My Experience with the GameCube

After feeling like the N64’s life was a little too short (because I had missed 2½ years of playing it), the next console was due out. About 8 months after getting married and moving to Ogden, the GameCube was released in November. Because I was recently married and we were just starting out in life, I wasn’t planning on getting the GameCube right away. We were still trying to buy normal things every household needs, as well as pay off a little debt.


My friend Edgar called me up and shoved it in my face that he got one on release day. He kept me on the phone while he set up the menu. I was a little jealous, but not so much that I had to run out and get one. I played the demo at Wal-Mart, and really, really liked Rogue Leader. I picked up a small demo disc that showed small clips of 6 launch titles. I was amazed at how much smoother the motion was, and how much better the 3D models were.

We went to visit our old stomping ground, and I hung out with Edgar. We played some Smash Bros., and I got to play Rogue Leader on a non-demo disc. I started to want one, and eventually we got one in February a few weeks before our 1st wedding anniversary.


Like the N64, it didn’t come with a game, so I bought Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader. I must have put 2 hours a day into that game after work, and 5 hours a day on weekends. I also had to buy a memory card so I could save my files. I had done so with the N64, but it was almost unnecessary as all the games I had saved their files to the cartridge. But in this case it was absolutely necessary.

The GC had the same multi-out connection as the N64, but now that we had a TV with RCA jacks, it was nice to not need an adapter. But it also had component cable connections, making me once again wish I had a better TV. We set the console on top of the stereo speaker (which was on the floor of the apartment) because it fit perfectly, and we didn’t have any kids who could destroy it. But eventually when my son Avery was old enough to crawl, we had to move the speakers onto bookshelves and move the GC into the TV stand, where we could lock it.

To make things more convenient, we bought a selector switch so that we could have multiple inputs because we had a VCR, SNES, N64, GameCube, and DVD/Surround Sound system all hooked up to the TV. Later we would get rid of the selector switch (I think we gave it to my brother Chad) once we got a proper receiver and a TV with even more inputs.

The N64 had some semblance of stereo and directional sound, but the GameCube seemed to be better. One thing I loved doing is the Sound Test on Rogue Leader. It flies a TIE Fighter around the player’s head. You can only see it when it’s right in front of you, but you can follow it by the sound around the whole room.


I brought the GameCube to work to show my manager and coworker. We hooked it up to a little TV/VCR combo that one of the salesmen there had in his office. They were both fans of Star Wars, and had seemed excited about the demo disc I had shown them previously. My manager asked me, “What’s the setup?” meaning how much does it cost to get everything he saw. I didn’t understand his lingo, and thought he was asking how it was connected to the TV. I later ended up also showing him Rogue Squadron 3 (borrowed from my brother Brady) because I had told him it included the original arcade game. He thought I was too young to remember it and must have been referencing something else, so I brought it and showed him that we were talking about the same game.

A few months later after seeing the first Spider-Man movie, I had to get the game. Previously, the only Spider-Man game that had “felt” like Spider-Man was the GBA game I had borrowed from my brother Mitch. Then I had rented the N64 Spider-Man game, and this one truly captured what it would be like to be the Web Head. This new GC version was based on the movie, but kept the same feel.


When our first child was going to be born, it took a little over 24 hours from the time my wife was admitted to the hospital before he was delivered, so we had a lot of time to kill. The hospital was only a couple of blocks from our apartment, so I ran home frequently. On one trip I brought the GameCube back and hooked it up. Some of the nurses were a little amazed that I knew how to hook it up, for some reason. But it was nice to play Rogue Squadron and some GBA games while we waited.


The next game I bought was Super Mario Sunshine. I got it mainly because I thought it would recapture the magic that I had felt with Super Mario 64. It was a great game, but the magic wasn’t quite the same. But I did get a sense that the graphics were kinda what the programmers had in mind when they were making Super Mario 64.




In November I got excited for Metroid Prime. I had enjoyed the previous Metroid games, but they hadn’t made one for a long time because the creator had died. I hadn’t been aware of the GBA game Metroid Fusion, and thought this would be the fourth Metroid game. Prime was made in a FPS style, which was very different from the others, but it was really great. Unfortunately I didn’t have Fusion or the GBA/GC connection cable to take advantage of some of the additional features.

