The Game Boy Player is a special
peripheral for the
Nintendo GameCube that attaches to the underside of the unit and allows for
Game Boy Advance,
Game Boy Color, and original
Game Boy games to be played on a television through the
GameCube itself without an actual
Game Boy Advance (much like the old
Super Game Boy allowed classic
Game Boy titles to play on a
Super NES), although by using the
GBA Link Cable players can use their GBAs as
controllers. The unit will also support the usual
GameCube controllers and the
WaveBird as well (using either the Control Pad or Control Stick). The cable can also be used for
multiplayer gaming and to trade data between players. However, the unit will not support any kind of split-screen multiplayer.
As for the gameplay experience itself, traditional Game Boy games can either be displayed onscreen surrounded by a border (much as the old Super Game Boy unit did with games) or can be stretched to fill the screen. The unit also features a sleep timer so parents can set the machine to turn itself off after a preset amount of time so that children can't surpass their scheduled playtime with "Aw, just one more level, mom!". The timer can count down from 15, 30, 45, or 60 minutes before autoshutdown. As an added bonus some games (such as Super Mario Advance 4 and Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga) support rumble functionality when played on the Game Boy Player.
The unit was announced on November 19, 2002 at a special press conference by Nintendo with release dates of March 21, 2003 in Japan and June 2003 in the United States. It retails for an MSRP of $49.95 and will only be available in the "jet black" color in the USA. The Japanese release of the product will feature every color of GameCube available in that territory: silver, jet black, purple, etc. Nintendo also packs the player with new GameCubes at no extra charge in some bundles.
The technical specs:
- Size: 150 mm x 57.3 mm x 155.1 mm
- Attaches to the High Speed Port on the underside of the GameCube system
- Weight: 370g
- Available in four colors (Japan only; USA only gets black)
- Uses GameCube power source: 0.8 W power consumption
- Comes with a GameCube Player disk (device driver software)
References:
http://cube.ign.com/articles/377/377794p1.html and other IGN snippets
http://pocket.ign.com/articles/379/379361p1.html
Thanks to generic-man for information on the rumble functionality.