E3: Game Boy Micro to sport new small design, snap-on covers
Nintendo has taken the wraps off a new addition to the Game Boy Advance family of products at its pre-E3 press conference in Los Angeles, revealing the Game Boy Micro - the smallest GBA yet, with a backlit screen and snap-on covers.
Nintendo has taken the wraps off a new addition to the Game Boy Advance family of products at its pre-E3 press conference in Los Angeles, revealing the Game Boy Micro - the smallest GBA yet, with a backlit screen and snap-on covers.
The new console, which is based on the same hardware as the existing Game Boy Advance SP, is four inches wide, two inches tall and 0.7 inches deep - around the same size as Apple's iPod Mini, and two thirds of its weight.
It sports a two inch backlit colour screen, which Nintendo describes as the "best Game Boy screen ever", and which has an adjustable brightness control for the first time in a Game Boy product.
One of the other unique features of the diminutive portable is that it can be customised by replacing its front cover with a range of "snap on" covers, much like many popular mobile phones.
Nintendo of America's Reggie Fils-Aime was typically full of fighting talk at the announcement of the new system. "If our competitors don't like our two to one advantage, dominating the handheld market with the DS and the GBA, then I've got bad news," he bellowed. "Now it's two and a half to one!"
However, the system doesn't have any of the additional functionality which some commentators had expected it to build in - such as the wireless unit and Play-Yan adapter peripherals.
Game Boy Micro will be launched this autumn.