The next game I anticipated buying was The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. I found out that if I pre-ordered it from Toys’Я’Us, I could get a copy of Ocarina of Time on a GameCube disc, and it came with the Master Quest, made from content that was meant to be released on the N64DD. I had a few days to play it before Wind Waker came out. After I got Wind Waker, a couple days later I also bought a link cable so I could take advantage of the connectivity for the Tingle Tuner. I really loved Wind Waker, and considered it a nearly perfect Zelda game. My brother and his girlfriend (now wife) came down around this time. He played as my Tingle buddy when I tried it out for the first time.

Later purchases included Lego Star Wars 1 and 2 for Avery at consecutive Christmases, and  also The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures for me. I played that a little, but thought that the 4 player version was significantly different, so I was going to wait until I had multiple GBAs. I also bought a second memory card; it was a 3rd party item, but it held more memory. Having two made it nice so we could have one in the GC and one in the Wii (eventually).

We bought The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap for GBA, but after a few weeks of playing it without a lit-up screen, I really needed to upgrade my experience. My solution was to buy a Game Boy Player, the younger brother of the Super Game Boy. Now that I could play on the TV, other people could watch and it was easier to play. Anne actually was the one who pushed for getting this. I was on the fence about it, but she had the final vote in purchasing it.

Although I ended up with 12 games (not too shabby), about half of those came later in the GameCube’s life when we were financially established a little more, and some of the later ones were bought used. I ended up getting some kind of gift card for Best Buy. I went to get a game but the only thing they had that was the right price and looked good was Return of the King. I only ended up playing it for about 15 minutes. I also bought Splinter Cell on clearance, years after it was first released. I had played Splinter Cell 1, 2, and 3 previously, borrowing them from my brother Brady. Finally, we got Soul Caliber 2 for Avery, who wanted it because it included Link as one of the playable characters.

GameCube with expansion
port covers removed.

Once we bought the Wii, having the GameCube hooked up to the same TV seemed a little redundant. So we moved it upstairs and hooked it up to the 13” TV in Avery’s room.

We had bought a second controller when the first one started acting a little funny (control stick problems), so we had 2 to play the two player Lego games. But after owning the Wii for a while, we downloaded Mario Kart 64 from the Virtual Console. We found third-party white controllers at Family Dollar for $10 each and bought them to have 4 GC controllers for Mario Kart. Those had their problems, but I guess you get what you pay for. Occasionally they wouldn’t work, and the stick would randomly need to be re-calibrated. Eventually they broke enough that I took the good parts of each of them and frankensteined a decent one together. I also tried another 3rd party controller; this one’s problem is that the main control stick is too stiff and too sensitive. Instead of gently transitioning through 8 degrees of pressure, it seemed like the stick was either straight up or at full blast. Something else that happened was that the Player 1 controller port stopped giving the rumble signal, which I fixed by replacing the front controller board on the system.

I eventually ended up buying a second GameCube for the purposes of modding it. Using a kit I got online for less than $25, I soldered some wires to a Raspberry Pi Pico board so it has the ability to launch in Swiss CFW. The unused Serial Port #2 is now occupied by a Micro SD card reader where close to 30 games are stored. It can still read discs if needed, and can play games from both NA and JP regions. 

The GameCube

The GameCube was Nintendo’s console in the 6th generation of video games. It competed primarily with the Sega DreamCast, the Sony PlayStation 2, and the original Microsoft X-Box. It entered the race about a year late, like the N64.

For the first time, a Nintendo system used optical discs. Their previous objection to switching was that discs were too easy to copy and pirate. That was a big problem with the PlayStation. The compromise was to use mini-DVD discs, as those would (hopefully) be more difficult to get at a local store for the average schlub. Also new was that games came in plastic DVD-style cases, each with a memory card holder slot and an instruction manual holder. It has been much easier to find games with cases and instruction manuals since the switch from cardboard boxes to plastic cases. Turns out Sega had this one right from the get-go.

One neat little feature was that the disc holder post had a little sticker that read, “Push.” Pushing the post down would pop the disc off of the post. Games were usually meant to be “hot-swapped,” meaning that instead of turning the system off to change games, players could just open the disc cover, switch discs, and press reset.

More or less living up to its name, the GameCube is nearly cubic in its dimensions. Length and width wise, it was a square, but it isn’t as tall as it needs to be to actually be a cube. The top featured 3 buttons: Power (furthest away and also differently colored), Reset, and Open (both near the front of the top). The orange power light was near the disc cover, and was thin and crescent shaped. The system was initially available in either black or purple, but later options included silver.

