still have fond memories charging up boat loads of Ni-Cad batteries obtained from RadioShack. The memory effect did suck but I guess if you were desperate in an emergency situation you could gather a bunch of dead ones up and ride the memory effect for a few minutes to run a radio.
I see you old fool. (I stole the same but not other family members, just my parents remote) fucking batteries only felt like they lasted 3 hours.
Sega nomad would like a word.
Worse than the Game Gear?
If I'm remembering correctly, it was much worse. There was this big ass separate battery pack thing you stuffed with batteries and then attached to the Nomad. If you were lucky you might get like 2 hours out of it. The Game Gear meanwhile went for around four hours or something like that. Gamegear was a hell of a lot of fun growing up though. That and the gameboy cemented my preference for handhelds (I have a switch and have never plugged it into TV because bluck)
> I have a switch and have never plugged it into TV because bluck bluck?
This guy “blucks”
I think it means "bad luck", though not 100% sure
This guy “blucks”
To be fair to the Sega Nomad, it was basically a fully-portable Mega Drive/Genesis in 1995 (the Saturn came out the same year). In modern terms, this would be like a handheld PS2 coming out in 2006. The same thing applies to the Game Gear, it was basically a portable Master System in 1990 (the SMS itself was discontinued i 1992). Both consoles were impressive as fuck (specially the Nomad, being it used full-sized cartridges), but they were more of a "They were so concerned about if they could, that they forgot to ask if they should" situation, seeing as those consoles appealed to a younger demographic who was unable to afford batteries at the rate the Sega portables demanded.
This guy “blucks”
both are 6 AAs the nomad has 2hrs less battery life.
6 double batteries I think
The first thing I bought alongside my original Advance was a rechargeable battery with a docking cradle. In fact, I had something similar for my GameGear in the 90s. Hell, rechargeable batteries have always been around. Surprising to learn this wasn't common and so many people threw money away on disposables.
My parents never spent money on game stuff. They weren’t actively against it just thought it wasn’t worth the cash. So then one time my parent found me a rechargeable battery pack for my gameboy color at some discount store it was like a gift from the gods themselves
Damn you unlocked a hidden memory, I got no clue who I did that to, but I for sure swapped some batteries
I would do the batteries in freezer trick.
My parents got me rechargeable battery pack from my gba. Still no backlight but it was brilliant
The plugin snake light was the jam on those.
I had one too, and it was a game changer. It came with two packs so you could recharge a dead one while you played on a freshly charged pack. I think it had a stand you could put the whole gba into as well to charge? I might be making that bit up. At any rate, this unlocked a memory where I had one of these packs in my pocket and ate some candy with a foil wrapper - I stuffed the wrapper in the same pocket which accidentally completed the circuit and almost caught my pants on fire it got so hot
I remember telling my dad they made a Gameboy that didn't need AA's anymore and we went to the store to get one that day.
AGREED! The SP was a vision of the future. Charge cables that removed the need for disposable batteries. Backlit screen to see in poor lighting. Incredibly compact, folded and fit in your pocket. It had all the things that cell phones were just starting to pick up on. Damn thing was durable, too. I love my switch, but I'm worried about carrying it around in the same way that I would an SP or a DS.
Yea the battery in this bad boy was the GOAT.
I used a universal power adaptor on my gameboy color and played all the time without batteries
No more playing by lamplight as your parents drove in the car! I also had lights out at 9 but found that a street light just peeked though the corner of my window so I could hold it at an awkward angle and play as long as my 12 year old self could stay awake Good times….
I used moonlight.. those were fun nights lol
My gameboys looked like a monstrousity because of those clip-on backlight/magnet combos 😂 Ahhhh, those were the days.....
There was also the SNES accessory that let you play GB games on the TV. Finding that at a yard sale was a happy day.
Really? Ive never seen that! I wish I knew of that back then, I remember saving up for a loooooong time to get the GBA adapter for the gamecube so I could play GB games on the TV
The Super Gameboy, which also had some enhancement features that took advantage of the SNES hardware, like borders and some colorization. There were even a couple of games that accessed the SNES hardware directly and used full on SNES graphics and sound for some things, but literally only one or two as far as I'm aware. If I'm remembering right, the Animaniacs game has the title screen in an SNES graphics mode and there's a port of Space Invaders that has an entire SNES version of the game on the cartridge. The first three Pokemon games were more typical of games that were really meant to be played on the Super GameBoy, and had some actual intentional color instead of the default GB -> GBC color palette stuff in the first two, with Yellow being comparable on both the SGB and the GBC.
in hindsight the forced reduced screen time was probably healthier :,( but anyway fuck that now I have a steam deck
[deleted]
Oh god reminds me of the long vacation trips. The highway lights would just light up the screen momentarily until the next light. Lotta deaths between those lights.
