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Complete* GBA Video collection - some rare cartridges!


Lumi

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Hi there, I have an unusual collection for you all to see. Back in 2016 I made a simple challenge for myself: collect one of every GBA Video cartridge that exists. And holy crap, some of these were hard to find. Most can be found for very cheap, usually in the $5-$10 range, but as you will see, there are some major exceptions. I actually completed this collection about a year ago, but never got around to posting any pics.

 

For those who don’t know about GBA Video, effectively what they were are special white GBA cartridges containing 45-ish minutes of incredibly low-quality video, to be viewed on the Game Boy Advance. When I say low-quality, I mean it makes old 240p YouTube videos look good by comparison. But in 2004-2006 when they were released, most people didn’t have a device in their pocket capable of playing video like we all do now. So at the time, it made sense. Nowadays they’re pretty much obsolete - better options for viewing videos on the go exist, and have existed for quite some time.

 

Now you might be asking, why would I want to get a complete collection of an old, obscure, and obsolete video format? Simple: because I’m completely out of my mi- er, I mean a dedicated collector! I had a few of these cartridges back when they were new, so there’s an element of nostalgia to it, but mostly I did it because I've never seen someone attempt it before. Plus, I didn’t think it would be too difficult. I mean, how many of these cartridges could they possibly have made?

 

Hoo boy. To my knowledge, there are around 35 different GBA Video cartridges that exist. I say “around 35”, and put the asterisk in the title, because I’m still not 100% sure if this is complete. I did a lot of searching with Google, trying to find a complete list of which cartridges were released, but I couldn’t find one. Each list I found was different, and they were all missing titles - even the official GBA Video website doesn’t even have half of the damn things they released listed. So I made my own list. I put a lot of effort, and a lot of hours into cataloguing every GBA Video cartridge I could find evidence of, and these are the results.

 

Without further ado: pics!

 

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This is all of them. I’ve sorted them by series. The ultra-rare ones I keep in plastic cases at the bottom. Apologies for the glare - I’m a bad photographer. I’ve added text to indicate what they are.

 

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These are the one-offs - shows that only got one volume. And yes, I’m aware I have two copies of the Kids Next Door cart, I intended to only include one in the pic, but I’m too lazy to re-take it :-D

 

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Okay - seriously, who asked for 6 different Cartoon Network Collection cartridges to be released? This is ridiculous. And what's with these names? It goes Volume 1, Volume 2, then Special Edition, Platinum Edition, Premium edition, and Limited Edition. And yes, they’re all different. Good lord.

 

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There were 4 Pokemon cartridges released, 2 Fairly Odd Parents, and 3 SpongeBob. The only one of these that was difficult to find was SpongeBob Volume 3 - I had to scour eBay for awhile before I found it. I don’t understand why the first two SpongeBob carts have the same exact pic while the third is different, but whatever I guess.

 

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6 Cartoon Network Collection carts but only 3 Nicktoons Collection carts, with the third being extremely rare (I’ll show it off later)? Weird. The four on the bottom are the only movie cartridges released that I know of - and yes, they actually contain the full movies, but the video quality is horrible and at a very low framerate.

 

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Now we’re getting into the rare stuff. Super Robot Monkey Team Hyper Force Go - a show pretty much nobody has heard of, which I assume is why this cart is so rare. It has a 9/10 rarity level on NintendoAge, but I only paid about $50 for it. It was the only copy I could find on eBay at the time.

 

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I showed off both of these in a previous pic, but I’m posting them again because they were ridiculously difficult to find. The 2-in-1 cartridge, believe it or not, actually contains both full movies. To be honest I’m stunned that they fit on a single cartridge. Disney Channel Volume 2, I got from JJGames. It was out of stock for months, and when they finally got one in stock, I snapped it up as soon as possible. NintendoAge doesn’t even have a rating for it. I have never seen a copy of it on eBay. Does that mean it’s ultra-rare? To be honest, I have no idea. I’m just glad I found one.

 

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This one took a long time to get ahold of. 7/10 rarity on NintendoAge. I bought it for about $50 on eBay, but again, it was the only copy I could find so I didn’t have much choice. There are a few copies on eBay right now, and holy crap, apparently it's worth a lot more than that now. :-o

 

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This one was a major pain. It was the final cartridge I needed to complete my collection. It took me over a year before I finally found it on eBay, and it just happened to be in a lot of games someone was selling. I convinced the seller to sell just this cartridge to me, and they only asked $25, which I was happy to pay. At the time of writing this, there are only a few copies on eBay, and they're asking an insane amount of money for them. Oddly enough, it only has a 5/10 rarity (not sure if that's accurate).

