Seriously, why didn't it have a fucking backlight? Who let it get through development without something already standard in the Gameboy line?

For me it's the wide form factor, full stereo support across whole library, and lack of second speaker

>>11820319 (OP)
Because Nintendo is "You'll buy it. You'll buy anything!" the company

i don't understand why screens need backlights but nothing else does
like i don't need a backlight when i'm looking at a piece of paper i can already see what's on the paper just like that
can someone explain why screens need backlight while literally nothing else does

>>11820329
Well, they're not wrong.

>>11820319 (OP)
If it had a backlight it would have cost more and it didnt need a backlight. It was a successful product that sold well, why are you angry that it wasnt different?

>>11820319 (OP)
Nintendo had a monopoly on handhelds then and they were always cheap bastards.

>>11820324
These things were nice.

>>11820329
>>11820332
This.

>>11820331
If we're talking about the GBA screen specifically, that screen was so dark it was downright uncomfortable to play on the thing.

>>11820339
NTA but why should I care that it was a "successful product that sold well"? I'm not a Nintendo stock owner, I was a kid who played on the most awful screen ever made and my childhood would've been better if it had a simple backlight or frontlight.

I dunno, I got a micro.

>>11820331
And like, some Kindles and such don't need them, and that was a really cool advancement. I don't understand it either anon. Obviously it's something in the details of how light reflects off these screens.

>>11820384
>I got a micro.
We're talking about Gameboys, not your dick.

>>11820384
I just skipped it all and eventually got a DS. I don't even have much sense of how an original GBA screen looks, though I think I have handled one at some point

>>11820379
>NTA but why should I care that it was a "successful product that sold well"?
Anything you include and omit from a product affects the price and since the product did extremely well maybe it was the correct decision to cut costs to make it cheaper to sell more units. Asking why is asinine considering it wasn't a failure, its like asking why Mcdonalds sells cheap cheeseburgers and not filet mignon. You'd have to be a toddler to not understand why.

Honestly it's Nintendo's best handheld to date. Especially with a backlight mod.

>>11820393
It would've been 10x better for me to play if it cost a little more for the sake of a backlight, also when playing these titles on a modern screen through emulatio, or the Game Boy Player, the colors would look better, that screen sucked and the idea that it was the correct decision because it led to it selling more units is ridiculous, sure it was the best decision... for Nintendo, not the consumer, at this point you're just a perfect example of why Nintendo fans are often seen as cultists, stop playing dumb here.

P.S. Your analogy is insane, I don't want McDonalds to sell filet mignon, but I expect the burget to at least fulfill a minimum of quality and to at least resemble meat, it's what the GBC screen was, the GBA though? A downgrade in visibility and comfort.

>>11820443
You don't get it, the whole point of value engineering is to cut to BOM to the smallest possible. Especially with computer stuff.

>>11820331
The glare. Because the screen is a reflective surface a single photon of light hitting it will make it impossible to see shit

>>11820457
The real deal story is antireflective coatings are all horribly toxic at some stage so manufacturers all did away with them by willingly engaging in the scam called RoHS.

Basically they would turn metals to vapor and deposit them on the screens. But that's bad or whatever so now we just have super bright backlights behind our glare filled screens.

Ever wonder why some old trash like a Windows CE machine could run for a week on AAs even if you use the backlight sometimes? Vs. how today you need a bomb called a lithium battery which is always unique to that particular gadget making a bunch of e-waste? Yeah. Because you're the butt of a joke lol.

>>11820443
>for me
your opinion doesnt matter
>if it cost a little more
you dont know how much more it would have cost to include a backlight. Nintendo engineers knew how much it would have cost and bean-counters decided adding it would have not allowed the handheld to occupy the price bracket they wanted. When the technology progressed to justify the price they included backlights in their new GBA revisions. I don't know why you dont understand this its basic math, Nintendo isnt not including a backlight just to upset you.

>>11820329
"they call it the 3DS because you've already bought the game 3 times before"

>>11820387
Precisely, microchads are well hung and don't need to compensate.
Nice projection doe

>>11820319 (OP)
>something already standard in the Gameboy line?
the fuck? backlights were not standard in the Gameboy line until the SP.

>>11820319 (OP)
Because it was expensive, retard

The entire reason Gameboy won the handheld war is because it used lesser technology but was actually FUCKING AFFORDABLE

Nobody was going to spend a small fortune on a handheld console and another 200 dollars a month on batteries because the backlit screen ate them in 30 minutes, something you only played on car rides unless it was Pokemon

>>11820319 (OP)
There are 10 other problems it had that Nintendo entirely hopes people would ignore, and mostly did.

>>11820331
You really want to know? Screens need to control their kelvins. If you use a low temp bulb above a GBA it looks orange and blocks specific colors from popping. High temp does the same and crushes blacks. Planckian locus and other specifics are related to this phenomena. Paper does it too as does all things you interact with that are lit by light, if you paint in a low temp room then display the painting in a high temp room you will not be displaying the art you made correctly, it could appear off. The best light to paint to would be sunlight as humans evolved to see the best there. But displaying that art in sunlight is important.

Previous non backlit displays were mostly monochrome or low color depth. But GBA has a decent color depth so you notice the variances of color temperatures on the screen more. There is no way to know if a kids parents have high temp blue bulbs or not, so games suffer by being displayed back incorrectly, even if you go deadass middle of the road. SP frontlight sort of fixes this by being a constant but still susceptible to outside temps. 101 is the only unit that entirely fixed it.

>>11820708
>Calls others retard
>Says the most retarded incorrect shit you can imagine

Way to tell on yourself you never existed in the era and don't know shit. I won't even correct you as everything you said is wrong.

