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Handhelds Hardware

MP3 for Gameboy 163

Posted by timothy from the sewing-and-music-what's-next dept.
sluggo140 writes: "Cnet has an article regarding a new startup called SongPro that is devloping an add-on for Gameboy and Gameboy Advance. The add-on will play various music formats including MP3."
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MP3 for Gameboy More

MP3 for Gameboy

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  • sounds like that rubber-band powered jet plane.. that also had jet engines.
    • Uhmm... Yeah. The Gamebody has a Z80 clone processor, IIRC. Here are some specs I dug up:


      CPU: 8-bit (Similar to the Z80 processor.)
      Main RAM: 8K Byte
      Video RAM: 8K Byte
      Screen Size 2.6"
      Resolution: 160x144 (20x18 tiles)
      Max # of sprites: 40
      Max # sprites/line: 10
      Max sprite size: 8x16
      Min sprite size: 8x8
      Clock Speed: 4.194304 MHz (4.295454 MHz for Super GB)
      Horiz Sync: 9198 KHz (9420 KHz for Super GB)
      Vert Sync: 59.73 Hz (61.17 Hz for Super GB)
      Sound: 4 channels with stereo sound
      Power: DC6V 0.7W (DC3V 0.7W for GB Pocket)

      So, basically, any mp3 player for gameboy will be doing all the processing, storage, and DSP *in the cartridge* while using the Gameboy's integrated controls and speakers for playback.

  • DRM: Permission denied (Score:5, Funny)

    by qwerpoiu ( 532823 ) on Tuesday July 02, 2002 @05:42PM (#3810688)
    To play this MP3, you must complete Bonza Land level 3 or get 350 gold coins.
  • Besides playing songs in the standard MP3 and Windows Media Audio formats, the SongPro device will also play a proprietary SongPro Audio, or SPA, format that will use the Game Boy's screen to display lyrics and pictures.

    I see two and a half proprietary file formats in there and zero non-proprietary (read: Ogg Vorbis) formats there. Not to carp on xiph.org or any other developers or marketers for Ogg Vorbis, but this is the kind of platform and opportunity that could help to make a free-as-in-beer, open source audio codec like Ogg Vorbis a player in the portable audio world.

    Hey, it's not like it isn't possible. This thing can do multiple file formats. Why not another with Ogg Vorbis?

    • The average Joe on the street probably doesn't even know what Ogg is, and probably couldn't care less if their GB plays it or not.

      That said, is their even a chip capable of decoding Ogg? Without hardware support, it seems unlikely devices like this will ever support Ogg. Having a general purpose processor with a software decoder is just too expensive, and has too much overhead to be worth doing within the tight resources of handhelds.
    • it doesn't have an FPU. and the reference implimentation requires one. and since there's nothing out there specwise other than the reference implimentation, that pretty much does it.
    • Here is what I use, to make replying to these MP3 stories more efficient.

      #!/usr/bin/tcsh
      while (1)
      do
      text =`lynx -source 'http://www.slashdot.org/'`
      SEARCH = `awk '{if (index($0,"MP3")) {print "BINGO"}}'`
      if (${SEARCH}==BINGO)
      ./repost_Ogg_Vorbis_commen t.sh
      endif
      done

  • Not the first time (Score:5, Interesting)

    by boa13 ( 548222 ) on Tuesday July 02, 2002 @05:44PM (#3810697) Homepage Journal
    ... such announces are made. I remember such an product being announced [ngpczone.com] for the Neogeo Pocket Color. Does anybody know if the maker of this one has a significant financial backing? Do they have a chance of making a well-distributed product, or will this just be offered on some catalogs and bought by geeks?
    • Do they have a chance of making a well-distributed product, or will this just be offered on some catalogs and bought by geeks?

      Of course this will probably remain more of a tech-toy than a mass-market attactor, but if it gets kids (and who else is going to use a GBA as an MP3 player rather than just buying the real deal), into working with technology and specifically computing, BOOH YAH!

      I have a kid sister, who has consistently anoyed me for the past 12 years or so with requests for assistance with one PC issue or another. Yesterday I went back to the folks place for a visit and found her sitting at a table playing with those new cell-phone mods. Totally geeked out, little screwdrivers all around, cell bits scatered over about a square meter of table space. Suddenly my heart swelled with joy, and I forgot how much I hated nokia for all those stupid little mods.. they get people teched out. Anything, Everything, that introduces folk young and old to the idea that it is Okay to go into the gutts of their machine and muck around, is better for the tech world in the long run.

