Game Boy Advance

The Game Boy Advance was developed under the project codename "Atlantis" within Nintendo's hardware development division. Following the extraordinary commercial success of the original Game Boy and Game Boy Color, Nintendo sought to create a successor that would deliver a generational leap in portable gaming capability while maintaining the battery life and affordability that had defined the Game Boy brand.

The central processing unit chosen for the GBA was the ARM7TDMI, a 32-bit RISC processor running at 16.78 MHz. This was a significant architectural departure from the Z80-derived processors used in previous Game Boys, representing Nintendo's adoption of the ARM architecture that would continue through the DS and 3DS. The ARM7TDMI offered an excellent balance of performance per watt, delivering processing power roughly comparable to the Super Nintendo while operating within the power constraints of a portable device. The GBA also retained a Sharp SM83 CPU core (similar to the original Game Boy's processor) for backward compatibility with the entire Game Boy and Game Boy Color library.

The graphics hardware could display 240x160 pixels in up to 32,768 colors simultaneously, with support for hardware-accelerated rotation, scaling, and alpha blending. The system featured multiple background layers with Mode 7-style rotation and scaling capabilities, 128 simultaneous hardware sprites, and a sophisticated DMA controller for efficient memory operations. With 256 KB of external work RAM, 32 KB of internal work RAM, and 96 KB of VRAM, the GBA provided developers with substantially more resources than any previous handheld.

The audio system provided six channels: four legacy channels compatible with Game Boy sound hardware and two direct sound channels capable of playing PCM audio. This combination allowed GBA games to feature CD-quality sampled sound effects and music while maintaining compatibility with the extensive Game Boy library.

The original GBA hardware's most controversial design decision was its display. Nintendo chose a 2.9-inch reflective TFT LCD with no integrated light source. In well-lit environments, the screen displayed vivid, colorful graphics, but in dim lighting conditions (a common scenario for portable gaming), the screen became nearly impossible to see. This decision was driven by the same battery-life-first philosophy that had guided the original Game Boy, but consumer expectations had evolved significantly since 1989, and the lack of illumination was widely viewed as a serious design flaw.

Nintendo addressed the screen issue decisively with the Game Boy Advance SP redesign. The SP's development was led with a focus on three improvements: integrated illumination, rechargeable power, and a more pocketable form factor. The clamshell design protected the screen when not in use, the frontlight (later replaced with a true backlight in the AGS-101 revision) made the screen visible in any lighting condition, and the built-in lithium-ion battery eliminated the ongoing cost of disposable batteries. The SP's design was a commercial triumph, reinvigorating GBA hardware sales and becoming the preferred way to experience the platform.

The GBA-GameCube connectivity feature was championed by Shigeru Miyamoto, who envisioned asymmetric multiplayer experiences where each player had access to different information on their personal screen. The technical implementation required a custom cable that connected the GBA's link port to a GameCube controller port, with the GameCube streaming data to the GBA's display. While creative in concept, the requirement that each participating player own both a GBA and a link cable limited adoption. Nevertheless, the concept directly influenced the design philosophy of the Nintendo DS, whose dual screens internalized the same asymmetric information display concept without requiring additional hardware.