Game Boy Advance Video

Game Boy Advance Video is a format for putting full color, full-motion videos onto Game Boy Advance cartridges. These videos are playable using the Game Boy Advance system's screen and sound hardware. These video cartridges were manufactured by Majesco, except for the Pokémon Game Boy Advance Video cartridges, which were published by Nintendo. The cartridges themselves were developed by 4Kids Entertainment's subsidiary 4Kids Technology, Inc. The video cartridges are colored white for easy identification and are sold as Game Boy Advance Video Paks. The Game Boy Advance Video game paks offer the same 240x160 resolution as standard Game Boy Advance games.

Game Boy Advance Video Paks first became available in North America in May 2004. In June 2004, Majesco had expanded its Game Boy Advance Video licenses into other categories. In November 2004, Majesco started to sell GBA Video Paks featuring several Disney Channel animated series, including Brandy & Mr. Whiskers, Kim Possible, Lilo & Stitch: The Series, and The Proud Family. In November 2005, Majesco began to sell GBA Video Paks featuring full-length animated movies like Shrek 2 and Shark Tale. A special GBA Video Pak containing the movies Shrek and Shark Tale combined into one cartridge was released later, costing approximately US$29.99 MSRP as of April 2007. As of April 2007, the retail price of original GBA Video Paks was lowered to US$9.95.

Game Boy Advance Video Paks are viewable only on Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Advance SP, Game Boy Micro, Nintendo DS, and Nintendo DS Lite systems, as the owners of copyright in the television shows requested that Majesco prevent people from using the Nintendo GameCube's Game Boy Player accessory to play and record the shows onto VHS tapes or DVDs. However, the low resolution and mono sound would result in a low-quality video output on a TV regardless. Unlike Sony's PlayStation 2 and Microsoft's Xbox video game consoles, the Nintendo GameCube cannot output Macrovision gain-control copy distortion signals. The GBA Video Paks perform a check when inserted into the Game Boy Player, using the same logo authentication method used by Game Boy Advance games that support controller rumble, and will freeze with the message "Not designed for Game Boy Player" if they detect the Game Boy Player in use.

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