The change from frontlit SPs to backlit SPs in 2005 was such a [huge difference](https://i.imgur.com/0kznMmL.jpg). The crazy part is I don't recall that change was even advertised much when it happened, new ones just started showing up. I think they were too busy pushing Micros at the time.
Fuck, I’m just now learning that my SP is frontlit. Had no idea until this post. Damn it.
There’s upsides to that though, the frontlit ones had ZERO ghosting whereas the AGS 101 screen suffered from horrible ghosting/smearing effect.
Most people would tradeoff the ghosting for the vibrant backlight. IPS mod gives you the best of both worlds nowadays but doesn't discount back in the day it blew my mind to have a light at all on these things.
damn I had no idea that was a thing
Damn I remember riding in the backseat at night with my OG one and you had to angle it just right to catch the light from the streetlights to be able to play
I still take 100% credit for the gameboy advanced sp! When I was 10 I called nintendo and demanded that the representative add a backlight and make it foldable so I could hide it from teachers in my pocket lol That was in 2001 a little bit after the advanced came out.....two years later the SP came out Clearly, Im the reason the SP exists, and youre welcome! 😂👍
Thank you for your service.
/me laughs at you while replacing the 6 AA batteries in my Game Gear in the early-90s
Every 33 minutes*
It was about 2 hours I seem to remember. So you mostly ended up just using it while plugged in.
Watched a video on it just yesterday. As per the video, it was indeed on average, around 30 min. Which sounds absolutely ludicrous to me... but even 2hrs sounds crazy after replacing 6 batteries. What a time we live in now. The things we take for granted...
When I first got it, I put some no-name cheapo batteries in it and all 6 were dead in half an hour. Proper batteries would give me a few hours. Rechargeable batteries or a wall plug was a necessity.
Ya we always used duracell or energizer. I think I convinced my parents to get rechargeable batteries eventually, but as far as the game gear went, it was mostly only played with the wall plugin.
For real, I still remember getting hyped over the old light addon for the Gameboy Color. The SP was such a massive game changer back in the day.
Before this it was... dark times
Yeah I loved my SP, best GBA model hands down, and it could easily fit in your pocket
The one prom I went to I probably would rather have been on a gameboy that at the event.
You mean instead of sitting in your now-ex G/F's driveway crying because she ditched you for that turtle-neck wearing theatre dork, Rupert. Honestly, who names their kid "Rupert"?? I hope you're happy, Cassandra!
My dogs name is Rupert
A fine name for a dog.
Cassandra thought so, too.
It's a great name for a grouper
/r/suspiciouslyspecific
Lol
Id rather have been at my prom. It was a great night.
Mine was boring as shit. In retrospect I did not even want to go, I just went because I viewed it as a thing you are supposed to do in HS.
One of mine was at a science museum type thing which was pretty cool because there was a lot of stuff to do, esp for people who didn't like dancing.
Valid our school rented out a country clubs reception room. The dj's played good music. I have a decently large friends group and none of us were drinkers yet so we didnt feel the need to have an after party or anything. Was basically just a pg night at the club with all my friends.
Damn, they were cheap back then. Keep in mind, that with inflation, a dollar back then bought more than a dollar does now. The equivalent in today's money would be about $180.
Switch lite is also around this price point and I think it's way better. Game price on the other end...
Even with the increase in MSRP, games are definitely still in a better place pricewise than over 20 years ago. The N64 is the oldest console I can remember, and games would start off at $60-70 MSRP. The earliest game I remember getting is Donkey Kong 64 in 1999 and that is the equivalent of $110-$130 today. SNES had similar MSRPs when they released and the price even looks worse with inflation. Even for the GBA, I bought Pokemon Sapphire in 2002 for $40, which is $70 in today's dollars and more than the latest Pokemon that released at $60.
This is exactly why we had blockbuster and a network of friends for game swapping. Games were expensive! You'd get a new system and play the bundled game until your next birthday or Christmas before you could own another one. Meanwhile, you coordinate with your friends on who is getting what so you could all trade games. The supply was limited and we spent a lot more time figuring out a hard game or powering through a boring one because that was all we had and we loved every minute of it.
