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The Game Boy Advance (often shortened to GBA) is a 32-bit handheld video game console developed, manufactured and marketed by Nintendo. It is the successor to the Game Boy Color. It was released in Japan on March 21 2001; in North America on June 11 2001; in Australia on June 22 2001, in Europe on June 22 2001; and in the People's Republic of China on June 8 2004 (excluding Hong Kong).
In 1996, magazines including issues 53 and 54 of Total! and the July 1996 issue of Game Informer featured reports of a new Game Boy, codenamed Project Atlantis. Although the expected release date of "early 1997" would make this machine seem to be the Game Boy Color, it was described as having "a 32-bit RISC processor" and "allowing similar to SNES standard games-playing to be played in the palm of your hand"—a description that more closely matches the Game Boy Advance.
Technical specifications
The technical specifications of the original Game Boy Advance are, as provided by Nintendo:
- Size: Approximately x x .
- Weight: Approximately 140 grams (5 ounces).
- Screen: 2.9 inches reflective thin-film transistor (TFT) color LCD.
- Power: 2 AA batteries.
- Battery life: The average battery life is approximately 15 hours while playing Game Boy Advance games (also dependent on the Game Pak being played and the volume setting).
- CPU: 16.8 MHz 32-bit ARM7TDMI with embedded memory.
- Memory: 32 kilobyte + 96 kilobyte VRAM (internal to the CPU), 256 kilobyte WRAM (external to the CPU).
- Resolution: 240 x 160 pixels.
- Color support: 15-bit RGB (16-bit color space using 5 bits depth per channel), capable of displaying 512 simultaneous colors in "character mode" and 32,768 (2^15) simultaneous colors in "bitmap mode".
Backward compatibility for Game Boy and Game Boy Color games is provided by an 4/8 MHz Z80 co-processor, while a link port at the top of the unit allows it to be connected to other devices via use of a Nintendo Game Link cable or GameCube cable. When playing Game Boy or Game Boy color games on the Game Boy Advance, the L and R buttons can be used to toggle between a stretched widescreen format (240x144) and the original screen ratio of the Game Boy (160x144).
All future Nintendo portable systems (the Game Boy Advance SP, Game Boy Micro, DS, and DS Lite) have included a built-in light and rechargeable battery.
Game Boy Advance SP
Around the same time as the release of the Game Boy Micro, Nintendo released a new backlit version of the SP (model AGS-101) in North America (commonly referred to as the "GBA SP+").Fact: date=September 2008 The switch that controls the light now toggles between "normal" (which itself is already brighter than the original Game Boy Advance SP's screen), and "bright," an intense brightness level similar to an LCD television set.
