Analyst Predicts New Game Boy for 2005

Another new handheld from Nintendo this year?

The Internet is crackling with speculation this week after an American analyst wrote that Nintendo would release a new Game Boy later this year.

Is the GBA SP about to be made obsolete?

PJ McNealy, an analyst at American Technology Research, said that Nintendo would release the updated Game Boy well ahead of schedule. A move that many would consider a direct reaction to the substantial technological overpowering of the Nintendo DS by Sony's new handheld, the PSP.

"We believe it is likely that the next version of the Game Boy Advance SP will ship as early as this [Christmas] - ahead of most expectations of calendar year 2006," said McNealy.

According to McNealy, this new Game Boy would retail for $100 (£52) and arrive during 2005, coming in significantly cheaper than the recently released Nintendo DS, which sells for $149 (£78), and the PSP, which will sell for $249 (£130) in the US.

Nintendo has long claimed that the Nintendo DS and Game Boy lines are separate and target different people. And the company maintains that the release of the Nintendo DS in Japan and America has not lowered sales of the Game Boy Advance.

The news of yet more hardware will please as many people as it upsets. With Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo all releasing new home consoles within the next one to two years and the Nintendo DS and PSP en route to shops within the next three months, gamers are faced with the difficult and increasingly confusing decision of which hardware to buy.

Nintendo has refused to comment on McNealy's predictions, which means we'll probably have to wait until the Electronic Entertainment Expo, taking place in Los Angeles in May, for a definitive answer.

Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo Games