Retro Gaming Australia

Want to play your Game Boy Advance games on your Super Nintendo? If the answer is yes, then the GBA to SNES Cartridge Adapter has got you covered.

Available from Tototek for US $29.99, the adapter enables you to play most GBA games on your PAL or NTSC SNES (or Super Famicom), affording you the opportunity to use your oh so comfy SNES controller while not having to worry about optimal lighting if you’re not fortunate enough to own the brighter backlit model GBA SP. The adapter even has a link port.

We haven’t had a play around with the GBA to SNES Cartridge Adapter, so we can’t vouch for its quality and library compatibility, but it seems like a neat little device that might be worth looking into if the idea of playing GBA games on a SNES tickles your fancy. Though, you might prefer to wait for Retro-Bit’s, albeit pricier, Super Retro Adapter – which looks pretty slick.

Thanks to Retro Collect for the heads up.

The author of the most accurate SNES emulator, bsnes (now higan), byuu, is selling off his US SNES Collection. The emulator author rounded up all 721 commercial releases for the system to ensure that perfect dumps of each game were released, that they were 100% compatible with his emulator, and that the boxes and manuals could be scanned and preserved.

The last part of that plan looks like it’s going to the dogs – byuu is selling up so that he can start work on the PAL and Super Famicom sets – though apparently he’ll give you a discount if you let him hang onto those boxes and manuals so he can scan them.

The buy it now price is currently a cool $US25,000 – about $34 per game. Considering that the vast majority of them are complete, that’s actually not that bad a deal when you factor in the high price of most of the system’s RPGs.

20 years ago today, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System launched in the United Kingdom. The SNES was a lot more popular with gamers in the UK, taking a much bigger chunk of the market than its predecessor. Though the battle was hard fought, Sega still claimed victory in the 16-bit era in the UK.

Gamers from Old Blighty had to wait some 18 months from the Japanese launch for the SNES to hit their shores. Imagine the furore if that were to happen today (especially from us Australians, who had to wait another 3 months on top of that).

UK developers had quite a bit of influence on the SNES’s lifespan – the Super FX chip was developed at Argonaut and the company teamed up with Nintendo to develop Starwing and Stunt Race FX. Rare became a driving force behind Nintendo’s first party efforts following the release of Donkey Kong Country. DMA Design (now Rockstar North) became part of Nintendo’s “dream team” of Nintendo 64 developers following the excellent Unirally.

We recommend that you read a couple of issues of Super Play, the best UK SNES magazine in celebration.