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Platforms And Interfaces Essay

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A player’s personal experience of transforming platforms and interfaces: from Game Boy to personal computers
Introduction
Accept it or not, video games and “gaming” are a large part of Australian culture. The average Australian 21-year-old would have spent over 10,000 hours playing games (that’s how long it takes to complete school from year 5 to year 12). For immeasurable reasons such as involvement, freedom, entertainment and story-telling are games such a powerful medium of creative and interactive media7.
Due to my own personal experience with games and their distinct platforms and interfaces, this essay will provide a comparative view of two gaming platforms; a hand-held Game Boy Advance (GBA) and a personal computer (PC). The GBA …show more content…

The GBA was made particularly popular amongst gaming communities by games such as Zelda and Pokémon. Coloured games were pleasant to look at and the interface overall is easy to use; a D-pad, A & B buttons and triggers. This is partly as to why it was so popular among younger age group fans. The hand-held console used small ROM cartridges, and the console came in a variety of colours and shared compatibility with other Nintendo consoles at the time (GameCube & Game boy colour). Wireless adaptors were one of the biggest innovations to effect GBA users. For the first time games like Pokémon let players interact by battling and trading. The initial sense was that the game is bigger than yourself and the screen you’re looking at, the once single player experience can now be shared with other friends (which I remember was a huge deal). Due to these circumstances, the GBA created a strong following and as of June 2010, 81.51 million units were sold including 16 million copies of one of their most popular bestselling games; Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire3.
Buying a PC is not cheap and can be quite expensive, which is why naturally you’d only spend the money if gaming was one of your biggest hobbies. There are companies that will assemble prebuilt gaming computers, and establishments that retail mice, keyboards and headsets aimed toward gamers. PC

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