      Though maybe not for geek salaries.. hmmm

      -GiH
      This is your mind, This is your mind roasting on the back of a Celeron overclocked to 1.3 gigahertz. Any Questions?
    • It's not the first time on Gameboy, either. There's been an mp3 player available for the gameboy for about THREE YEARS now. =) The first thing I found on Google about it was an news article from PR Web about how Nintendo and the company that made it settled some lawsuit 2 years ago: SongBoy Lawsuit [prweb.com]
    • The SongPro for GameBoy has been around since late 2000. It was originally called the SongBoy, but Nintendo sued for trademark infringement and they changed the name.

      This is the same company, and pretty much the same product, only in a version for the GameBoy Advance. I would expect to see similiar market penetration for the GBA model as there was for the original. Which was negligible, in case everyone's lack of knowledge of the earlier product hasn't made that point.

  • Interesting, but... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Nogami_Saeko ( 466595 ) on Tuesday July 02, 2002 @05:44PM (#3810699)
    It's going to do the same thing as MP3 players for Palm units I'd imagine. All the processing and hardware will be offboard and the only thing the gameboy will provide is the interface.

    I can't see that it's any great advantage over a standalone MP3 player - the majority of the price point of portable players seems to be the amount of memory included which is hard to work around, no matter which platform you're on.

    Small standalone players like the Samsung YEPP are tiny, can run for hours on one AAA battery, and are slowly decreasing in price.
    • get a rio cd/mp3 player... you get 700 megs of mp3 OR wma OR wav files... its under $100 and has 2 mins anti-skip and a nice lcd to display the id3 tags... if 700 megs isn't enough memory for you then you need to shell out hte cash for an iPod...
      • If you don't mind the space, the Volt is expandable in 700MB units for about 15 cents a piece. I'll take my 70 GB for fifteen bucks rather than shell out the cash for an iPod. If you're looking for a good player, go for the Volt 250. Flash upgradeable, 4 line display, and 8 minutes of skip protection.
        • Time for a plug: The AVC Soul [soulplayer.com] players are both great. Their Riovolt-alike (I think it actually came first, though) is a bit cheaper than Rio's player, and the Soul II is made of pure amazingness in a metal and plastic frame. It's quite literally impossible to make the thing skip.. At least through beating on it and jumping on a trampoline (both tested by me)

          Oh, and the Soul II can be bought [mp3playerstore.com] for $99 USD and will read MP3 and WMA (possibly upgradeable for more) off of any CD format you throw at it.

          No, I only wish I was paid for this endorsement.
  • Richmond said the screen will also be used for advertising, meaning that some content could actually be offered with a free, ad-supported model.

    Aside from that, considering the installed base of Gameboy owners and their relative age category(ies), I wonder if this will revive the desire to merge computer graphics and digital audio and bring it to mass-distribution like was tried so many years ago with CD+G.

    Perhaps it will also mean "albums" paired with games.

    Sounds kinda neat. But the "screen for advertising" angle makes me wonder about exploitation. The latest Korn and Doritos Munching Game anyone?
    • "Sounds kinda neat. But the "screen for advertising" angle makes me wonder about exploitation. The latest Korn and Doritos Munching Game anyone?"

      Yeah, but you got the game name wrong. It will be called Korn-nuts.

  • Well... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Arminius ( 84868 )
    As long as it doesn't display ads on my own music I rip, I think this is a very good idea. A way to get free music to listen to while "paying" for it at the same time. Just hope that format is of decent quality.

  • Whence the content? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by casio282 ( 468834 ) on Tuesday July 02, 2002 @05:47PM (#3810722) Homepage
    It does say there's a USB interface for file transfer, but also mentions in the "about the company" [songpro.com] section that...

    ...users will have access to thousands of SongPro enhanced files on our website, partner sites, and Digital Docking Stations. Nintendo® Game Boy® users will be able to download multimedia content to their SongPro(TM) players from stations located in airports, retail stores, entertainment centers, hotels, and other locations...

    Has anyone seen any of these reputed SongPro stations?

  • MP3 under GameBoy emulator (Score:5, Funny)

    by rickthewizkid ( 536429 ) on Tuesday July 02, 2002 @05:48PM (#3810738)
    Hmm...

    Run this under GameBoy Advance - then run the Gameboy Advance Emulator under Windows - then run Windows under VMWare - hmmm......