Because of the spin motor, the unit required a fan to keep it cool, and there were air vents on both sides, one in and one out. The rear featured 3 jacks. One is for power, obviously, but it was a little different than what they did for the N64. Instead of the transformer box being directly connected to the system or in the plug itself (wall wart), it was a 2-piece cable and the transformer was right in the middle. This was the best of both worlds, as the bulky transformer could be moved to wherever it was convenient. 

The other two jacks were for the audio and video. The analogue jack and cable was identical to the N64 and SNES, while the other was a digital out, meaning component cables for the RGB, but still required the regular red/white audio cables.

Like the N64, it had 4 controller ports, something that still made Nintendo’s system stand out compared to competitors. It also had 2 slots for memory cards under the controller ports. As the system had no internal hard drive, and could not write to the game discs, a memory card was required to write save file information. This was standard fare for other systems at the time, and wasn’t exactly new as the N64 also had memory cards, but this was the first system where they were absolutely necessary.

Nintendo designed it with a handle on the back to aid with portability. The idea was that it would be easier to carry to a friend’s house, but it was mocked for the resemblance to a purse. Like every system up to this point, it had serial ports (3, in this case, labeled Serial Port #1, Serial Port #2, and Hi-Speed Port) on the bottom to allow for some kind of future upgrade. But unlike the past systems, these would actually get used.

The controller is probably one of the best designed controllers ever made for any system. Both sides of the controller had a grip like the N64 but thinner, and it was comfortable to hold and have both index fingers on the shoulder buttons. Their concave design helped shift some of the weight of the controller to the fingers to keep it balanced. It also had a rumble feature built into the controller, eliminating the need for a separate Rumble Pak like the N64.

It removed the 3-lobed approach used by the N64, and put the new (and better designed) control stick and smaller D-pad closer together. This made both easily reachable by the left thumb, and the L-button on the shoulder could be pressed by the left index finger. The right hand had four thumb buttons: A, B, X, and Y – the same four as the SNES. But they were arranged a little bit differently. The A button was large and green, meant to be the main button. The B button was smaller and red, and looked like a secondary button to the left of the A button. The gray kidney-shaped X and Y buttons were above and to the right of the A button, and could be pressed with a roll of the thumb.

Sitting analogously to the D-pad was the C-stick, a replacement for the 4 C buttons of the N64. This made the primary controls for the left hand the control stick and L button, while the right hand had the 4 main buttons and R (not significantly different from the SNES). But the secondary D-pad and C-stick gave many more options for developers to get creative in their control schemes.

The top featured the R and L shoulder buttons, both of which were  pressure sensitive. A third purple Z button was also there, which resembled more of a mini R button from the SNES controller. And finally, as usual, there was a Start button in the direct center (similar to the N64's, but much smaller).

This was also Nintendo’s first system to have its own system menu boot up if no game was inserted (other than the FDS). Normally, when it boots up a small cube rolls around and makes a letter G in its path with a C in the negative space, then starts the game. If no game is detected, it will boot the system menu, where players can change the internal clock, adjust audio and video settings, and manage save file data on the memory card (this menu could also be accessed by holding the A button upon startup). Nintendo snuck a little Easter Egg into the menu - the little bit of music that plays in the background happens to be a very slowed down version of the old Famicom Disk System startup jingle, linking it to the previous disc-based system. 

Nintendo pushed the connectivity with the GBA, and sold cords that connected the two systems through the controller ports. In some cases, it allowed for 2 games from the same franchise to share or enhance features, while in other cases, the GBA acted as a secondary controller in some games.

The SNES and N64 had dabbled with some kind of online connectivity, but it was not widely used or even generally known. The SNES had the X-Band network, while the N64 had a modem as part of the DD expansion. But the GameCube had a modem that connected to Serial Port #1 and allowed for broadband internet connection with certain games. The modem fit perfectly in the slot and put the port into the side of the system. Serial Port #2 was never used (officially), but both ports had little notches on the sides to allow for cords if used.

The Hi-Speed port would be where the Game Boy Player would connect. It was a square add-on to the bottom, much like the SNES CD and N64 DD were supposed to be. Adding the GBP made the shape and dimensions of the GameCube very nearly a cube, and opened the possibility to play every GB and GBA game made up until that point. With the GBP installed, two different games could be left in the system instead of just one.

The only other accessory worth mentioning is the WaveBird controller. It was a precursor to the standard wireless controllers that are common for every system now, but was very innovative for its time. It had a small wireless receiver that would plug into the controller port and communicate with the controller via Bluetooth.

