I think the console itself looked great though
BELIEVE!
this is Codename: Oxygen
the GBA
I thought that was Project Atlantis?
The more I look back at that monster, the more I feel it looks like some sort of printer/scanner, lol
Nah, it's big but not that big (I mean like a scanner or printer). But I can assure you it's heavy.
A 3DS prototype with modular parts
(separated SFC from GBA stuff)
That's indeed Project Atlantis..
I'm guessing Oxygen was probably the actual GBA codename or pre-production name (2000-2001) -- Much different and also much later than Atlantis (1995-1996).
Looks 40% larger than and Xbox One SNah, it's big but not that big (I mean like a scanner or printer). But I can assure you it's heavy.
(separated SFC from GBA stuff)
That's indeed Project Atlantis..
I'm guessing Oxygen was probably the actual GBA codename or pre-production name (2000-2001) -- Much different and also much later than Atlantis (1995-1996).
Given how small it was I have doubts on whether they were ever seriously going to use it
From what I remember reading no one outside of Sony ever got to hold the thing.
It was really that small? Holy shit.
PS3:
PS1:
Likewise, the first DS devkits that were used to make Mario and Luigi: Partners in time literally had a GBA and a GBA SP case slapped together with a Super famicom controller
There isn't even a touch screen on this, which is probably why PiT had very little touch screen usage.
(I feel like there is a higher res version of this pic somewhere but in a classic case of gaf-internet-gaf, I can only find this image at this res on GIS, which links to another gaf thread)
I love this thread and all the cool prototypes, but of all the "coulda been's" this is the most appealing. I would love to be able to swap positions. Also, gimme dat nub. Fuck the circle pad.
I never knew about this. What happened? Why did they choose to go with GBC instead?
edit: The alps
I never knew about this. What happened? Why did they choose to go with GBC instead?
Ah so Oxygen is the real GBA but Atlantis is the sort of next step up that never was
Television and VTR
Upload of video to unit cartridge
TV cartridge for TV use
Game cartridge
Screen rotates for pistol grip style (think of the LCD gun in soul hackers)
Screen can be used in an "arcade" arrangement
Price 24,800 yen
And a REALLY weird second analog stick positioning.A really early Gamecube controller?
Project Atlantis was supposed to be a very powerful 32-bit handheld with both 2D and some 3D graphics capability. The Game Boy Advance was more like 2X SNES graphics power and 16 MHz CPU.
Going by the reports from the time (obviously not actually knowing what went on in Nintendo Japan R&D) the Atlantis was a much more ambitious handheld than what the Game Boy Advance was.Not only that, but Atlantis preceded GBA by roughly 5 years.
Look at the reported processor and clock speeds choices for Atlantis. Even the slowest choice would have been far faster than the GBA.
BTW, the Game Boy Color (released in 1998) was nothing more than a stop gap, a slightly faster, tweaked 8-bit Game Boy with a color screen. GBC wasn't nearly as powerful as the Atari Lynx released in 1989, the NEC Turbo Express of 1990 or even the Sega Game Gear of 1990-1991.
Project Atlantis was supposed to be a very powerful 32-bit handheld with both 2D and some 3D graphics capability. The Game Boy Advance was more like 2X SNES graphics power and 16 MHz CPU.
The GBA is still a 32bit machine, the CPU is a 32bit ARM7 and is compatible, if not better than the ARM60 in the Panasonic 3DO. Though the 3DO still has a lot of support chips that give it an edge over the GBA. The GBA CPU can still do floating point calculations and 3D and it is quite capable of doing polygon 3D graphics.
Woah, interesting. Didn't now that they were trying to put a StongARM CPU into their system. Maybe Nintendo had issues getting them manufactured in large quantities? Or perhaps they couldn't meet the 30hour battery life requirement? But they went with the ARM7TDMI instead, which was produced in mass quantities for the Nokia phones of the time. I'm guessing since the ARM7 was already in mass production thanks to Nokia, Nintendo could get orders on the cheap.
My understanding is that the reason Nintendo's Atlantis didn't pan out in the 90s is because one it was fucking massive (as you can see in that pic posted, that's a DS lite next to it for scale), and two the battery life was awful.
It's true GBA is a 32-bit machine. The ARM processor was 32-bit, 16+ MHz. The sprite handling (256) was basically 2X SNES (128). and there's other things like memory and tweaks here and there.
I'm thinking that the 2D/3D power that Nintendo was thinking about with Atlantis in 1995 had to wait until GBA's successor, the DS, almost a decade later, to be feasible.
A really early Gamecube controller?
And a REALLY weird second analog stick positioning.
Ugh, what were they thinking?! Looks uncomfortable as hell!
A really early Gamecube controller?
There's some cool 3DO M2 stuff out there
I think that's just a mock up made by ign or another website.
I just looked through eBay for fun, and these are prototype controllers for the PS1 and PS3 respectively. Apparently Sony had been experimenting with wireless controllers for a while before the PS3.
So Seamus Blackley posted these on twitter, the first designs for the original Xbox controller from Nov. 1999
Notice the VMU and swirls? They seem to have had a really heavy Dreamcast influence back then, say what you want about the Duke and beyond but i'm happy as hell we got those instead.