    It's a hall of mirrors!! :)

    -Rick

    • then run the Gameboy Advance Emulator under Windows [and run that under several extra layers of emulation]

      A video game emulator has to emulate cartridge hardware such as mappers on NES, superfx/sa1/dsp on Super NES, etc. The SongPro cartridge contains an MP3 decoder. If a GBA emulator were to emulate SongPro, it would probably just embed Windows Media Player or something.

    • and the end result: 24/96 high fidelity audio! wow.
  • What is the advantage to getting one of these over a standalone player? The thing protrudes from the Gameboy, so size payoff is minimal. Cost may be a slight payoff, but what kind of battery power does this suck from your gameboy? I think one interested in the world of MP3s would be better off investing into getting a large HD-based player such as the iPod or Archos. I have an Archos, and it's great! Plus the new opensource firmware for it (Rockbox [bjorn.haxx.se]) is coming along quite nicely.
    • The only advantage I can think of is the fact that you don't have to use a seperate mp3 player if you want to play a video game and listen to music at the same time. Oh wait....
    • From what I remember last time I was looking at their site they have two basic models. They have a "Pro" which has a built-in display and a "Basic"
      which has no display, only standard control (play, stop pause, advance, etc).
      I believe that both types were perfectly usable without connecting them to a Gameboy, they just gained functionality when connected. Especially the "Basic" version. They have built in headphone jacks/volume controls so they play completely independantly from the Gameboy.

  • Yuck. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by CaffeineAddict2001 ( 518485 ) on Tuesday July 02, 2002 @05:48PM (#3810740)
    First you convert music to digital information that is an approximation of the original sound and you say "No, it's still good!" Then compress and stream the music and it's like "No, it's still good!" Now you are playing Digital Compressed Music through Gameboy speakers? What's the point? This is like taking a painting and then running a guassian blur filter on it.
    • how do you know the add-on doesn't impliment it's own headphone out with 16-bit capability?

      that's what that visor springboard module did...
      • The GBA's headphone out is full stereo and sounds a hell of a lot better than the little tinny built in speaker. I wouldn't be surprised if the audio chip could handle a 16 bit stream but it only sounded worth a damn on the headphone jack.

    • Re:Yuck. (Score:5, Funny)

      by T3kno ( 51315 ) on Tuesday July 02, 2002 @06:07PM (#3810889) Homepage
      First you take five guys who can't sing, and have them sing a song by someone who cant write. Then you pass it through thousands of digital filters, mixers and other doohickey whatsits and arive at something that someone with a gameboy would call music. It really doesn't matter that it's being played out of a speaker the size of a quarter with a range of about 12Hz, it's not music in the first place. Your anology should read "This is like taking a polaroid of a painting, photocopying it onto thermal fax paper , and then running a guassian blur filter on it." You can't call velveeta food.
    • Digital reproductions of an analog signal are just as accurate as analog reproductions for the purposes of music playback. The only limiting factor is the playback device (as in, a set of speakers instead of a piano)
      The proof for this is based on Nyquist's Theorem [bldrdoc.gov], which states that if you sample an analog signal at a rate twice as high as the highest frequency in the signal. Since humans can't hear signals higher than about 20Khz, a sample rate of 44.1Khz (sound familiar?) will produce a digital signal that no human will be able to distingush from it's analog contemporary.
      Now, using lossy compression like MP3 WILL cause you to lose singnal, but anyone who says they can tell the difference between analog and digital over the same equipment (amp, speakers, etc...) is full of crap.
      As to listing to music over game-boy speakers, you could just as easily shove a screwdriver in your eye, but this begs the question...WHY?!?!?
      • "The proof for this is based on Nyquist's Theorem [bldrdoc.gov], which states that if you sample an analog signal at a rate twice as high as the highest frequency in the signal." (AND???)

        Whoops! forgot the last half of the theorm, which is:

        you can then reproduce it without error.
      • it has an audio out jack... so you plug this into your home entertainment system and listen over those speakers.

    • Re:Yuck. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by silvaran ( 214334 ) on Tuesday July 02, 2002 @06:57PM (#3811173)
      You're thinking the iPAQ with its little speaker inside the directional pad. Oh, wait, the iPAQ has a headphone out. Hmm... if only the GB had a headphone jack... oh wait, it does! Hmm... if only it had 16-bit sound. Well, the GBA does. So that's most of the problem solved.

