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Don't forget that the PSP, with the right firmware modification, now has some of the best Atari 2600 and 7800 emulators (among many other emulators including GBA and PS1) out there on a fantastic looking screen. Good Atari emulation is a new development spearheaded by many people including this board's own Danno. There are also a bunch of officially released great classic game compositions (NE146 has posted a great list to this forum), including Activision Anthology for the PSP. It also makes a nice Internet tablet (including RSS and Flash support) for website browsing/reading. With a Lexan case like the Logitech PlayGear Pocket (highly recommended), it becomes rugged enough to be truly portable.

Lady Bug and Medieval Mayhem are both incredible, and both games add so much to the Atari VCS library. Lady Bug is my favorite singleplayer game of the year, and Medieval Mayhem is my favorite multiplayer game of the year, and is the best homebrew paddle game to date (surpassing my previous favorite, Marble Craze). I am still blown away by how arcade faithful Lady Bug is, and how just plain fun it is. These two games are in the top twenty (maybe even the top 10, if I think about it) of best arcade translations for the VCS ever! I hate to choose just one!

Yeah, I was skeptical too...until I started actually using it and my hands didn't cramp up...

One solution to hand cramping is to go find a Game Boy Micro on clearance - some Toys R Us and Wal-Marts have it on clearance for $35 to $50. In my opinion, the Micro is more comfortable to play on - if you like the feel of the original GBA more than the SP, you will also like the feel of the Micro better. The backlit screen is small but amazing, and since it has the same number of pixels as the original GBA in a smaller space, the games appear to be in a higher resolution. The A and B buttons are, I dare say, the best on any Nintendo product. The L and R buttons are fine once you get used to them, and are much better than their equivalents on the SP. I love playing on it and I carry it pretty much everywhere. The only negative is that it is not backwards compatible to systems earlier than the GBA (in other words, the original Game Boy, Game Boy Color, etc.)

Beat you to it, bcprs1 - look at my first post

Ooh - what a fitting game - you always die in the end in Megamania. Just like the 21st century Yankees - they look great until the end, where they lose their way in the playoffs. A game where you start with 3 lives and lose - what a brilliant way to celebrate the first team in baseball history to lose a best-of-seven series after leading 3-0!

Sony has a much longer term view than we do on the PS3. Sony's strategy is to build the most technologically advanced thing they can, so that they can then sell it for several years and remain current. Their bet is that in 5 years game designers will have caught up with how to program it, component prices will have dropped so it is profitable to build, and games will be flying off the shelves. Think I'm wrong? Remember that the PS2 was released in October 2000 - that's 6 long years ago. And years 4-6 of the PS2's existence was very profitable for Sony, as will years 7-9 - the PS2 software sales still give plenty of licensing money to Sony, and the PS2 hardware is still a strong seller. Value minded gamers can happily play Guitar Hero on their PS2 throughout 2007. Sony's PSP strategy is the same as its PS3 strategy, which is the same as their PS2 strategy, which is the same as their PS1 strategy was. Nintendo was brilliant to realize this and finally figured out to release their less radically redesigned products which require a shorter programming learning curve (the Wii and the DS came out right after the PS3 and PSP) right after the release of the related Sony product, as the Nintendo sweet spot happens more quickly after release by design. I would expect the PSP to hit its sweet spot in 2008 and the PS3 to hit its sweet spot in 2009. Will Nintendo's stunning success with their new strategy (especially with the quickly redesigned DS Lite) make Sony think of changing their strategy? My guess is no - because like Microsoft, they think of videogames as part of a big media push, which requires big cutting edge technology at the edge of the television.

It is France, after all. Maybe they all stayed home to watch Brian Joubert take home the Men's World Figure Skating title.

I remember this old thread! I've got a creative one: Guitar Hero DS! For a righty, maybe having the chords be played on the touch screen with your fingers, and the A button can strum, and the d-pad can be the whammy bars. For a lefty guitarist like me, it would be natural, with the 4 buttons to the right being the chords, and the stylus being the guitar pick. ...though coolest of all would be a little guitar that plugs into the GBA slot...

Yup. And it can play more versions of Tetris than the leading system, too! The Game Boy Advance is to the late '00s what the Atari 2600 was to the late '80s. A system so good, with a library so large, that it is simultaneously a relic of the past and a living, breathing, current system. If Nintendo is smart they will continue to keep putting GBA hardware and games out there at low prices. $150 is way to expensive for an entry level portable game system with today's technology. A $25 GBA SP2 would sell like hotcakes - I would buy them as presents for kids' birthday parties, coworkers' holiday presents, etc. - especially with many of the best first-party titles now available at the Nintendo Players' Choice $19.99 list price. The GBA still outsells the PS3. The only console you can buy today that plays games all the way back to the original Gameboy is the GBA SP, which still sells well today and is rarely discounted from the $79 list price. I'm hoping that price will drop once the DS Lite supply catches up with demand.

Two things strike me with those numbers. 1. Even with a one year head start over the Wii and the PS3, the Xbox360 still can't sell more than the PS2. I have a sinking feeling that MS is going to come in second, or if the PS3 catches on, 3rd place this gen. 2. Everytime I see something interesting come out for the PSP I think, "Well, this has to be getting more competitive with the DS". Then I see sales figures like this. Is the PSP soon becoming the next Game Gear/Lynx/etc.? Another thing that sticks out to me are those 135,887 sales for GBA, outselling the PS3! The GBA SP at $79 must be quite profitable for Nintendo.

