Rhindle The Red Posted February 19, 2003 Share Posted February 19, 2003 http://pocket.ign.com/articles/386/386538p1.html And so the last child of the late, great Gunpei Yokoi begins its slow trot into the sunset...... Then one day it could all be gone, in one big puff of smoke and ball of fire. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Invader_dag Posted February 19, 2003 Share Posted February 19, 2003 that's kinda sad. I wished they had brought it over seas before this Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MegaManFan Posted February 19, 2003 Share Posted February 19, 2003 Even though it's probably all in Japanese, I'd still like to pick one up and a copy of their enhanced Final Fantasy 1-3 re-release. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atariman Posted February 19, 2003 Share Posted February 19, 2003 It said the wonderswan was designed by the man who made the original gameboy, but I thought that guy had died in a car wreck at one point or something like that. Am I right? Wasn't it the guy that also designed the Virtual Boy? As for the reduction in production, I was actually surprised to hear that they STILL WERE in production. I thought they had suffered the fate of the Neo Geo Pocket Color a long time ago... Hmm.. and to think I bid on one on Ebay at one time with this thought in mind... Interesting... I agree. I wish they had sold the Wonderswan in the U.S., also. It would be nice to have some other handheld other than the gameboy... Too bad I didn't know the Neo Geo Pocket Color existed when it was still out in stores. Not that I actually had the money anyway... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kid Fenris Posted February 19, 2003 Share Posted February 19, 2003 After the Neo-Geo Pocket Color's swift fall, it's no wonder that Bandai never released the WonderSwan over here. The language barrier is only a problem on the RPGs, though, and I'd like to get a system, if only for Guilty Gear Petit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhindle The Red Posted February 19, 2003 Author Share Posted February 19, 2003 It said the wonderswan was designed by the man who made the original gameboy, but I thought that guy had died in a car wreck at one point or something like that. Am I right? Wasn't it the guy that also designed the Virtual Boy? Gunpei Yokoi joined Nintendo in the 1960's, when it was still mainly a hanafuda game card manufacturer. He spearheaded a new toy division that led Nintendo in a new direction; including interactive toys, target shooting games, etc. With the dawn of the video game, he became the main creative guy at Nintendo for hardware (kind of like Miyamoto is now for software). He designed the original Game & Watches, the Famicom/NES controllers, the original Game Boy & Game Boy Pocket and, yes, the Virtual Boy. He wasn't just about hardware, though. As leader of Nintendo original #1 games design team (Miyamoto's team was #2 or #3), he was behind a number of games series including Kid Icarus, Mother (Eathbound) and Metroid. After the dismal failure of the Virtual Boy, Yokoi left Nintendo. All reports indicate that he was (perhaps surprisingly) not forced out. Nintendo head Hiroshi Yamauchi felt a great debt to Yokoi and did not want him to leave. Yokoi, however, felt disgraced and wanted to start over somewhere else. He took up with Bandai, where he created the WonderSwan (so named because it was Yokoi's "black & white wonder"). I'm not sure if he lived to see its release. He was posthumously honored by Bandai with the release of a nifty little WonderSwan puzzle game called Gun Pey. While driving one day, Yokoi passed a fender bender and stopped his car to see if he could help. When he got out of his car he was struck and killed by an oncoming vehicle. A terrible way to lose one of the little known, but true pioneers of videogaming. Greater love hath no man, than to lay down his life for another. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdstuff64 Posted February 19, 2003 Share Posted February 19, 2003 I love my Wonderswan,time to stock up on games for it... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ze_ro Posted February 20, 2003 Share Posted February 20, 2003 Good riddance. Yet another company has realized that you can't beat Nintendo. The Big N owns the handheld market, and will feed you your own ass if you even try to cross them. Not only that, but they'll do it nice and slow so it looks like they have competition (Gotta avoid those monopoly lawsuits, right?). Today it's Bandai, tomorrow it's Nokia.... --Zero Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikebossy Posted February 20, 2003 Share Posted February 20, 2003 I just put a brand new WonderSwan Final Fantasy II Color Console Boxset with Premium Strap up on e-bay this weekend. Check it out, it goes off Saturday and doesn't have any bids yet. It's pretty sweet, it comes with the game (FF2) FF2 color console, and a really nice strap that looks more like a bracelet. I'd rather someone from here wound up with it anyway. http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?View...5&since=-1&rd=1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raindog Posted February 20, 2003 Share Posted February 20, 2003 There are still a couple niche alternatives to the GBA for sale in Asia. None is a serious competitor but none were ever meant to be. Two that I've actually contemplated buying are the GP32 and the Game Axe. The GP32 is a pretty generic looking GBA/Lynx type machine, except it has a 133MHz processor (8 or 9 times faster than the GBA) and takes software on standard SmartMedia cards - it's intended as an open-ended gaming platform, and is priced accordingly ($150ish, which is actually fairly low for the hardware, I think.) Wireless multiplayer, 8MB of RAM, stereo speakers, built-in TV-out port (though I guess you need an adaptor), it's technically superior in every way to the GBA but doesn't stand a chance once you start talking marketing, and Game Park knows it. The original games are weird Korean stuff, heavy on the incomprehensible RPG's if I remember right, but the whole point of the system is the emulators - as far as I know, it's the cheapest way to play MAME on the go for example. It even plays DIVX and MPG movies. If someone ever gets a GBA emulator up and running on it I'd probably switch without a second thought - they have NES, SNES and GB/GBC already so it could be possible. Certainly it's the most promising looking possibility for an Atari emulator with that much processor speed and a higher resolution screen than the GBA. The damn thing even has a USB port, though I don't know if anyone's done anything that uses it yet. Oh, and to pull things back on topic briefly, it even emulates the Wonderswan The GameAxe is nothing but a Famicom (Japanese NES) clone with a 4" screen built in, packed into a case only a litle clumsier looking than the Sega Nomad and with a NES adapter in the box so you can use all your NES games onit. But then I realized I have a GBA with a flash card, and the GBA is emulating the NES pretty well these days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisbid Posted February 20, 2003 Share Posted February 20, 2003 do not get a game axe, the "adapter" they include is just a nake circuit board. the NES game wont directly attatch to anything and just hangs there, and the game will crash. The screen is also pretty blurry, and the back light is pretty poor. I would only recommend one if you have a healthy collection of famicom games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MegaManFan Posted February 20, 2003 Share Posted February 20, 2003 I just put a brand new WonderSwan Final Fantasy II Color Console Boxset with Premium Strap up on e-bay this weekend. Check it out, it goes off Saturday and doesn't have any bids yet. It's pretty sweet, it comes with the game (FF2) FF2 color console, and a really nice strap that looks more like a bracelet. I'd rather someone from here wound up with it anyway.http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?View...5&since=-1&rd=1 I'm keeping an eye on it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikebossy Posted February 21, 2003 Share Posted February 21, 2003 I just put some more really cool stuff up with low reserves, some of the good stuff doesn't have any bids yet either, if you win something, definitely let me know you're from here. AtariAge is like a VIP card. http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?View...5&since=-1&rd=1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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