      The only sound quality problem I see here is with the original game boy and game boy color, assuming they implement their MP3 player for it. I see mention of the game boy color, but may have overlooked any mention of the MP3 device supporting it (I'm not sure if it mentions it). In any case, since the GBA can play everything back to the original game boy games, and since it's more attractive, lighter (than the older, larger ones) and is becoming fairly cheap, I can't see there being as much of a market for it. I see the GBA one taking a chunk, but not so much the GBC and original GB. My guess is if anyone's going to go out and buy an MP3 player, or even an MP3 add-on, they'll likely buy a full-fledged player, or they'll already have a GBA.
      • if only it had 16-bit sound. Well, the GBA does.
        since when? The DirectSound channels in the GBA [there are two] are 8-bits PCM each and run at either clock or a divisor of clock [e.g. anything that divides 2^24 Hz is fairly easy to approximate but anything >20khz is a bad idea].

        Actually a while back I proposed a related mod to the GBA which was a cart-pass-through. The cart would be like an FX chip [except that it would work with all games and not be built into one cart]. Things like PCM sound take considerable time on a GBA so offloading it to another unit would be a great idea. [could also offload some GFX too]

        Tom
    • modded up because he said guassian...

      people, it doesn't play through the speakers, it does all the processing on-board, and has its own audio out jack.
    • Actually, a Gaussian blur is a very good thing to do if the DAC's maximum sample rate happens to be lower than the original sample rate of your music =)...
  • over a 1" speaker? HA! That's like saying you can play an Xbox game on an Atari without having to have an adapter for the CD!

    "SongPro(TM) has developed a multimedia player plug-in module that turns pocket entertainment systems into powerful multimedia and digital music players." -- HA!

    How is a GB possiblly going to play an MP3, I doubt it could go fast enough considering the 10mhz processor in a TI-89 is faster then the proc in the GBA, not to mention that the maximum sound thuroughput it can do is the equivilent of playing System of a Down's Toxcisity on a 16 bit-rate mp3!

    • over a 1" speaker? HA! That's like saying you can play an Xbox game on an Atari without having to have an adapter for the CD!


      I would think that you would use the headphone jack to listen.

    • I doubt it could go fast enough considering the 10mhz processor in a TI-89 is faster then the proc in the GBA

      Cycle for cycle, between ARM7TDMI and Motorola 68000, what's faster? The GBA has a 16 MHz ARM7TDMI processor (32-bit internal, 16-bit external, fast multiply, 32 KB of fast 32-bit memory). The TI-89 has a 10 MHz 68000 processor (32-bit internal, 16-bit external).

  • Processing power (Score:5, Informative)

    by gpinzone ( 531794 ) on Tuesday July 02, 2002 @05:50PM (#3810752) Homepage Journal
    There's no way a GameBoy has the processing power to decode MP3s natively. This thing has got to be an Rio with a GameBoy program to display the status on the GameBoy rather than have it's own LCD.

    Whoopdie dooo.

    Here's a better option:

    Amazon has the SP90 player at $85 - $5 coupon CHNKBKAMZNLT - $20 rebate [amazon.com] = $60 shipped. There's a simple way to hack [geocities.com] it and upgrade the firmware.

    • Plays standard audio CDs as well as MP3 + WMA
    • Electronic shock protection up to 120 seconds
    • Supports ID3 tags and audio CD title display (CD Text)
  • I was in Fry's Electronics and I saw that they have a radio addon for the GBA. It plugs into the device and lets you play the radio while the game is playing and uses the battery of the GBA. Neat, but not that amazing. But unlike this, you can pick it up at Fry's tonight!

  • GB Karaoke? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gatekeep ( 122108 ) on Tuesday July 02, 2002 @05:51PM (#3810761)
    This seems to me to have the potential to be HUGE in Japan. From what they're saying it'll allow the ability to display lyrics on screen, presumably in synch with the music. From what I've read, the Japanese are nuts about Karaoke, and also about Gameboys. There could be a huge market for this thing over there, probably less so in the US.

    That said, how does one go about loading the songs on the unit, and what will it's capacity be? Those are the key things I consider in a portable MP3 player. So far, I've found nothing rivaling the iPod (pause for Nomad and Rio users to chime in). At the $99 price point I'm guessing there's not much storage there.
    • It has two flashcard slots (cards sold seperately) and supports upto 512 megs. Onboard, it comes with 32 megs of memory out of the box.

