Official Game Boy Advance Accessories

Nintendo has released many peripherals for the Game Boy Advance. These include:

Cleaning Cartridge

A white cartridge that contains a soft cloth inside, which when inserted, cleans the connectors of the Game Boy Advance It can also be used to clean Slot 2 of the Nintendo DS.

Wireless Adapter

An adaptor released in 2004 that hooks up to the back of the GBA to replace the link cables that are normally used to link players up to each other. The adapter is possibly most useful in the Pokémon games FireRed/LeafGreen and Emerald, which feature a Union Room where up to forty people can enter to trade or battle Pokemon.

Game Boy Advance Infra-Red Adapter

An adapter that was included with the game Cyberdrive Zoids and is compatible with that game only. This is currently the only Game Boy Advance accessory that has not been remade for the Game Boy Micro.

Play-Yan

An MP3/MPEG4 player for the GBA and Nintendo DS. Music or videos can be transferred onto an SD Card and slotted into the Play-Yan device, which is then inserted into the cartridge port. The cartridge also includes a built-in headphone port. Whilst Nintendo released several mini games for the Play-Yan through their website, they later removed all mini-game functionality through a firmware update.

e-Reader

The e-Reader is a bulky scanning device that plugs into the game cartridge slot of the GBA. Specialised coded cards are then swiped through a slit in the device in order to scan the card into the console. Cards can be used to scan classic games such as Donkey Kong and Excitebike onto the handheld ready to play, or they may be used to unlock content in games such as Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire or Super Mario Advance 4. The Pokémon Trading Card Game playing cards also adopted the e-Reader codes. Although the system is still popular in Japan, it was discontinued in North America in early 2004, and was never released in Europe.

Game Boy Advance Video

A range of highly popular cartridges that contained two episodes of 30 minute cartoon programmes, such as SpongeBob SquarePants, Pokémon and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. A number of films were also available, including Shrek, Shrek 2 and Shark Tale.