eCard Reader for the GBA?

[j_factor]

Hah, I highly, highly doubt that. Any idea how much more carts cost to produce than cards?

Pretty sure it's less than $15. Also take note of the fact that they double-dipped on three games.

Not only that, but they knew very well that releasing games like Castlevania and Metroid on e-reader would take too many cards to be convenient for the consumer.

Those would require about 15 cards. Not that big of an obstacle, though. I mean "convenient" was never the point.

[BetaWolf47]

Those would require about 15 cards. Not that big of an obstacle, though. I mean "convenient" was never the point.

Not that big of an obstacle? That's 29-30 dot codes for one game, sir. Sorry for getting this deep into the subject, but are you saying you wouldn't mind playing a Famicom Disk System game that had 15 discs, and all 15 discs required both sides to be read? You have more patience than the average gamer, sir.

[buzz_n64]

Not that big of an obstacle? That's 29-30 dot codes for one game, sir. Sorry for getting this deep into the subject, but are you saying you wouldn't mind playing a Famicom Disk System game that had 15 discs, and all 15 discs required both sides to be read? You have more patience than the average gamer, sir.

I get impatient enough with my Commadore 64 Cassette Tape Drive, LOAD ALREADY!!!

[j_factor]

Not that big of an obstacle? That's 29-30 dot codes for one game, sir. Sorry for getting this deep into the subject, but are you saying you wouldn't mind playing a Famicom Disk System game that had 15 discs, and all 15 discs required both sides to be read? You have more patience than the average gamer, sir.

I'm saying that anyone who actually bought an e-Reader to play NES games (which is not a huge number of people) wouldn't mind. If you don't mind swiping 10 dot codes to play Donkey Kong, you probably won't mind swiping 30 dot codes to play Metroid. Saying that that was the reason they killed it was an exaggeration, of course, but the phrase "convenient for the consumer" is not something that applies to the e-Reader. [I've never used a Famicom Disk System, but I'd imagine reading a disk takes longer than swiping a card.]

From what I understand, the e-Reader's flash memory (that saves the game you scanned in so you don't have to re-scan it to play it again) is one megabit, and it plays NES games by having an NES emulator built in, so apparently larger games were being considered. Supposedly there are homebrew utilities to convert data into dot code that you can print out with a high quality printer and scan it in, but I'm not about to try it.

[calistarwind]

I really think it boiled down to the price of the cards. My god they were expensive. I tried to collect the Animal Crossing cards and it was if I remember correctly $7.99 a pack in most places. It was so expensive to get a full collection of the cards. Finally they just began to decline in price and they stopped selling them completely. I kept several sets of cards sealed because I found them in bargin bins after it died.

[UnpluggedClone]

google 4 gaga

[dreamcaster]

I got one of these when they were being cleared out for abouto $30AUD. It's the biggest waste of time. I mean, it's a cool idea and a novelty but I never used it in any realistic setting. For a start, the e-Reader itself is just enormous and removes the portable aspect of the GBA. Secondly, the constant swiping of cards was just a huge pain - sure they were cheap, but this process was so long and tedious I never bothered.

I think I have used mine once or twice and it's since been relegated to a storage box in the bowels of a closet. In hindsight, I probably should have left the thing sealed and forgotten about it for 10-20 years and then put it on eBay for massive profitz lolz.

[Icarus Moonsight]

I got everything US released except a full Animal Crossing set, plus some extras. I haven't dinked with them much in the last few years, but with SM3 and Animal Crossing the thing got heavy use. Since I have a few readers I use one as a NES unit solely, because it will save the last game. Think it's still got Excitebike on it. Played that a lot.

[Cornelius]

I just wanted to point out to the multiple people that said they'd like to have one of these that they are only 12.50 shipped on amazon, similar on ebay. So just buy one already!

[atarikurt]

I was always surprised that the E-reader Pokemon cards never took off. It seemed like a homerun mixing Pokemon on the Gameboy with the cards.

[Rob2600]

I was always surprised that the E-reader Pokemon cards never took off. It seemed like a homerun mixing Pokemon on the Gameboy with the cards.

Good point, but the e-Reader was released four years after Pokemon in the U.S. By then, the Pokemon card craze had died down a bit.

Not that big of an obstacle? That's 29-30 dot codes for one game, sir. Sorry for getting this deep into the subject, but are you saying you wouldn't mind playing a Famicom Disk System game that had 15 discs, and all 15 discs required both sides to be read? You have more patience than the average gamer, sir.

Some people have a lot of free time on their hands, I guess.

They were only charging 5 bucks a game. They killed it so they could come out with the "Classic NES Series" at 20 bucks a pop.