Overall, it was a good little system, but was criticized for being too ‘kiddy,’ compared to its competitors, the X-Box and the PlayStation 2. Comparatively, the GameCube hardware was a little more advanced than the PS2, but not quite as good as the Xbox. But it didn’t fare as well because it didn’t play DVDs like the PS2, and was thought of as a console for kids, not teens and young adults. 


Adam Koralik's thoughts on the Gamecube.

Adam Koralik's recap on the 6th generation of video games.

The Gaming Historian's review of the Gameboy Player

My Experience with the Game Boy Advance

The thing that started me back into the handhelds was the next installment of the Zelda series: The Oracle games. I bought them on release day, and assumed I could play them in my Super Game Boy. But alas, it was not to be. That night I had to figure out if I wanted to go buy a Game Boy Color, or if I could wait the approximately 3 weeks for the Game Boy Advance. I decided on the latter option, since the GBA could play everything made up until that point plus any future games.

Continuing with what was started in the second run of N64s, 3 color options were available for the GBA. So I got a Glacier-colored GBA on release day at midnight. I played my old games like Metroid II and Link’s Awakening on them because I liked the color upgrades (never having owned a GBC), but not very often. Mostly I played the Oracle games, as that was my only option to play them, while I could play the others on my Super Game Boy on a lit TV screen. That year we spent Christmas at my parents’ house. My younger brother Mitch got Mario Kart Super Circuit, and he also happened to have a GameLink cable, so we were able to play 2 player on GBA a few times.

In the next year or two, I bought a couple of GBA games, mainly because they were heavily discounted at the K-Mart that was closing down (where Anne was working): Castlevania – Circle of the Moon and X-Men – Reign of Apocalypse (I think it was 2 for 1 on top of a discount). But I didn’t play them all that often.  It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy them, per se; just that I would rather play a console that was lit up and easier to see.

I started playing Castlevania while I was in the hospital waiting for my first child to be born. We had a lot of time to kill so I decided playing that (and Rogue Leader on GameCube) was the best way to spend it.

I bought a few accessories, such as the Worm light and an AC adapter. The light made it easier to play at night or in darker parts of the house, but it left a glare on the screen. The best option was bright but indirect light which was hard to find. There were a couple of places that had good light without the glare (like the bathroom), but most places weren’t optimal. Obviously the AC adapter made it easier to play without having to go through batteries by the case. The adapter took the spot where batteries and the cover were, and had a small port for the cord that could be disconnected.

One thing that made me glad to have bought a GBA was when The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker was released. It featured some GBA/GC connectivity, so I bought a cable and started using the GBA to play as Tingle. It would also be useful for some other games later on. 

I mainly played my games on vacation or occasionally around the house, but I didn’t take it with me very often to places like school or when I ran errands. I bought the Game Boy Player, an add-on for the GameCube. It was the first time Nintendo made good on the promise of an add-on using the expansion port in North America. Since it was basically another GBA, I could play all my games I had in color and on a lit and much larger TV screen. This made it much easier to see without needing the worm light or sitting in a particular part of the house to see.

Later I would buy ALttP/Four Swords and The Minish Cap to stay updated on my Zelda games, but I ended up playing them more on the Game Boy Player because the TV screen was illuminated. Just like what I had done with the Super Game Boy, I treated the GBA less as a portable handheld and more of a mini-console.

My brother Mitch had a few games but the one I remember best is the Spider-Man game he had. Interestingly enough, it was the first game that I actually felt kinda like Spider-Man when I played it. Most others didn’t take advantage of how Spider-Man moves. Eventually, Mitch sold off his GBA stuff and didn’t play games as much. But he gave me a nice case to keep my GBA and games in. It was pretty convenient and kept everything portable I owned at the time. It was made to hold both regular Game Boy and GBA games as well as accessories. 

My youngest brother Brady was more into the Game Boy stuff, and got an SP. I liked the light up part of it, but thought that the narrowness of it made it a hassle to hold like the original Game Boy. I preferred the horizontal configuration of the original GBA.

Besides my general lack of interest in portable gaming, my biggest problem was lack of funds (and to some degree, time). By this point, I was a poor, working college student with a small family. So by necessity, I only bought the things I really, really wanted (Zeldas, mainly). Things continued on much this way for about 10 years. I fell behind on keeping up with the latest portable system by missing the GBA SP, the DS, the DS Lite, and the DSi. Even though I knew I was missing out on 2 Zelda Games (Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks), I just couldn’t justify the cost for how little I expected to play them. I think if I lived closer to my brothers, or had a couple of good friends who also had GBAs, I probably would have kept up a bit better.