      You can buy a Rio that can put out much better sound than a GBA for a lot less than 100 bucks, and it will fit in your pocket or on your belt a lot better. (:

  • ipod.. (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by hexdcml ( 553714 )
    darn.. and to think I just bought the iPod. Ohh.. speaking of games.. that 'Breakout' style game is pretty neat. If memory serves correctly.. I think you need to go to the 'ABOUT' and hold down Play to get the game.

    I did have an idea once of getting eBooks on gameboys. That would be neat for people who can't afford PDA's and convinent - cartridge based.

    BTW, the article didn't say whether it was for the original gamboy (b/w screen for adverts and 'slideshows'??) or GBA.


    • I did have an idea once of getting eBooks on gameboys. That would be neat for people who can't afford PDA's and convinent - cartridge based.

      Been done. [mqp.com]
  • everyone together now "i won't buy it, it doesn't play/support ogg vorbis"

  • Cost?!?!? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jsimon12 ( 207119 ) on Tuesday July 02, 2002 @05:59PM (#3810820) Homepage
    Am I missing the point? They want 99 bucks for the device, on top of the 99 (or whatever the current price is) for the Game Boy Advance, plus the cost of a memory card. Hmmmm, or I can just spend 99 bucks a get a Rio or other MP3 player that gets better battery mileage then my GBA.

    • But if you already own a GameBoy Advance it's the same price as a Rio, with the advantage that it would only require you to carry around one device to both play GBA games and MP3s/WMAs. Considering all the hardware is on the device including the sound output with it's own dedicated minijack, it could be a good purchase for many people.

    • Yeah,you could do that. But what's the likely hood that someone is going to write a GBA addon for your mp3 player? The point is device convergence. I could carry a calculator, date book, universal remote, gameboy and little-black-book everywhere I go. Or I could carry my Palm Pilot.
  • I'm all for geeking out my GBA (I have it painted black and dark red, with the internal light from Tritonlabs.com, and have a 256 MBit cart filled with NES games to play... but I don't need yet another device to play MP3s. My watch (Casio Wrist Audio Player), my Rio 300, portable MP3-CD player, and MP3 CD car stereo do that just fine. This device has very little use to me.

    The most expensive part of it's manufacture will be the memory cards that it uses, and the batteries it will chug through. It has a headphone jack, and I *assume* that it will be where the best music quality will be piped through, with it also downgraded out to the system speaker, if you really want to listen to it that way. But if you're going to use headphones anyways, get something that was MADE for playing MP3s, and don't waste the resources of the GBA like that...

    Now what might be cooler is if you could plug a regular game boy cart into the Song Pro, and listen to your favorite music while playing Tactics Ogre or something....
  • To me, this is just another distraction from the once-simple concept of video games. Now we have DVDs, mp3s, real-life effects... besides all those crazy add-ons, aren't there already palm pilots and even mp3 players to do this for us? Why would you buy your Gameboy Advance to listen to mp3s?

    The whole video game industry is becoming too sidetracked, in my opinion.
  • At $99 for the device, it costs more than the Game Boy, plus you still have to buy storage media. If you fill the device's two slots with two 128MB flash memory cards, you've got a bulky $370 MP3 player that requires two to four AA batteries. You may as well buy a smaller, rechargeable 5GB iPod. Plus the iPod isn't going to show you ads.

    Better yet, buy a used Rio-PMP300. It uses the same flash memory cards, runs for days on one AA and is even smaller than the iPod.

  • I am constantly amazed at a few thing about the GBA.

    They are able to keep the price resonable, Less than $70 at Amazon [amazon.com]. (affilate link)

    They are the last of the handheld game systems, and still going strong.
    They pack quite a punch into a unit at that low price. The quality of the screen, etc. is great at such a low price point. Remember all the similar units that used to be around? Gamegear, Lynx (that was nice!), etc. The only one left is the GameBoy line. I remember when the first gameboy I got was $100. Compare capabilities of the origional gamebay compared to the one today. How many other handheld devices have progressed as much, with a price drop no-less. Discmen would have spectrum analyzers on them if they had kept up this pace of advancement.

    The MP3 module is just another thing added to the "wow, that's interesting" things keeping he GameBoy line going. The digital camera is another one.

    Nintendo has come up with the handheld game system lineage that won't die, not that that's a bad thing.

