11 replies to this topic

[DavidDayton]

Has anyone seen the eReader by Nintendo? It plugs into a Game Boy Advance and lets you scan cards into the device to either see little animations or load games into it. There is an NES emulator program built into the eReader device, so Nintendo has been releasing small packs of 5 cards that can be scanned to unlock some of the first wave of NES games (Ice Climber, Mario Bros., Urban Champion, DK, DK Jr., DK 3, etc.) The only problem is that each e-card can hold about 2.2KB of data, which means you are looking at a limit of about 23KB or so for the total program that could be loaded.

What I am wondering is, given the size of the old 2600 game carts, could someone develop a 2600 emulator for the Game Boy Advance that could fit into 23KB of memory? If you loaded that program into the eReader, the eReader could be set to load up info from additional cards...

Now for the fun part... Atari/Infogrames starts selling collectable card packs of Atari 2600 games. Each pack contains five random cards. Collect the 2-3 cards you need for a game, scan 'em in, and you have a classic Atari game. I think this approach would do better in many ways than the large compilation discs would. It wouldn't be a better value, mind you, but it seems like it would have more mass market appeal.

Oh, and as far as eReader sales go... as weird as it seems, the thing sells like mad. Stores can't keep them on the shelves. Card sets sell out too, with some exceptions (Golf, Tennis).

[Ze_ro]

I don't think the eReader is limited to 23K... I think it's just that no larger games have been made for it. After all, having to scan in 20 cards would royally suck.

Instead of making an emulator, it's more likely that they would just reprogram the games. It would be smaller, and they could probably make them better than the 2600 versions. The arcade version of Defender is about 24K by the way, and could probably be done even smaller for the eReader.

--Zero

[DavidDayton]

I actually meant in the context of 5 cards, but that's what you pointed out.

Even with reprogramming, it would be nifty. The only thing like this Nintendo has done is the release of the promo Air Hockey-e card. A line of "old style" small games sold in packs would be really nifty, I think.

-- David

[Ze_ro]

Actually, I'm completely in favor of this idea... I want to get an eReader, but there's too few games for it to make it worth my while. Donkey Kong and Ice Climbers are good games, but if I could get Defender, Asteroids, Adventure, and so on, that would definitely sell me on it. As far as I know though, no one except Nintendo is making games for this thing. It's a shame too, since it lends itself perfectly to old games like this.

I wonder how hard it would be to reverse engineer the thing enough to be able to print out barcodes that would work with it. For example, take an NES rom, and print it onto a piece of paper and swipe it through the reader to play any NES game you want. If the thing has a whole NES emulator inside it, then this should be possible.

By the way, anyone have any news about the Mario Party game for the eReader? I saw it in Future Shop, but have heard nothing about it. From what I can tell, it's a card game at heart, and you just go to the GBA to play occasional minigames. Is it any good? Is it rubbish? For $15, is it worth it?

--Zero

[shep]

::loves the E-reader::

[justice_is_blind]

The E-reader is as silly as the Virtual Boy.

[MegaManFan]

justice_is_blind said:

The E-reader is as silly as the Virtual Boy.

C'mon, from a devoted Nintendo FanBoy, I can honestly say the e-Reader is NOWHERE near as bad as the Virtual Boy!

[shep]

WHATS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE! TEH VIRTALU BOY OWNZ OVER THE CRAPPY XBOXXX!!!!!!111! Just kidding, but I do like the Virtual Boy.

[liveinabin]

This is a great idea. I'd love to walk round with a deck of classic games
How about an Activision card deck that doubles as a regular pack of cards but with all their 2600 greats on?

[Happy_Dude]

liveinabin said:

This is a great idea.  I'd love to walk round with a deck of classic games  
How about an Activision card deck that doubles as a regular pack of cards but with all their 2600 greats on?

You're a genius I'd buy a pack or 2 (or 10) of those cards

[Paralistalon]

Ze_ro said:

I wonder how hard it would be to reverse engineer the thing enough to be able to print out barcodes that would work with it. For example, take an NES rom, and print it onto a piece of paper and swipe it through the reader to play any NES game you want. If the thing has a whole NES emulator inside it, then this should be possible.

By the way, anyone have any news about the Mario Party game for the eReader? I saw it in Future Shop, but have heard nothing about it. From what I can tell, it's a card game at heart, and you just go to the GBA to play occasional minigames. Is it any good? Is it rubbish? For $15, is it worth it?

--Zero

For the first question, I think you'd have to have access to special micro-printing technology that wouldn't be easy to come by. Nintendo is notorious for their efforts to increase security on their products and I'm sure they made it nearly impossible for the average person to put a game on the e-reader.

For the second question, it's worth it because the more things you have to use with the e-reader, the more you don't feel bad over it's high price and gimmicky nature. Granted, the novelty of being able to put games on cards is cool, but they haven't exploited this to its maximum potential yet. The Pokemon Expedition cards are also neat if you like toying around with the technology.

[gulag picture radio]

The microdot technology ixs somethig that PHilips (if I recall) developed. I dont know if Nintendo's implementation of it is proprietary, so there's some chance it could be licensed by someone to produce games for it. Thoug given Nintnedo's recent focus on publishing more software of their own, it might not be availble to third parties.

I still love the idea. I'm waiting for animal crossing to get cheaper so that I can use the cards to add extra crap to the in game characters.