Wow, no more excuses not to get one now...

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '><b>Link:</b> <a href="http://gamespot.com/gamespot/stories/ne ... l">here</a>

Wow, no more excuses not to get one now...</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>You FUCKERS! It takes you FIFTEEN YEARS to design a fucking internal light, and I just bought my fucking GBA about a month ago.</div>

[Gentz]

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>haha. damn, i'm glad i haven't bought one yet. I may have to pick up one of those.</div>

[Tortolia]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>I'd heard the rumors of a new one. Pretty cool. I'd wait for the price to drop, though - I may still just get the Gamecube adapter instead.</div>

[Julius Seeker]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I'll have to pick one of those up, I really like the look of it. I also like the smaller size which means I will no longer have to worry about carrying my GBA around with me.</div>

[Kupek]

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>I think that's pretty fucked up that they didn't anticipate the need for a backlit screen, and now people have to shell out $100 if they want a real one (not afterburner).</div>

[Julius Seeker]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Now if they included a palm pilot and a cell phone inside of a GBA similar in size to that one, I'd be all set! That's probably something they'll have planned for the future though.</div>

[Eric]

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>Hehe, I'll get one on looks alone, I'm so spoiled.</div>

[Julius Seeker]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I'm not going to say I'm spoiled, but I would get it on looks alone as well =P</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Like i've said MANY times, it has nothing to do with anticipation of the need for one. It ALL had to do with the business model. The other portables in the past got wasted 'cause they didn't have a good business model with their backlit systems...</div>

[Julius Seeker]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>My Gamegear doubles as a TV with 4 channels =P</div>

[Judgment 1999]

<div style='font: 14pt ; text-align: left; '>I'll trade in my current GBA system and pick one of those up. 'Bout time they put a backlight into the darn thing. :)</div>

[Kupek]

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Eh? Nintendo make a conscious choice: no backlit to reduce battery usage and maybe production cost. It was a poor choice, and I think they realized it.</div>

[Kupek]

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>The afterburner may work perfectly, but you shouldn't have to mod your system for it to be playable in normal lighting conditions.</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>They didn't do it because:

1) battery life of at least 10 hours without 10 batteries wasn't a possibility 'til recently. They did a study a long time ago (was mentioned online a while back) and found that battery life was one of the major deciding factors of customer satisfaction on a handheld. That's why the GB survived but WAAAAY superior systems like the Turbo Express and Nomad died

2) the magic price point is $100 US, and they couldn't make the margins they wanted and include a backlight 'til very recently. It's purely a business model decision and Nintendo is very anal about that, as they should be. They're not in the business of losing money on hardware, particularly in the handheld market where there's no competition. It hurt them in the console market, but waiting won't even affect them in the handheld one, as the sales figures of the little system indicate.

Those are the main reasons, which you agreed on. It's not that they didn't know or didn't want one, it just didn't fit the business model with the technology at the time. That changed only very recently. And it wasn't a poor choice, it's not like their sales for the handheld is bad.....only the PS2 sells better. If they had competition, they woulda done it years ago...</div>

[Julius Seeker]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>GBA works fine in normal lighting conditions even without it. If the lack of a light was anything more than a minor problem, 30 million GBA's would not have sold.</div>

[Kupek]

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>I've used it - I had a problem with getting it at the correct angle so I could see properly. I actually see what Zeus is saying. Theirs is the only handheld in the market - there's no alternative. Thirty million sold means people want to play the games in spite of the system's faults.</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>Seeker, you're a fucking idiot. Can you tell me why you risked pouring molten metal into your GBA? Maybe it was to have better lighting...in the FUCKING DAYTIME?!</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>No, they got wasted because Nintendo dominated the market. People don't give a shit about anything but the games when buying a portable, but the lighting situation has been a big stab in the back for GBA owners.</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>Your quoting the Turbo Express? Jesus...the TG16 didn't even last two years. If Sony released a handheld, they would fucking blast Nintendo back into the stone age.</div>