    -Pete

    • Nintendo is the only portable system around because they have a monopoly on it. Period. They have crushed every other attempt at creating a portable gaming platform.
      Neo Geo Pocket ... dead.
      Sega Game gear ... dead.
      Tiger Game.com?... what?
      Lynx? ... oh yeah, like Atari had a chance.
      Nintendo has ruthlessly demolished every other portable gaming platform. Not that this is a bad thing, the system is great and the games are fun. The reason that they have had such a monopoly is the backwards compatability.

      Did you know that the last Zelda game(s) (Oracle and Seasons) had special features that you could only unlock if you play them on GBA? They are both GBColor games, but have special shops that you can only get to on GBA. They are all about encouraging you to upgrade.
      • You forgot NEC's Turbo Express (TG16/PCEngine)... dead. BUT it was one of the most successful early handhelds, especially in japan where its parent system PCEngine enjoyed a majority marketshare in its time.

        I still own a TGExpress and it's great. It's screen clarity, sharpness and brightness has yet to be matched, and the fact that it plays the same games as the system it's based on (like the later, also failed, Sega NOMAD) is really great IMO.

        It had an addon TV Tuner, since MP3's weren't around then. That was a pretty great feature for it's time though.

      • The reason that they have had such a monopoly is the backwards compatability.

        Thats funny, I thought the main reason was that you didn't have to feed it six batterries every two hours...

        Not that the compatibility hurts in any way.
        • I guess that I should fill in my theroy of why the GB is so damn popular.

          The main reason I think is that it has had the best games, year in and year out. Since the original GB, it has always had good games.

          But the second reason that it's so popular is that it doesn't require any batteries compared to any other portable. The new GBA only needs 2 AA. The original GB needed 4 AA. With the newer models of GB only neededing 2 AAA.

          Third reason is that they have kept the price of the platform down, the price of the GB is much lower then many other systems. This help because if you break it (dropping it , spilling something on it,etc...), it's cheap to get another. Which is a big thing, all the other platforms were much more expensive then the GB ever was.

          Lastly, the backwards compatability helps people upgrade. If it weren't for that, I think that the adoption rate for the GBA (and GBC) would be much lower since many people still have an old copy of tetris or mario for the GB they want to play. And don't forget the MASSIVE popularity of the Pokemon games. They still haven't ported over all the Pokemon stuff yet to the GBA. (gotta catch them all, right?)

    • The only one left is the GameBoy line.

      And the Palm line. And the Pocket PC line.

      I remember when the first gameboy I got was $100.

      Actually, the original green-screen Game Boy was $90 in 1990, and it included headphones, batteries, and a genuine TETRIS® game.

      How many other handheld devices have progressed as much, with a price drop no-less.

      Minor nit: GBA came out in 2001, at $90. Batteries, headphones, and Tetris Worlds are $40 extra, for a total of $130 (2001 currency). Consider inflation, and the price of a Game Boy has remained approximately constant. (Your point remains valid.)

  • There was this product awhile back that was kind of an integrated low-level sound synth and sequencer/drum machine for the normal, 4-color gameboy. It was only available in europe, and you could make these REALLY funky tiny little techno tunes on it. Very aphexy. Does anyone remember the name of this, or have a link?

    I would probably have more fun with a sequel to that, than this... but that's just me. That being said, this soundpro thing is an absolutely amazing work of engineering. I mean, LOOK at that thing.. it's tiny, it has a 512 MB upper ceiling, it's mac-compatible, and it's CHEAP. And this part really impresses me:

    Besides playing songs in the standard MP3 and Windows Media Audio formats, the SongPro device will also play a proprietary SongPro Audio, or SPA, format that will use the Game Boy's screen to display lyrics and pictures.

    That makes me happy.. it's always cool when people try to push a device like the Game Boy to the limit of its abilities, rather than just saying "well, we have an mp3 player in it, that's impressive enough on its own, lets stop here". -_-

    I wonder how hard it would be to create a gameboy version of Vib Ribbon [google.com] and then stuff it inside the SongPro II along with the mp3 player? ^_^ Eh, that's probably pushing it.

