Could the next Gameboy possibly be a portable GameCube?

[GameGuru]

The mini DVDs are the perfect size for a portable gaming system. I am sure this has probably been brought up before but thinking about it has really got me excited. Mario Kart DD on the go! Woot!

[Half Japanese]

When talking to a coworker about whatever it is that Nintendo's cooking up, this is always an idea that I bring up. Think about it.....how stiff of a competition would something like a portable gamecube give the PSP? It'd be like a modern-day Nomad or TurboExpress, only probably more successful. It's a cool idea, but things like getting it power (and for more than a few hours) would probably be the major constraints, along with actually making the thing PORTABLE. It's a neat idea though.

[hezeuschrist]

I hope not =/

[tholly]

I don't know if I would even want to see something like that. But, it probably wouldn't work anyway...just think about how big of a battery you would need to keep that cd drive spinning for more than 1 hour. Plus, it would need some sort of anti-shock mechanism built into it so a game wouldnt restart on a speed bump. Personally, i think the PSP is a dumb idea for a portable too, but thats just my opinion.

[MaRiNe]

You mean its not portable now?

The things like 3 inchs big! The conrollers are bigger than the whole machine!


Whens nintendos big annoucement anyway? I forget, was it supposed to be at E3 or something else?

[Drexel923]

Check this out. (http://www.digitpress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=25078&highlight=gamecubeboy)

[Ze_ro]

I hope they do this... It's essentially the perfect solution to the eventual release of the PSP.

The only problem is that all the effort that will go into minimizing everything for a portable (Yes, it's small, but power consumption is awfully high) will likely make a portable version somewhat pricy (certainly more than the $99 that 'cubes are currently selling for).

--Zero

[hezeuschrist]

No offense, but I think this is a terrible idea.

First, price. Downsizing all that hardware and finding a solution to the power consumption is not going to be cheap.

Second, screen size. I don't know about you, but I would be pissed off trying to play anything that's GUI intensive on a really tiny screen.

Game cost. New gamecube games cost $50... so what now, make budget titles for the cube designed for the portable? Who would do that, N doesn't have any third party support for the system as is, making it portable isn't going to change that, at all.

Why compete with itself? I'm sure there a billion different better things Nintendo can come up with between now and whenever the GBA needs a replacement. That, and portable is where nintendo really shines, so they would go ahead and tarnish that image with a, I hate to say it, failure of a system? Nintendo needs to change their image, and being cheap by just making their current system portable is going to do nothing more than reinforce the fact that they are probably the most greedy bastards in the market, let alone attract the college student demographic with the "Gamecubeboy". And I thought 'Playstation' sounded dumb.

Nintendo's last worry right now is the PSP. Their stranglehold on the handheld market is way more intense than it's former grip on the console market in the NES days. It's not going away anytime soon, and with all the crap sony is promising with the PSP, it won't be cheap. The GBA will be around long after the Gamecube is dead.

What they need to do is focus on making a system that's big enough to kill a small child if it falls of the shelf, has one of the three letters 'z', 'x' or 'q' in the title, and has a killer launch app of some kind that lets you shoot authority figures of somekind in a teenage angst kinda way. Top it off with a obscenely large ad campaign of old people exploding and pets getting run over by cars, people bleeding from their eyes holding a controller, and some stupid catch phrase like "there's no power greater than N", and bam, they reclaim the throne.

Like the N64, the Gamecube needs to be put behind them, as fast as possible. They know their marketing strategy was a mistake, and have since drastically changed it but far too late.

[Duncan]

What they need to do is focus on making a system that's big enough to kill a small child if it falls of the shelf, has one of the three letters 'z', 'x' or 'q' in the title, and has a killer launch app of some kind that lets you shoot authority figures of somekind in a teenage angst kinda way. Top it off with a obscenely large ad campaign of old people exploding and pets getting run over by cars, people bleeding from their eyes holding a controller, and some stupid catch phrase like "there's no power greater than N", and bam, they reclaim the throne.

Yes. This is the answer. Especially the part about those "edgy" letters in the name -- do you all see now why the N-Gage is doomed?

:D

In all seriousness, I wouldn't want to see anything from Nintendo that's as gimmicky as a portable GameCube would be. The Game Boy Advance basically is the handheld video game market right now -- and with the SP version of the hardware having just been released last year, a new portable system would begin to look like a serious money-grab.

What Nintendo needs is a home system that is at least as capable as its competitors in terms of usability (I'm talking about DVD movies and a hard drive) and that doesn't alienate owners of the current systems (which means backward-compatibility with GC games and Game Boy Advance embedding from the start).

This last point is very important; Sony's excellent decision to maintain PS1 playability in the PS2 proved to be a major factor in that system's current success. Meanwhile (with the notable exception of the Game Boy), Nintendo has changed formats on every system it's introduced since the 1991 release of the SNES. (Remember when everyone kept waiting for an NES-SNES adapter to appear? Remember how pissed everyone was when the N64 arrived with yet another new cartridge type? Remember how Atari figured this problem out way back in 1984 with the 7800 and no one learned from it until now?)

I just hope this upcoming breakthrough is actually worthwhile; I'd hate to see months of much-needed Nintendo publicity go to waste on some kind of cheap stunt or vaporware. God knows these sorts of mind-games never did anything for Atari or Sega.

[tholly]

What Nintendo needs is a home system that is at least as capable as its competitors in terms of usability (I'm talking about DVD movies and a hard drive) and that doesn't alienate owners of the current systems (which means backward-compatibility with GC games and Game Boy Advance embedding from the start).



While I think having a hdd is a great idea i.e., no memory cards needed, dvd compatability is pointless and stupid. I watch dvds on my dvd player...not on my video game console. I dont need 10 different things that play dvds when i can buy a perfectly fine dvd player for $40. Companies should stick to making an awesome gaming system instead of trying to make it do things that most people already have machines that can do.

[Queen Of The Felines]

Already being discussed in Drexel's link above.

>>CLANK<<

Kristine