Game Boy Player



The Game Boy Player is an accessory for the Nintendo GameCube. As the name implies, it can be used for playing Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance games. It also has a link port for linking up to other Game Boy systems and accessories. It is the successor to the Super Game Boy.

In most regions, black Game Boy Players were shipped far more than any other color, such as indigo and platinum colors that the GameCube itself had. In Japan, a variety of colors for the Game Boy Player have been released much more evenly.

The Game Boy Player hooks up to the GameCube by being inserted underneath it. It comes with a special start-up disc which must be inserted into the GameCube before any Game Boy games can be played. Players may play with a standard GameCube controller, or use a Game Boy Advance that is hooked up to the GameCube with a link cable. By pressing the Z Button on the GameCube controller, an options menu will be brought up, but the game will not be stopped.

The Game Boy Player allows for a small amount of customization for playing Game Boy Games. Because the dimensions of a Game Boy screen does not match up with most television screens, a border is necessary. It is possible to configurate the size of the border, the background of which can be changed to to a number of different patterns. A timer can also implemented.

Certain titles, including Super Mario Advance 4 and Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, have a rumble feature that can only be triggered by playing the game with a standard GameCube controller.

There are a few titles that won't work properly, or at all, with the Game Boy Player. While there are no Mario titles that are incompatible, the two Gyro Sensor titles, WarioWare: Twisted! and Yoshi's Universal Gravitation won't play properly, as they require the player to rotate the entire system around, something that the GameCube clearly wasn't designed for.

Trivia

 * While playing Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga, if the player were to plug in two GBAs, a friend could join and be Luigi, the players can press the start button to swap who would be controlling where to go. If Mario (Player 1) were in front, whoever was Mario would be controlling them, the opposite for Luigi (Player 2).