When the DS came out, I was tempted to get one because it was horizontally oriented and had a GBA slot, but there were two things that kept me from getting one: lack of funds, and the fact that it wouldn’t play GB/GBC games.

One time I borrowed my brother’s copy of ALttP/FS and got to play Four Swords using the GB Player and my GBA with my son Avery. I went through the game once, but didn’t know about having to go through it 3 times to completely finish it. I also used it to play FSA once or twice, but because of an incorrect assumption about how the game worked, I didn’t play it at all for years. In my mind, it was one of those, “someday” things – meaning someday I’ll get around to playing it when I get all the equipment necessary (I eventually did).

As mentioned earlier, I had no one to play with, but Avery was starting to get to the age where he could play with me, so I was looking forward to being able to play certain things with him once he could understand the intricacies of the games. It was different than when I had 4 younger brothers or roommates to play with, because I had motivation to buy multiple controllers for the N64 and such.

Over the years, we took the GBA stuff with us on vacations, but didn’t use them a whole lot otherwise. Years later after both Avery and I got 3DS handhelds, I bought a silver GBA SP and another copy of ALttP/FS from eBay for cheap. I wanted to try playing Four Swords with Avery, but the used SP ended up having connectivity and charging issues, then it broke. We bought my other son Logan a red GBA SP for Christmas, along with another copy of ALttP/FS used from eBay. He played that game a lot, and became quite the expert at only age 3. 

We also ended up buying another SP, two more copies of ALttP/FS, and some more GameLink cables so we could finally play Four Swords with four players. I had the original GBA and wormlight, Avery and Logan each had an SP, and my daughter or wife played on the GB Player. We also used this setup to play The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures, in which we played the game on our Wii and had to drag the TV/GameCube downstairs to be the fourth GBA.

Logan ended up breaking his SP when he dropped it onto a hard floor (which cracked the screen), so we had to get a replacement. It was blue, and to be unique I swapped some shell pieces with his old red one so his is now multi-colored. We also bought him Link’s Awakening DX, Oracle of Ages, and the GBA re-releases of Zelda 1 and Zelda 2 for Christmas. Most of the time when I bought an SP used, it came with random GB, GBC, and GBA games. In this way we ended up with a bunch of games we never intended to own. However, they ended up being interesting in the context that I can show my kids the difference between regular GB games, GBC games, black-cartridge games, Super GB enhanced games, and GBA games and how they all work differently in the various configurations. Later we would add Mario Kart Super Circuit and Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2 to Logan's collection when we bought some used games from the same card shop I used to frequent as a teen. Some of the other games we ended up with from eBay purchases are Advance Wars, a Spongebob game, Sims 2 Pets, and the Cheetah Girls.

I attempted modding the orignal GBA with LEDs using some instructions I found online, but was unsuccessful. However, in early 2018 I was able to get a whole backlit modding kit from eBay and successfully modded it, so now it has a nice backlit screen. The only gripe I have with it is that I couldn't screw the outer shell back together all the way because it flexes the motherboard (or something) enough to make it not turn on. Also, some of the screen elements leave "ghosts" for a few seconds once they're scrolled offscreen. Although I'm happy with the results, I'll just stick with the DS Lite for any GBA games unless they require a Gamelink cable. 

The Game Boy Advance

After dominating the handheld market since 1989, Nintendo finally released a major upgrade to their flagship portable system in 2001. It is true that there had been a couple of small updates in the previous 4 to 5 years, such as the Game Boy Pocket or Game Boy Color, but the design and architecture of the system wasn’t radically changed and had been more or less the same since its release. The Game Boy Advance would be different though.

It had a 32-bit processor, but by this time processors were starting to be made differently, and the "bit count" was less important. What the hardware could do graphically was very comparable to the SNES, and so it represented a major upgrade from the 4 shaded dot-matrix graphics of the original Game Boy. Because of this, many SNES games were ported to the GBA with minor upgrades. Like the SNES, the various sprites had some “special effects” that could be utilized like transparency or rotation/scaling.

The system had a horizontally oriented form factor which made it easier to hold. It had the same buttons as the previous system (B, A, Start, Select), but with the addition of L and R shoulder buttons. It had a jack for a GameLink cable on the top, and the headphone jack, volume dial, and power switch on the bottom.