    That being said, I dunno. If you just want a handheld thingy that plays mp3s and games, i still say-- i've said this on slashdot before-- it might be worth a shot to try to hack the iPod to have a first-gen gameboy emulator on it :) I still have no idea if that's POSSIBLE, but by all accounts the iPod has an ARM chip, a 4-color lcd screen and some buttons. I'm not certain that reverse-engineering the iPod's firmware would be more difficult than designing a system that stores 512 MB of mp3s in the backslot of a Game Boy :) Is this [xiph.org] relevant? Is this [ipodhacks.com]? Anyway, if you could get it to work, that would be way more expensive than gameboy+songpro, but a MUCH nicer form factor than this lumpy songpro thing :)

    Busterman will rise again [discogs.com]
    • There was this product awhile back that was kind of an integrated low-level sound synth and sequencer/drum machine for the normal, 4-color gameboy. It was only available in europe, and you could make these REALLY funky tiny little techno tunes on it. Very aphexy. Does anyone remember the name of this, or have a link?

      I think you're referring to Nanoloop, which can be found here [nanoloop.de].
    • They made an MP3 Player like any Rio or what-have-you except it fits in the back of the gameboy, takes up the gameboy's battery, and listens to the gameboy telling it what buttons were pressed.

      Tim

  • Richmond said the screen will also be used for advertising, meaning that some content could actually be offered with a free, ad-supported model.

    Of course, we'll need a metal retainer to keep the screen situated eight inches away from your eyes while the advertisement is playing, but that's being worked on, and as soon as it's finished, the record companies are ready to sign on!

    Remember, you're not just bound by a contract to watch all advertising... now you'll also be bound by a handy metal strap!

  • My flat mate Matt has allready got the game boy to play Amiga MOD files using only 3% CPU time in this [man.ac.uk] demo.
    He is now working on a MP3 player along with other demos.
    When he makes it ill slap him about and release te code.
    • My flat mate Matt has allready got the game boy to play Amiga MOD files using only 3% CPU time in this [man.ac.uk] demo.

      Wicked, its a shame that most of the really good MODs are over a hundred times bigger than the playwr itsself.

      It'd be really cool if he made a version of EdPlayer [darkheavy.net] for the GBA though. :-)
  • The first thing that caught my eye about this thing was that it uses compact flash cards to store the MP3s. I wonder if the software/hardware can be hacked so that other GB code can be loaded off this.
    In other words, could you load homebrewed code off of this. This would be consideriably cheaper then the propriatary stuff availible at www.lik-sang.com, etc.
    Back when the Bung flash rom kit for GBC came out and was subsiquently banned from sale in the US, a friend and I were discussing what it would take to build a CFM drive adapter for the GBC. This might just be it in disguse.

  • Heh. (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Since it's a company developing this, it's "Wow what a waste of time" and "Why bother?" etc.. but if it were some independent hacker the responses would be "Nice hack!" and "Cool!" etc. etc.

    • Because you can buy CD players that will store alot more music alot cheaper with little proprietary meddling for the same price today.

      As a hack it would be impressivish, now its just a way to suck money from consumers.
  • GameBoy speakers may not be the best audio output device, but this could be a really cool feature for developers to use for in-game audio.
    • GameBoy speakers may not be the best audio output device

      Yeah, sucks they didn't include a headphone jack or anything. ;-)
  • After all, its going to be playing it through those little gameboy speakers. Not exactly stellar sound quality. They were designed to play the "beep beep" noises from video games, not high fedelity music. Its a cool idea, great for those who own a gameboy and don't want to shell out the $$$ for an mp3 player. But I think anyone who is really serious about listening to music on the go will pass this by.
  • Though SongPro will start with only music, Richmond said it could branch out to other kinds of digital media, such as slide shows.

    I don't know how many times I've been listening to some tunes and suddenly had an urgent desire to make a presentation. Who's going to want to do a slide show on a GameBoy anyway? Unless.... the next remake of 'The Little Rascals' has Darla looking up from her game to say, "I know! Let's put on a slide show!"
  • I snagged this off Google Groups.

    Search Result 1
    From: sounni@taggin.com (sounni@taggin.com)
    Subject: SONGPRO.COM INC. OFFERS AN ANTIDOTE TO THE VIOLENT GAMES TARGETED AT CHILDREN
    Newsgroups: alt.music.mp3
    View: (This is the only article in this thread) | Original Format
    Date: 2000/09/21

    SONGPRO.COM INC. OFFERS AN ANTIDOTE TO THE VIOLENT GAMES TARGETED AT
    CHILDREN

    Company Responds to FTC Study By Turning The GAMEBOY Into Portable
    Digital Music Player To Soothe The Savage Gamer

    Palo Alto, CA -- September 14, 2000 -- Songpro.com Inc. has an immediate
    solution for the troubling findings of the Federal Trade Commission
    regarding the marketing of violent video games to children under 17.
    Plugging in the Songpro Jr. digital music player into a Gameboy portable
    gaming unit instantly creates a tool to expose the gaming community of
    all ages to the joys of music. In addition to the use of stereo sound,
    the Songpro Jr. will also utilize the screen to add lyrics, cartoons, or
    any picture to the experience. Suddenly the user has an engaging
    alternative to the aggression and violence present in so many of the
    video games today.