I assume the cards were more profitable and cost-effective. How much does it cost to print and cut sheets of cards vs. manufacturing cartridges?

[SAV2880]

The only ones I remember being semi-affordable to begin with were the level packs for Super Mario Bros. 3, those were $4.99 a pack, right?

[BetaWolf47]

I got everything US released except a full Animal Crossing set, plus some extras. I haven't dinked with them much in the last few years, but with SM3 and Animal Crossing the thing got heavy use. Since I have a few readers I use one as a NES unit solely, because it will save the last game. Think it's still got Excitebike on it. Played that a lot.

You've get every Pokemon TCG e-Reader card? How can you get all those but not a full Animal Crossing set?

[Jorpho]

No one seems to have mentioned yet that the dot code format was cracked a few years ago, and you can print your own cards with a sufficiently high-quality printer. I guess it never really got much of a dev scene.

[Rob2600]

No one seems to have mentioned yet that the dot code format was cracked a few years ago, and you can print your own cards with a sufficiently high-quality printer. I guess it never really got much of a dev scene.

Someone did mention it several posts back:

Supposedly there are homebrew utilities to convert data into dot code that you can print out with a high quality printer and scan it in

[Therealqtip]

I had one, mostly for animal crossing. but the you had to buy a game through trading cards. so you had to swipe like 7 cards just to play baloon fight

[Gameboy415]

The Super Mario Bros. 3 e-cards were pretty awesome, IMO.
Although there were only two small sets released in the US, there were a LOT more cards released in Japan, including several new STAGES!

My friend and I got a nearly full set a few years ago when I was still living in Japan by buying some sealed boxes of (random) e-card packs on Yahoo Auctions.

More info on the Mario cards here:

http://www.mariowiki.com/Super_Mario_Advance_4_e-Cards

I also have some Japanese F-Zero e-cards and Mega Man Zero 3 e-cards, but I'm not sure how they are used in conjunction with their respective games.

[Icarus Moonsight]

You've get every Pokemon TCG e-Reader card? How can you get all those but not a full Animal Crossing set?

Oh, no. Pokemon doesn't even register to me. I've never cared for it. Especially the card game... Actually, I had completely forgotten that they had made Pokemon eReader cards. Still no desire to have them. I think that I might be also lacking the SM3 special promo cards as well, if IRC that they existed. Outside of Pokemon (of which, I don't care) and the Animal Crossing set (see below), I tracked down all that I'm aware of that was sold here. Got Air Hockey and Man Hole most recently.

The Animal Crossing sets (series 1 and 2 in particular, mostly 1) were always difficult to track down. I bought pretty much every pack I have found for sale. Still about 1/2 left to go, if not a bit +/-.

[caitsith2]

Not that big of an obstacle? That's 29-30 dot codes for one game, sir. Sorry for getting this deep into the subject, but are you saying you wouldn't mind playing a Famicom Disk System game that had 15 discs, and all 15 discs required both sides to be read? You have more patience than the average gamer, sir.

In regards to this, the maximum spec for nes games on the e-Reader, was Mapper 0 (ines spec), with a max of 16K PRG rom, followed by 8K CHR rom. This meant you could not do games like zelda or metroid.

Also, even if that limitation was not in place, there was another limitation. The maximum number of dotcode strips that a program could scan on the main e-reader program loader, was 12 strips. The compression method to store the programs, had to be able to pack whatever program into those 12 long strips, maximum.

---

In regards to what saved on the e-reader flash memory and what did not, There was a single flag bit in the dot-code strips that determined whether the e-reader had permission to save the program to its flash memory, from the designer of that program. ALL of the nes dotcodes had that permission flag set, and none of the other minigames ever had it set.

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Finally, in regards of printing the dotcodes, a high end printer, and photo paper for the best results, although, in the past, on an HP deskjet 5550, well over 5 years old, on plain paper, I did have success.

[BetaWolf47]

In regards to this, the maximum spec for nes games on the e-Reader, was Mapper 0 (ines spec), with a max of 16K PRG rom, followed by 8K CHR rom. This meant you could not do games like zelda or metroid.

Also, even if that limitation was not in place, there was another limitation. The maximum number of dotcode strips that a program could scan on the main e-reader program loader, was 12 strips. The compression method to store the programs, had to be able to pack whatever program into those 12 long strips, maximum.

In regards to this as well, and perhaps even more tedious, it'd still be possible to split the game in parts. Since Metroid is segmented by area (Brinstar depths and the like), it could have different sets of cards for that. Not practical, but still possible. So yeah :P

Wait a minute. Where did you climb out of, and how do you know so much?!