1 post tagged “gameboy”
As much as I'd love to jump right into more important matters (or rather, more interesting ones), I feel that I can't open up a blog and avoid introducing myself. I am Alex Speer, young writer, artist, and avid fan of movies, video games, and other sorts of media. I'm not a terribly interesting specimen myself, but that doesn't matter since I doubt if anyone will ever read this anyway. I foresee a total of... two, maybe three people. However, if I ever become famous, or even just internet-famous, I think it should be documented that I had specific notions and opinions about certain things covering an ambiguous spectrum of topics.
Anyway, today I happened across an interesting article at a mobile-gaming site called MODOJO about the demise of the GameBoy brand at the incompetent hands of the GB Micro. Basically, Dan Biersdorf talks at length about factors of the system's end, including poor sales, poor redesign of an already popular version of the hardware (which was also enhanced with the same brighter screen), and the introduction of the new Nintendo DS, which made owning a GameBoy somewhat useless. Personally, I love my DS, and I loved my GBA enough to buy the first and second iterations (the GBA and GBA SP respectively). However, as often happens with Nintendo, they oversaturated their product lineup. Who needs a tiny GameBoy that you could easily lose in your couch cushions, or more likely, the poorly-lit dungeon you call a bedroom?
This isn't even taking into account a quickly and severely diminishing library of game titles for the device. Last year saw some rather remarkable games, including Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, Sigma Star Saga, the re-release of Final Fantasy IV, and Gunstar Super Heroes. Since FFIV is just a port, even that seems fishy in the list. The best games for the system as a whole came out in 2001-2004, which I suppose is fitting since that's the majority of its lifespan. Still, the most games coming out last year and this one are licensed games based off of movies and TV shows, which really doesn't bode well for the system. The core audience now is the younglings, which is still relatively lucrative, but is seriously limiting. I'm all for sucking the money out of little kids' pockets, but there's got to be a limit to the amount of disease-ridden, grimy single-dollar-bills you can safely handle.
It seems apparent that the "three-pillar" platform Nintendo adopted was an elaborate scheme to make sure the company had an out in case the DS flopped, and since it's been such a success, there's been no need for the Gameboy. Is that a bad thing, though? The NDS is now a powerhouse portable gaming platform (I've always wanted an excuse to get away with saying 'powerhouse'). It's not uncommon for a company to drop a product-line when something steps in to take its place. This is especially true in tech, with products like graphics cards and processors, as well as lines of cell phones and PDAs, to name a few. How many people do you know carrying around true Palm Pilots these days? Hell, I think I had a Voodoo3 video card at about the same time I had my old Palm m100. Do any of you actually know what those are? Or are you, rather, far older than I, contemplating writing a snarky comment about Commodore 64s and rotary phones? I hope not, since I just called you on it.
Article: http://www.modojo.com/features/20061023/125/rip_game_boy/