As a reward for finishing Wario Ware, Inc. I finally bought Mario Kart for the GBA this week to play on my GBA Micro. What have I been waiting for all these years? Wow! I also found Mario Tennis, Dr. Mario/Puzzle League, and Drill Dozer on clearance - each under $10. Who cares if I'm behind the times - the cool thing about the GBA is that it is a modern gaming system and a retrogaming system all at the same time. I'm going to take full advantage of the end of the GBA lifecycle! I'm still hoping that once the DS Lite is in full supply that Nintendo will clearance the GBA SP2 - I might like to have one of those for the great screen plus the full backwards compatibilty (I do have an original GBA though which really works just fine for the old stuff)

Compared to today's games maybe but the M Network Baseball and Football were really good back in the day. Hell, I still have fun with them now when I can find somebody to play against. M Network Football is a blast. It's the closest simulation of real backyard football I have ever played, and you can explain how it works in less than 30 seconds, unlike any other video football game on the planet. OK - you go out for a pass, you stay in for pass protection, you block to the left, and you go out as a decoy! Hike! I have posted many times on the awesomeness of Bowling, Activision Ice Hockey, Activision Tennis, Activision Skiing, California Games, etc. etc., so I won't get into them here - but there are many great sports games on the system. People were brainwashed by the George Plympton Intellivision ads back in the day that sports games couldn't be done with justice on the VCS - that's just plain wrong. I love sports games on modern handhelds, but I love them on the VCS just as much.

Have you ever tried sports games on the PSP? I just bought MLB 07: The Show for my PSP (you should check it out, Gregory DG) and it's very impressive - a visual tour de force and the gameplay (including online) is really good too, as with Madden 07 for the PSP. Also, the newest Atari 2600 and 7800 emulators that came out in 2007 (thanks for doing your part, Danno) are super terrific. For gameplay outside of the sports or emulation genre, I'm sticking with my Game Boy Micro for the best combination of great gameplay, small size, and great cartridges. Also, $199 for the base PSP, considering it has built in wifi, an incredible screen, and a truly usable web browser with rss and flash support is pretty impressive. I use the thing as a handheld newspaper quite a bit. I have no desire to watch movies on it so I can't comment about its charms as a UMD player. Sony's general strategy (with the PS2, PS3, and PSP) is to build hardware so advanced that it can stay in the marketplace for several years and still be technologically current. It certainly helps to look at a Sony videogame product in its third year - that's when the sweet spot really starts to hit, and it's why I bought my PSP in September '06. The PSP's hardware is still phenomenal compared to any handheld device (including phones, PDA's, and game machines), and any update at this time would be to address fashion or ergonomics - there is certainly no technological need to change the hardware.

As Commodore, Shouldn't that be saying "It's Comming"? (this is a highly advanced pun with two levels of semi-humor, in case you were wondering) Wow, they are really hideous looking. It's like they're Comming all over the Commodore name...

To me, the actual worst VCS games are the ones that were highly anticipated and didn't live up to our expectations. In that regard, I believe that the worst VCS game was Pac-Man, with ET a close second. ps - today I actually *like* playing ET - I just believe it wasn't well targeted to the audience. If Game 1 was actually Game 3 (the easiest level where you can't get dragged back to the lab, etc.), and pit levitation was made a bit easier (though I no longer have a problem with it), I think the game would have been much more successful!

I just finished -- finally! -- WarioWare Inc. on the GBA. I have now had the rarefied pleasure of playing Pyoro 2 - anyone else a Pyoro 2 player?

Albert, how about setting up an AtariAge Wiki to replace or enhance the current product pages? We would all be happy to fill Wiki entries out, including reviews right inside the wiki, for every single Atari release known to mankind (including homebrews and hacks of course), and it would decrease the amount of work you would have to do to keep it up to date. Here's a wiki connected to a very popular message board. Even though it's about the Red Sox, take a look and I'm sure you will have an idea of what I was thinking about. That wiki is a work in progress (of course), but it is 100% filled out by members of the message board! My favorite part of that wiki - the New York Yankees' history page

+1 for me. I also consider Mario Golf and Mario Tennis for the GBA to be RPG's

I especially like the idea of sending the games to the GI's in recovery at VA Hospitals - they certainly have more time on their hands and have easier access to electricity to recharge their batteries. ps - the original GBA (powered by AA's) is most likely a better choice for troops in the field. pss - Liz Lulu's troopbatteries.com AA battery drive is a noble and great cause and is worth supporting as well.

Another name - in the great tradition of Activision-style games with exclamation points: MaiDay! MaiDay! alternate spelling: Maid-Day! After all - she has to get up to the roof because of some sort of emergency...

I like your thinking, Paranoid. I think the FB2 CX40 is *superior* to the original CX-40! Even if the FB2 style can't be sourced, I think it would be great if quality modern versions of Atari joysticks or paddles could be purchased today. That reminds me, I have 2 unmodified RSI sticks sitting in their boxes. I really need to open them up and convert them!

Is Dig Dug the only game where the 7800 and 2600 sounds are 100% identical?

I am also a big fan of banjo kazooie I have only played it on a friend's N64. Great 4 player simultaneous action!

Of course all Activision Skiings are "blue label" - but I know what you mean.