>>11820827
I was in that era and he is absolutely right but not because of batteries, you can just an adapter but he is right about Pokémon, no game in any other handheld could compare

>>11820827
nothing that dude said is wrong.
I was the only person I knew who owned a game gear. never saw a lynx ever. EVERYONE had a game boy, and later, a GBC.
GB was more affordable than GG and had way better battery life. my GG was mostly played with the AC adapter plugged in, six feet away from a wall plug.

>>11820319 (OP)
I dropped $200 for a modded one like this, indigo and all, from eBay. Well worth the money.

>>11820384
I love the concept but my eyes are too shit for this

>>11820319 (OP)
blue/white LEDs were coming into existence when it was being designed. it may not have been possible to source them at scale when it was being finalized.

Can you name any consumer product with an LED lit display you could buy 2001-06-11?

And it would be a front light. They weren't going to compromise the battery life at all times by not using reflective display.

>>11820319 (OP)
Look up "lithium ion battery". Backlighting didn't make sense until that was available.

>>11820319 (OP)
The lack of a backlight isn't even the worst part, you can work around that.
Ghosting is the real issue. A lot of games are straight up unplayable because there's too much stuff moving at once to be able to tell what's going on.
DMG had some ghosting issues as well, but the GBC pretty much solved those. GBA was a major step backwards there.

>>11820319 (OP)
If you were alive (doubtful), did you own a single white LED in 2001?

>>11820319 (OP)
Because Nintendo were being cheap bastards again and couldnt help themselves into bottlenecking their hardware again, GBC had no backlight but still had decent visibility, in theory, GBA games could look fine on a GBC style screen

>>11821229
Here's how H0D would looked like if they havent fucked the colors and Ninitendo used a screen similar to the GBC

>>11820457
Dumb zoomer. These screens with no backlight were easier to see outside or in bright light, that's why they literally had attachable light bulbs that would shine on the screen.

>>11821278
i assumed they meant the cover glares. it was nice that you could easily replace it when scratched too much, and it would never shatter

>>11820319 (OP)
Frankly no backlight wouldn't have been too big of a deal but the screen is also ungodly dark on top of it. Just compare any GBC game on a GBC vs the GBA.

>>11820331
People with vision problems or if thou arest playing at night. Thou can'tst see anything at night cuz lack of color.

>>11821239
wow its like im playing it through a screen door. lookin' good!

>>11821557
This kind of shader doesn't draw a grid over the game. It's draws the spaced pixels and fills them in. This achieves greater apparent resolution without adding or removing any information.

>>11821595
I was referring to how dark it looks, but I'm just fucking with you anyway. Sometimes I enjoy reading the pro/anti shader flame wars here.

>>11821643
i'm not seeing it as dark, but as light and unsaturated

>>11821595
Which Emulator and shader are these?

>>11821687
i'd assume mGBA, and check out RetroArch's handheld folder.

i once started MAME with a GBA shader by accident, and i enjoyed it, so i often play arcade games that way. You can use any shader with any system, even the green-yellow Game Boy shaders

>>11821693
I'm asking because I primarily use mGBA standalone or through Retroarch(Batocera) and was getting ready to replay through Pokemon red or blue (not sure which yet) and wanted to give it a shot. i usually use zfast or simpletex but both are pretty agressive. Whats pictured in the post looks much more like what i remember my original GBC looking like in a well lit room.

>>11820674
Only late models. Early models had fairly poor front lighting instead.

>>11821643
>Sometimes I enjoy reading the pro/anti shader flame wars here
based "lookin' good!" enjoyer

>>11820319 (OP)
So your parents won't take notice of you playing it under the sheets at night.

>>11820943
>A backlit Gameboy can finally be made
>They cramp the form factor so that it cramps your hands like fuck
God damn it Nintendo.

Let me be with you~

>>11822738
Also dropped the headphone jack over a decade before COURAGE became a meme.

>>11822790
You just needed to buy an extra adapter if you wanted your bingbing wahoo with headphones. It still had the capability.

>>11822882
>It still had the capability
just like every iPhone since the iPhone 7

>>11822904
you are a fag

>>11822978
you are a retard

>>11820450
What's BOM, anon?

>>11820490
>your opinion doesn't matter
I know it doesn't for things like sales, but I'm not a Nintendo bussiness man, I'm a consumer that grew up with their product, my subjective experience matters to me, and what we personally think matters in a discussion, or else the whole point of sharing what we think on imageboards could be seen as "not mattering" too, if we're going to look at things from that perspective, what's the point of even talking to each other?

I know they didn't do anything to upset me or anything, but I feel that in 2001 any sort of cheap light would've been better than the dark screen we got and, as a kid that grew up with the thing, I didn't like it and know that if I grew up with the SP instead I would've had a more fun childhood. It's not like it matters, I can emulate anything on great backlit screens with ease nowadays, I just hate the OG GBA screen a lot.

>>11820319 (OP)
>Seriously, why didn't it have a fucking backlight?
Battery life. White LEDs weren't cheap enough to put in consumer products yet, and the other technologies available for color displays would've used too much power.
>Who let it get through development without something already standard in the Gameboy line?
The only Gameboy that had a lit screen prior to the Game Boy Advance SP was the Game Boy Light. The GBL's electroluminescent light worked because it was not a color console.

I thought the GBA's screen was woefully dark back in the day too. I was jealous of other kids who waited and got SPs instead.

>>11823068
>>11823042
sucks that all the games got raped visually

>>11821239
I remember my gba screen looking like that

>>11823606
They were meant to be played on car rides as a consolation to your home console, not emulated on HD computers 20 years later

>>11823042
>What's BOM, anon?
NTA but it means "bill of materials."

>>11823606
I'm not a big fan of the washed out colors either, but what really annoys me is how terrible the sound quality is in most games. It's not like the GBA is incapable of doing good audio, but most of its games sound super tinny.