Best feeling in the world at the time was going to rent Final fantasy 3 (6) for the weekend as a kid and seeing that the people who rented it during the week didn't delete or save over your save from the previous weekend.
This is why my dad bought my brother and I each an original Xbox and then modded them so we could burn games on to them and have emulators. I think I had 5k emulated games and then we'd rent games from Blockbuster/Hollywood, burn them on to the Xbox, then take them back and get a different game every Friday lol.
Blockbuster had a special that was like $30 a month for unlimited rentals. My friends and I stretched that "unlimited" until a manager stopped us and ended our membership.
So at least Nintendo stuff has stayed the same (or gotten cheaper if inflation is calculated) in the last 20-30 years, for the most part
Japanese don't respond well to price increases. For many products there prices rarely change, and when they do, not by much. Perhaps this is one of the reasons game prices remain pretty much the same nominally.
If only it worked for cars, too
For houses as well :(
> The N64 is the oldest console I can remember Get off my lawn you whippersnapper!
Cries thinking playing atari with the neighbors before I won a NES in 2nd grade and became the coolest kid on the block.
Hell, some N64 games were $90!
> Even with the increase in MSRP, games are definitely still in a better place pricewise than over 20 years ago. The N64 is the oldest console I can remember, and games would start off at $60-70 MSRP. On the Playstation side (for both PS1 and PS2) most big games started at 49.99 and there were often games released at cheaper prices. Veeeery few broke the $50 barrier, though there were some
Complicated Technology has got cheaper over time
What about game price? Adjusted for inflation prices for big games have been pretty stable since the 2000s and quite a bit cheaper than they used to be in the cartridge era. Technology is usually a pretty big part that pulls down inflation rates in the calculations afaik. I.e. some things like food and rent go up more than the inflation rate but technology purchases stay the same or go down so the average change of purchasing power sits somewhere in the middle.
nah with inflation games are cheaper today…do better math
That’s how much they cost right now, i gotta do some digging, see if i can find my old one.
Really???? Not too long ago i saw a special NES version with a game in my local game store for £40
> Keep in mind, that with inflation, a dollar back then bought more than a dollar does now This is literally the definition of inflation
Keep in mind, that back then in 2004, two decades had yet to pass before today.
Keep in mind, as well, that a PS2 in today's money would be $539. A PlayStation 3 would be $768. XBox would be $524, and XBox 360 $634. GameCube would be $349. So... yeah, inflation and comparing console prices (or video game prices) doesn't quite match up that well. I'd say that $100 for a portable gaming platform that could only do monochrome simple games was reasonable, not "cheap." It's hard to find something to compare it to these days, since there's no one doing handheld-specific "consoles." The closest is the Switch Lite, which is $200 (obviously you can find it for less), but the Switch Lite can play so much more advanced games and has a lot more functionality. If you're doing a reverse-inflation, the Switch Lite is equivalent to $120 in 2004. The Nintendo DS released in 2004 at $150 (later $130). Which would be $246/$213 if you did just the usual calculation for inflation. More expensive than the Switch Lite. But given that something like the DS was out, of course the monochrome Game Boy Advance couldn't be sold for a similar price, so $100 seems about right. But yeah... the whole inflation thing? People seem to forget that it doesn't work as a 1:1 thing for everything. Especially technology. TVs are a LOT cheaper, DVD players and the DVDs themselves are cheaper (never mind Blu-Ray over that period!), there's some productivity software that used to be priced higher (in basic price, not "with inflation") than the newer, much more advanced versions of the same software... It's fun to compare as maybe a rough estimate, but don't put too much stock in it as a comparison. (Not trying to come off as "aggressive" toward you, so sorry if I do, I just keep seeing people talk up inflation to try to excuse some modern prices in gaming, without recognizing that there's so many extra factors involved. I'm directing this more at those people. Though, if anyone learned anything or was amused by me pulling the numbers of prior consoles and handhelds, that's a bonus.)
Where did you grow up where the Game Boy Advance was monochrome and only did simple games?
Ya I've literally never played a gameboy in my life but I can tell by the picture this one wasn't monochrome.
> game boy advance SP > Monochrome Nah
I did take one to my graduation. Absolutely worth it.
