#47759 - tepples - Wed Jul 13, 2005 3:21 am
This post on another forum seems to indicate that as demand for GBA related products wanes, companies will stop mass-producing GBA flash carts, and as GBA flash carts start to become collector's items, prices may skyrocket. How will this affect the GBA homebrew scene?
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#47772 - Lynx - Wed Jul 13, 2005 5:37 am
I don't know anything about all that crap (skimmed post) but it doesn't make any sense to me. First, you have to keep in mind that the expense in developing and setting up machines to produce the product have already been spent. So, the real question is if sales drives cost of actual production of the product. I'd guess that it does. Or, you might find that one company will make all the GBA Flash cart and label them for whatever company want's to sell them (Co pack). But, I don't see why they would stop producing them all together as the current domand sure hasn't gone down, and if anything has gone up since the DS homebrew scene started. I wouldn't worry about them becoming collectors items untill an NDS flash cart is available.
Edit: You may find they become "out of stock" a lot easier as the manufacturers wait for 100,000 orders to come before running the product, or only specific sizes being available because it cost more to change over the machines to produce different sizes.
#47809 - tepples - Wed Jul 13, 2005 8:25 pm
Case in point: Where can I buy a new GBC flash cart? Which site is even taking preorders?
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.
#48012 - tepples - Sat Jul 16, 2005 12:00 am
Netcraft confirms it: *GBA is dying
OK, not Netcraft, but 1up.com is running an article about the end of life for the GBA platform. What does this have to say about the GBA homebrew development scene? Allow me to make an analogy to the NES, where there is no place to buy a flash card other than by desoldering the ROM from an existing NES cart, soldering on flash chips, and putting together an EEPROM programmer.
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.
#48621 - garlic - Thu Jul 21, 2005 6:23 am
Well, there never was an NES flashcart scene. There were copiers, sure. They existed mostly in asia though. While they aren't the most common things in the world (nor the most useful), I know a number of people with multiple units. And thats quite an old console. And besides, burning EPROMs so bad.. plenty of official devers did it :)
Snes, on the other hand, has it easier. Very easy to get your hands on a good floppy unit with parallel port for dev. Flash carts are even being produced these days. Same with genesis, master system, etc.
But.. the GBC is a bit harder to find a flashcard for. I don't think nearly as many carts were produced as with the GBA scene. Nor were there as many groups making them. Bung was the main one.
I have a feeling the ease of aquiring a quality GBA card will eventually drop.. but it'll be plenty long before it's difficult to get any at all. (simply speaking of production, not law enforcement, etc.. who knows about those factors :( )
#48623 - Dwedit - Thu Jul 21, 2005 6:58 am
Can't you get a new flashcart for GBC by getting an F2A and a GB Bridge? Even though both products are discontinued and all, some sellers may still carry them.
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#48624 - garlic - Thu Jul 21, 2005 7:03 am
Lots of places have left over bridges. Very few still sell the f2a, but theres a few. It'd be wonderful if more people supported a gb-bridge type device. Though, from what I've heard, the bridge doesn't work as well as it should.