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First off, I want to welcome all of the new followers on FB!  There are a LOT of you ‘O_O’

We’ve been looking through the various articles and comments around the web.  There seems to be some confusion here and there, based on the comments in some of the articles.  So, we’ll try and clear up some of that 🙂

First, here are links to a number of the articles:

IGN

Kotaku

Screenburn.Kotaku

Tay.Kotaku

Polygon

Nintendolife

Retro Game Network

Game Kult

Videogiochi

Nintenderos

Dualshockers

Gamespark (japanese)

Iletaitungeek (french)

Retro Gaming Magazine

 

Alright, here goes.

ALL of our GBAs are backlit using an original GBA (AGB-001) motherboard and a replacement GBA SP (AGS-101) backlit LCD.  These are actually a better quality product than the original SP LCDs.  We’ve modified many, MANY GBAs with both the replacement and original LCDs, and the replacements have always provided better, more consistent results.

These are original Gameboy Advance systems which have been modified to use a backlit LCD and have a themed appearance.  These are NOT “clone” systems and they are most certainly not “portablized” SNES/SFC systems.  They play Gameboy, Gameboy Color, and Gameboy Advance games, just like any other Gameboy Advance system.

We are not currently pre-selling these or any of our other products.  We post regular updates on our FB page regarding production of new products.  That is the best place to be for the most up-to-date information regarding when these, or any of our other products, will be up for sale.

Like most everything else we produce or have produced, these are made by hand, thus they take a lot of time to create/build.   Here is a list of what went in to these systems.

Unique package design for both systems.  These were designed in-house, like all of our packaging.  The boxes come back to us cut and scored from a local friend and printer. We then assemble the packaging.

 

Our own serial and model number labels.  These are not the generic replacements you’d find with a generic replacement shell.  These were created by ourselves and are not simple reproductions of the original labels.

Brand new glass lenses which have been modified to display the SNES and SFC logos.  This is a painstaking and time-consuming process.  Again, this is done by hand.  The original glass lenses are given an acid bath to soften the original finish, we carefully strip them down to bare glass, then the new graphic must be applied, trimmed, and cleaned up.

Our own cast D-pads and A/B buttons.  We make these parts in-house with molds made by us.  We mix the colors and we cast the resins.   Like most everything else we do, this process isn’t quick or cheap.  We use a very high quality resin for these buttons along with the best resin dyes out there.  You cannot simply buy these buttons.  There are no colored aftermarket replacement buttons for the GBA.

Multi-stage paint process.  Each of the painted parts (outer shell, “bumpers”, and R/L buttons) have their own 4-stage finish, and each is painted with colors which we mixed ourselves.  We employ an automotive grade plastic adhesion promoter, then a base of bright white (which helps to ensure opacity when painting the translucent shells and keep the colors as vibrant as possible), then the base color, and then a protective matte/flat clear coat.  This is not your garden variety “Can o’ Krylon Fusion sprayed on a piece of cardboard in the backyard” paint job, and you won’t find these colors at Wal-Mart.  The SNES and SFC both have their own very unique of gray.  The differences are very subtle, and that’s why it’s impossible to reproduce these colors with an off-the-shelf product.

 

Hope this helps everyone better understand the process required to make these and many of our other products.

-wiggy