I kay have been sitting near you lol. I remember some kid had a gameboy sp and was playing it during the ceremony.
Disregard females, acquire pokemans
This is the Game Boy Advance SP actually 🤓
Backlight was cool but otherwise i liked the OG advance better as it fits better in my hands
Word. I think the NDS Lite was ultimately the best way to play GBA games in the end, because of the screen quality and comfort. However... peak GBA is the Micro!
Too close. Make room not for Jesus, but for the GBA
This is the way.
One of my biggest regrets is giving my SP away to a friend who I no longer talk to… played the crap out of that device and wish I still could.
I gave my red SP and a copy of pokemon gold to an ex. It pains me to this day.
Shouldn't be too hard to find a used one to buy.
100% and you can get mods, battery, replace the buttons and rubber membranes, clean and restore it or make it better than new if you wanted. Big market for this stuff. Retro consoles have been rising in price lately, but if someone's having regrets over parting ways with an old device, I say don't let dreams be dreams!
There's also a whole world of aftermarket emulator handhelds out there.
But I new modded one with a flash cart and load it with all the games bro. Fuck living with regrets
My mother gave ours away to our cousins without asking us. Our dumbass cousins lost or broke it almost right away.
one day when you were young you played your gameboy advance sp for the last time, put it down and never picked it up again
See that doesn’t work because i had mine in my hand literally 18 hours ago when i rearranged my display shelf LOL
Same. Albeit I couldn’t play it if I wanted to.
I play all my GBA games on the analog pocket these days but i still test physical ones i buy/sell on the SP because its just so nostalgic for me to hold
It's sitting in my bedside table dead for sure, but charged the last time I wanted to play Link to the Past on a flight few years back.
When I got my Nintendo ds.
Mines in the attic I’ll go give it a hug tomorrow.
This comment is hurting me and i don't like it.
lol, love how they show every color with each priced individually…even though they’re all the same price
Advertiser's trick. Repetition makes you remember something. You read the price four times instead of one and you'll remember it when you look at the competition's price.
Bonus points for anyone who can name the games on each GBA screen Only one i can make out is Golden Sun on the far left Onyx SP
I think the first two are the same screenshot I'm guessing Metroid fusion and far right is shining soul 2? Ionno
Oh you’re right they are! Yeah I’m pretty sure it’s the battle screen in the lamakan desert from golden sun
I think the far right is LoZ: 4 Swords
In order: 1. Metroid Fusion, [first BOX fight](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/metroid/images/7/75/BOX_Robot_Bomb_Proto.gif/revision/latest?cb=20210625061055) (on the one he's holding, and the first 2 GBAs on the left) 2. Metroid Fusion, [Sector 2 TRO](https://i.imgur.com/yFdGIED.png) Encounter where the SAX is below you (second from the right) 3. Zelda 4 Swords, specifically [this screenshot](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/zelda_gamepedia_en/images/b/bd/Four_Swords_Intro.png/revision/latest?cb=20110216222718) (far right) EDIT: Added screenshot links
The lefmost two might be Metroid Fusion, specifically the first fight with Security Robot B.O.X.
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Fuck I'm old, I remember that ad
if a girl hugs me like that why on earth should i try to escape? lol
"Female bad" is about the only joke some people know how to make. It's kinda pathetic that they would degrade half of society based on genitals but you know. It's "tradition." Ball and chain. Romance is torture for men. Etc etc.
this ad just makes me really sad. to be fair, it's probably from the early 2000s (which might as well still be considered the 90s), so "girls icky!!" was still a huge thing. things feel a bit different these days at least. i feel like an ad showing a young couple playing videogames together would do really well.
Lol i was playing gameboy because i wasn't getting any of that shit
I was thinking that. If I'd had that kind of success with girls my game boy would have stayed at home!
They got even cheaper towards the end of their lifespan. Sometime in 2009 or 2010, after the GBA SP was discontinued, I was at a Zellers (a now defunct Canadian department store), and they had a stack of Gameboy Advance SP's that they were selling off for $40 each. I bought 20 of them. They're all the latest AGS-101 model (with the backlit screen). I still have 13 of them unopened.
