An Ode to the Game Boy Advance

In March 2001, Nintendo introduced an advanced portable model to the gaming market with the release of the Game Boy Advance (GBA, codenamed Advanced Game Boy or AGB ). Equipped with a modernized 32-bit ARM CPU running at twice the speed of the Game Boy Color (GBC), this small device was more than capable of playing SNES-like games—still at the price of only two AA batteries. The third major Game Boy revision indeed again proved to be a smashing hit, breaking various sales records during its relatively short lifespan. According to Eurogamer, in the United Kingdom, the GBA sold four times as much units in its first first week of release as the PlayStation 2. Although Gunpei Yoko’s “Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology” design philosophy was still applied (the system was still cheap: priced at $99.99 —About $146.37 in 2020), it was clear that the technical specifications of the GBA were put into the spotlight. Why else would you name something “Advance” or put “32 bit” on the box? I ... Read full article.