Like the older GB, it had only one speaker, but would put out stereo when using headphones. It used only 2 AA batteries and had around a 30 hour life. While the sound and music were much better than the original GB, there was a certain, “poppy-ness” to it, almost similar to the Virtual Boy. The GBA had a green light indicating power that would turn red when the batteries were nearing the end of their life.

Continuing with the tradition started on the GBC and the later run of N64 consoles, the GBA was available in multiple colors, including purple, black, white, orange, and clear blue. Later on, more colors and special editions would also be sold.

A major selling point was that it was backwards compatible with every GB and GBC game made up until that point. When it detected a GBC or GB game, it booted up in GBC mode, allowing the player to colorize older games in the same way using the same palettes. When an original GB or GBC game was turned on, the familiar “ding” played, but the word “Game Boy” was displayed in color, during which players could select which palette they wanted to use. But a newer tone with an animated logo was displayed when a GBA game was played. GBA games were actually smaller than the older games and fit perfectly in the GBA, but older games would stick out above the top of the system. It had a wider screen, allowing for more things to be seen at once. When playing an older game, the L and R buttons served to toggle the screen between its original resolution with black bars on the sides, or to stretch the picture.

While the original Game Boy allowed 2 players through the use of a GameLink cable (and more with an additional adapter), the GBA could support 4-player games using 3 cables because each one had a connection point in the middle of the cable allowing another player to link in. Some games also supported download play, meaning that only one copy of the game was required, slightly reducing the amount of equipment needed to play 2-player. 

Later when the GameCube would be released, the use of a different cable allowed players to connect the GBA to the GC and unlock certain features. For example, a GBA with Metroid Fusion hooked up to a GC with Metroid Prime unlocked a special gallery, the Fusion Suit, and a hidden copy of the original Metroid. On The Wind Waker, hooking up a GBA with no cartridge to the GC let a second player assist Link as Tingle. Playing the GBA version of Splinter Cell hooked up to the GC version equipped the player with some additional weapons while the GBA player could scout out locations in advance to warn the other player of enemies. Finally, one of the most promoted uses was The Legend of Zelda: Four Sword Adventures, where the main game took place on screen, but when players went into a house or cave, the action took place on the individual GBA's screen. Essentially, the GBA served as a controller that happened to have its own screen when needed.

It seemed like the GBA to GC connection was emphasized heavily by Nintendo, more so than the N64/GB connection had been. But it would continue the tradition of having a handheld and a console connect together.

The only major criticism of the GBA was the lack of a lit screen. It still required a fairly bright room or being outside to play. Accessories like the Worm Light made things a little better, but would often leave a glare on the screen. Nintendo released a solution in the form of the Game Boy Advance SP.

The SP was a major redesign for the GBA, as it now had a clam shell style case that could be opened and closed via a hinge. The major selling feature was that it had a front-lit screen that could be toggled on and off with a new button. The folding nature of it also made it smaller and easier to carry around. Later models would replace the front-lit screen with a back-lit screen, reducing washed out colors and glare. Another upgrade was the internal rechargeable Lithium-Ion battery. Instead of using AA batteries, it could just be plugged into the wall outlet to charge up the battery for around 10 hours of play with the light on (more with no light, obviously). In addition to the green/red power light, an orange light indicating the battery charging status was added.

But there were a few sacrifices that were made with the SP. Firstly, the design made the SP just as vertically narrow as the original GB/GBC, so it was harder to hold for those with bigger hands. Second, the headphone jack had to be sacrificed and was actually combined with the AC adapter jack. In order to use headphones, a separate adapter needed to be plugged into the jack, meaning that one could not both use headphones and charge the system simultaneously. Another change was that games would be loaded into the front, and not the rear of the system. 

Like the GBA, the GBA SP also came in many colors. The clam shell design also helped save the screen from being scratched up while in a purse, backpack, or pocket. Some games also started including the “Sleep” feature, where a game can be paused and the system closed while conserving battery power. This was especially useful for games that could only be saved at certain times/places, so the player wouldn’t lose any progress. To wake the system up, usually it required a 3-button combination so that it wouldn’t happen accidentally in a pocket. The design would stay and be improved upon in Nintendo’s next handheld, the Nintendo DS.

All together, over 1,000 games were released for the GBA. It was superseded by the DS only 3 years later, but games continued to be developed for it until 2008 because the DS had GBA backwards compatibility. 





Stop Skeletons from Fighting's video on the GBA/GC Link Cable