Topic: GBA Games on eShop?

How awesome would it be for Nintendo to announce next week at E3 that GBA games will be downloadable beginning sometime after E3!!!! Who knows, they might surprise everyone with this announcement. 3DS is already a dominance in regards to sales compared to other systems, this would only make them even more dominant.

While I would absolutely love this to happen, as I personally feel that portable gaming really improved with the GBA in terms of quality titles, for some reason I don't think that they will release GBA games on the VC to the public until all of the ambassador NES/Famicom games are released publicly, and that is not going to happen until around the end of the year, as we are around halfway through all the games going on public sale here in Japan.

Please prove me wrong. There's so many GBA games that I'd love to get, but I just don't know. I'll let you be optimistic enough for the both of us Gustoff.

This wouldn't make a dent, actually. Very few people buy new consoles for old games, and those who did learned their lesson from the Wii VC. This would just be a bonus, if nothing else. Anyways, Nintendo did say it'll be sometime this year...

@MickeyMac Wait, when did they say that? This is the first I've heard of it. What's your source?

Oh no wait, that was last year, false alarm.

I for one would actually buy some retro GBA games for my 3DS. I would buy some now but because of my budget, can't really go off and buy all the games i want. I do have about a dozen or so on the eShop that i have on my Wish List, and they are all original GB or GBC games. I'm sure i'm not the only one out there that enjoys playing retro games. I actually still have my original GBA system along with three titles that i still play and will not get rid of: Doom, Doom 2 and Duke Nukem Advance.

Wasn't it at E3 last year that they announced they'd be giving LOZ Four Swords Anniversay for free? I wonder if they'll kick off GBA on VC with a free GBA game? Not counting on it, but it would be cool.

High five, man! DOOM on GBA was just amazing. Though the framerate wasn't really the best, it was a technical accomplishment on the system. Plus, it was made five months into the GBA's life!

I'd love for it to happen but as Mickeymac pointed out, it wouldn't make a dent at all. Also most GBA games you can find on eBay or Amazon for around £5 along with the console for about £10-50, might as well buy that than wait around for Nintendo to release them randomly.

I'd love to see them start releasing GBA games on the eShop but I just don't see it happening, at least not any time soon. I'm sure they will eventually down the line because it would be a waste to port 10 GBA games to the eShop for free and then end it there, just doesn't sound like a good business idea especially when you could make a ton of money out of it. However, the problem still lurks in the shadows, who will want to wait for a GBA game to be released on the eShop when they can buy that exact game for about £5?

I would buy them from eShop. Not every country has GBA games for that kind of prices. Here you have to spend two times more money for one GBA game. And there are also some rare games so it would be nice to have them to download, can't find KH: Chain of Memories...

Maybe they'll release them, I'd like WW Twisted or pokemon GBA games

List of GBA VC games I want:
Mario Pinball Land
Super Mario Advance 2
Mario Tennis
Golden Sun 1 & 2
All Fire Emblem Games
All Final Fantasy Games
All Pokemon Games

In the U.S. they're still kind of expensive. Pokemon ones retail at $40 used and games like Metroid: Fusion go at $25 at gamestop.

Seriously? The GameStops near me no longer stock many GBA games anymore, but the most i've ever seen one priced at was around $15, and that was for the more "in demand" games (as in not many used copies available) like the Metroids or Link to the Past. The most i've seen any Pokemon GBA game for (used) is around $10.

Also eBay is your friend.

Back when Gamestop carried GBA stuff in my area they'd charge 35 dollars for a used Pokemon game. And half of them were bootlegs that people probably bought on ebay thinking they were legit and then traded.

My Gamestop is actually still selling used GBA games as well as GC and original Xbox games, but I heard everything 6th gen except for PS2 will be phased out of all stores by the end of the year. Don't use this post as a source because I'm just guessing, but I think Japan's going to start getting GBA games on the VC in 2013 combined with an update allowing VC multiplayer, since they're actually getting plenty of VC games and they already have half of the Ambassador NES games (like Tsuchinoko said). But NA/EU/AU probably won't get GBA games until later in 2013 at the earliest. Again, this is just my guess.

GameStop officially stopped trading GBA games at least two (maybe 3?) years ago. I remember after that, they just stuck the remaining GBA games in a bin on the counter (you can probably guess most of the remaining games were shovelware).
The glass case was instead filled with DS cards. (because you know, shoving those tiny cards together in a layered drawer makes it really easy to see the titles and totally won't make me go blind. Especially if I want to see what games are in the lower drawers.
That is a case design that really worked better when they originally held original Game Boy games because they had bigger labels that were easier to distinguish with limited visibility.)
I see one store farther away from me has instead put them in a tall flat case that makes it easier to see all the games.
Xbox has been gone for years, GameCube was recently removed (my local store actually pulled them all out the weekend before the official end to GC trades). PS2 is still there, but I'm going to guess that doesn't have much longer. A couple years ago they trashed the case and manual to all games valued under $5 (if you buy them, you only get the disc in a paper sleeve).

As long as the PS2 console is still being sold they will probably sell used PS2 games. The Xbox, Gamecube, GBA etc you cant buy the systems new so thats why Gamestop doesnt sell the games used.

I know GB/GBC continued to be sold years after discontinuation (until maybe 2007 or so), but I suspected that's because they were still playable on GBA/SP.
Whereas while GC is still playable on most Wiis, GameStop still dropped it. (I guess you could say it's because currently-made Wiis can't. No idea about original Xbox compatibility on new 360s.)

No. I want N64 games on eShop. Original Smash Bros on the go. #InsertF***YeaMemeHere