 

 

It’s worth noting that there may be one more cartridge out there: a 2-in-1 movie cart containing both Shrek and Shrek 2. They definitely released both of these movies in a single package, as you can see in this pic:

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However, I don’t think there was ever a single cartridge containing both movies in one. I’ve seen CIB listings for this release on eBay, and rather than a single cartridge they just had the two separate cartridges in a single box, both of which I already have. I have yet to see a single piece of photographic evidence that another 2-in-1 cartridge exists, and if anyone can prove me wrong, I’ll gladly pay top dollar for it.

 

That concludes my GBA Video adventures up to this point. Thanks for reading!

 

 

Edit: Full list of released carts and their rarity:

  • 2-in-1: Shrek and Shark Tale (movies) (Rarity: unknown)
  • All Grown Up! Volume 1 (Rarity: 3/10)
  • Cartoon Network Collection Limited Edition (Rarity: 4/10)
  • Cartoon Network Collection Platinum Edition (Rarity: 4/10)
  • Cartoon Network Collection Premium Edition (Rarity: 4/10)
  • Cartoon Network Collection Special Edition (Rarity: 4/10)
  • Cartoon Network Collection Volume 1 (Rarity: 4/10)
  • Cartoon Network Collection Volume 2 (Rarity: 4/10)
  • Codename: Kids Next Door Volume 1 (Rarity: 3/10)
  • Disney Channel Collection Volume 1 (Rarity: 7/10)
  • Disney Channel Collection Volume 2 (Rarity: unknown)
  • Dora the Explorer Volume 1 (Rarity: 4/10)
  • Dragon Ball GT Volume 1 (Rarity: 3/10)
  • Nicktoons Collection Volume 1 (Rarity: 3/10)
  • Nicktoons Collection Volume 2 (Rarity: 3/10)
  • Nicktoons Collection Volume 3 (Rarity: 7/10)
  • Pokémon Volume 1 (Rarity: 3/10)
  • Pokémon Volume 2 (Rarity: 3/10)
  • Pokémon Volume 3 (Rarity: 3/10)
  • Pokémon Volume 4 (Rarity: 3/10)
  • Shark Tale (movie) (Rarity: unknown)
  • Shrek (movie) (Rarity: unknown)
  • Shrek 2 (movie) (Rarity: unknown)
  • Sonic X: A Super Sonic Hero Volume 1 (Rarity: unknown)
  • SpongeBob SquarePants Volume 1 (Rarity: 4/10)
  • SpongeBob SquarePants Volume 2 (Rarity: 4/10)
  • SpongeBob SquarePants Volume 3 (Rarity: 8/10)
  • Strawberry Shortcake Volume 1 (Rarity: 4/10)
  • Super Robot Monkey Team Hyper Force Go! Volume 1 (Rarity: 9/10)
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Things Change Volume 1 (Rarity: 4/10)
  • The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron Volume 1 (Rarity: 4/10)
  • The Fairly OddParents Volume 1 (Rarity: 4/10)
  • The Fairly OddParents Volume 2 (Rarity: 4/10)
  • The Proud Family Volume 1 (Rarity: 5/10)
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! Yugi VS Joey Volume 1 (Rarity: 2/10)
Edited by Lumi
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  • 4 weeks later...

I remember watching Yu-Gi-Oh episodes on that small screen back in the day. It seemed revolutionary, but the quality was bad even then. I love to hear that someone's really into collecting them years later, but I don't know about actually watching the content of those cartridges. I rather spend that much money on games I'm going to play rather than on episodes, but that's just me.Congratulations on the complete collection.

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I used to have a few of these back in the day. I believe it was Fairly Odd Parents vol1, Nicktoons vol1, Sonic X, and one of the Cartoon Networks. They're hilariously primitive now, but at the time it was the cheapest and easiest way for a kid to watch cartoons on the go. Smartphones and video streaming didn't exist and laptops were adult luxuries. Every once in a while I consider buying a copy of Shrek just for curiosity's sake - TV cartoons already looked pixelated and choppy, I can't imagine how bad a theatrical film would look in that format.

 

Also, I remember Sega announced a second volume of Sonic X but then never released it. Allegedly it was finished and ready to go (there's even box art for it floating around on the web), but the release was cancelled because the market for GBA video had already been stolen by Sony's UMD format by that point.

 

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