    "We believe that this is a promising solution for parents wishing to
    avoid today's exposure to violence through an entertainment tool that's
    loved by kids," explained Mark Bush, SongBoy.com's CMO. "One of the most
    important ways to address the FTC finding is to provide the entertainment
    industry and parents alike with an alternative to the overwhelming
    violent material being marketed to children." The FTC study found 70
    percent of all "Mature" rated games were being marketed to children under
    17.

    There is no other portable digital music player on the market that
    utilizes the visual portion of the multimedia experience. One quickly
    realizes the full potential of graphics when thinking about the
    possibilities of educational software for the mobile community. Over 100
    million Gameboys are currently sitting in school lockers, desk drawers
    and of course in the hands of people around the globe. The simple
    addition of a SongPro Jr. cartridge into these devices will open a world
    of discovery for the user.

    "Creating content which is more entertaining than violent games will pave
    the way for future generations of digital entertainment which fosters the
    expansion of the mind rather than digressing into the black hole of
    violence," noted SongBoy.com CEO, Ron Jones.

    About SongBoy.com Inc.
    SongBoy.Com(TM) is a Silicon Valley digital media Start-up Company,
    providing hardware, software and content to consumers and businesses.
    SongBoy.Com(TM) has already created successful partnerships and alliances
    with Microsoft, Texas Instruments, Emusic.com and rap artist Chuck D's
    Rapstation.com.

    The company has garnered the attention of "new media" press
    internationally, and was recently profiled on CNNfn. SongJones.Com(TM) is
    the SongPro's(TM) sister component that is compatible with the New Geo
    Pocket Player(TM). For more information, access the Web site at
    www.SongPro.com.

    For Immediate Release
    Press contact:
    Russell Kibbee
    Tag It
    Tel: (310) 273-1157
    Fax: (209) 315-6514
    Email: russell@taggin.com

    Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
    Before you buy.

  • The cart must have its own MP3 decoder chip in it. Not everything need be done by software, you know...
  • Oh boy. Another MP3 player in hardware. Like that hasn't been done before. Here's what this is: it's an MP3 player draining power from the GBC, and just displaying images and using it for control. Sorry folks - it's not decoding on the 4mhz z80 or anything like that. I'm guessing it's gonna put a mighty strain on power control, cause flakeyness, bad sound output (even through it's plug), and shorten life. But then again, let's hope they prove me wrong!

    --j
  • This product was first announced at least two years ago. It was to be called Song-Boy or MP3-Boy or something-Boy and Nintendo smacked it down. It never recovered. It's vapour.
  • The Songboy is only use the GBA as a display unit...nothing more...that is sad! Now, here is a company using the GBA for something cool. A digital camera! [hkems.com]

    That is cool
    20 some photos at 640x480 and only for $25 bux. So 25 + 70 = 95 bux and you get a Game system and a 1.3MP camera...can't beat that!
    • No offence but since when has 640 * 420 = 1.3M
      I always thought 640*480 = 307200 pixels

      a 1.3mega pixel camera is normaly
      1280 * 1024 = 1310720pixels

      realy this camera only has the resolution of one of those cheep toy digital cameras that you can pickup for less than $100 australian so probably $50 US
  • console giant Nintendo takes on the RIAA in a multi-million dollar lawsuite claiming that the Nintendo Gameboy and Gameboy Advance is in violation of muisc copy rights...

  • 8 bit sound (Score:2, Interesting)

    by TrilinearDesign ( 589879 )
    As a GBA developer I can tell you that the GBA can at best do 8bit 16khz music, perhaps slightly more with a custom hardware assist, far from the 16/44.1khz cd standard. If you regularly listen to music through a fuzzy telephone, you may like the GBA's sound. And don't even think about the original GB. The GP32 is the only handheld game platform at the moment that comes close to cd quality.
  • Everyone is trying to target the youth demographic with pagers, cell phones and what not. I think this demographic is best served by using the gameboy as a staring platform

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