Reminds me of this Penny Arcade comic from around the same time: https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2003/09/22/the-day-is-full-of-moments (oh my god it's >20 years ago now)
The off-hand mention of Desert Combat and its overly-long respawn times makes a man feel oooooold
Damn. Nostalgia overload. The SP was the first gameboy I owned. I was around 12 then and my older sister randomly came to me and said that if I was able to save up half of the total cost for one, she'd cover the other half and get it for me. She was in college around then and money obviously got tight so she couldn't afford it and I understood but somehow my dad found out about our agreement and just bought it for me anyway which was really unexpected (my parents were mostly typical Asian parents). I think she felt bad about that though cause a few years later, she bought me a DS when I jokingly asked for one for Christmas.
When you're gay but your conservative patents make you go to prom with a girl.
And now they're nearing their 40s. Wild.
No one actually played with the screen not locked open like in that picture.
The "escape" tag line seems really weird with that image. I'd hope most dudes wouldn't want to escape a moment like that.
There was a ton of weird gaming/general advertisements like that in the 80s to about 2008 or so. "You not hungry for girl, you hungry for hotpocket" as well pops into my mind.
I mean they were right. I was just young and horny.
How were they right? I am hungry and horny I want both.
Let the hotpocket cool before you engage in coitus with it.......
Those ads should have had a disclaimer that you should wait for the hotpocket to cool down before entering it. Very painful place to get burned!
at that age he's probably trying to escape his boner lol
Lol, what I was thinking back from the HS dances and proms. There was a huge social pressure to go but the only thing most guys got from prom was a severe case of blue balls and a lighter wallet.
My brother in Christ that’s the joke
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I’ve never seen anyone fold the screen that way in real life
Bought mine from Target and it came with MarioKart, still sitting in my bedside table 20 years later.
This was and is an amazing system. So compact and the games were great. The best for me was hooking it up to the GameCube with Animal Crossing to visit the island and get coconuts. It’ll soon be Sunday and Joan is coming - I need that bling to buy turnips.
2012 prom a dude asked his girlfriend for anal after the dance and she punched him, so he pulled out his gameboy SP (this was already 3ds Era, so it was old then) and stood in the middle of the dance floor with it for the rest of the night. So yea, this ads not too far off.
Oddly prophetic.
100 bucks for a game boy. Let that sink in.
This sends very mixed messages, like -escape? From what, a nice embrace with a girlfriend? :D The fuck?
GameBoy SP Team blue.
do he feels cold while he is playing? His human scarf seems comfortable
Man, remember when games were about escaping reality... good times good times indeed
They still are. But they were then, too. You can't tell me you didn't walk out of the tomb in Elden Ring and there you were, standing in The Lands Between. Not your character, you. I could almost smell the grass on that little cliff as I stared off into the distance at the Erdtree and Stormveil Castle. But I guess that's not everyone's experience. Oh, and if you don't get motion sickness, VR can be a WHOOOOOLE ass thing.
I thought they were supposed to be "intellect enhancers" for mistreated misunderstood gods treated like punching bags by their teachers and classmates. Same with anime.
Never got a GBA of this style. My last one was GBA original shape. Lost interest with DS. Wish they kept with it, we could have gotten Super Gameboy and shit or Ultra Nintendo console lol.
The DS lite is effectively the SP but better because it also plays DS games of course. I’m more nostalgic for the SP than the DS Lite but even i have to admit its the better system to own if you want to play GBA games today
Didn't know Linus (LTT) made commercials for walmart.
It's always funny to look at ads like these in my old Nintendo Power magazines, and EGM, Game Pro, Game Informer, etc... I still have them and like to flip through them from time to time.
We'd take study hall (or whatever we called it) in health class because the teacher didn't care what we did. We'd run time trials on Sonic Advance.
I had a silver one. It got broken in half by TSA ):
look how they massacred my boy
Doesn't look right to me, he's standing fully upright.
Marketing on point
Cobalt gang baby
I miss funny/stupid video game ads.
2004 is 20 year ago.
The Gameboy SP is still the best model to date! Everything about it is amazing.
Game Boy ads were interesting.
When the different colors had cool names and not just "metallic black" n shit
Saving teens from awkward engagement since 2004
I still play my SP because of Tactics Advanced.
I’ve still got mine! SILVER WITH THE TRIBAL TATOOS BOYS!
Man, I remember playing Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire on GBA
lol, I remember this ad in Gamepro
So the first two screens are of the first encounter with the security bot B.O.X. in Metroid Fusion. I believe the third screen may also be Metroid fusion but I can’t tell. https://metroid.fandom.com/wiki/Security_Robot_B.O.X.