I made an initial report o­n this o­n Gizmodo probably like a month ago, but details were pretty sparse back then. You didn't miss much, trust me.

Really, it's Nintendo's official MPEG-4/MP3 player for the Gameboy SP and Nintendo DS. Alright, but for example, what video resolutions? Price? Formats? Answers to these and other questions that have been remained unanswered since the original announcement are revealed inside. Think of this as Nintendo's o­nly official attempt at stealing some multimedia thunder from the PSP.

Nintendo Corporation has begun o­nline preorders for the "Playan," a portable SD card AV player supporting MPEG-4/MP3, intended for use with the Gameboy Advance SP. The release date is February 21st.

Pricing for just the unit is 5,000 yet, and a model including Matushita's (reads "Panasonic") video creation software, "MediaStage Ver.4.2 for Nintendo," is 6,000 yen. Nationwide shipping is 450 yen. Payments can be made by either COD or credit card.

The Playan is a MPEG-4/MP3 player furnished with an SD card slot. An SD card is inserted into the Playan, which is then inserted into the Gameboy Advance SP's cartridge slot. Gameboy Advance is not supported, and the Nintendo DS can be switched into Gameboy Advance Mode for usage of the Playan. SD cards up to 1GB are supported. A list of supported cards appear's o­n Nintendo's official site.

With the launch of preorders, further specifications have also been announced. The video format is MPEG-4 (ASF), and supported resolutions are 128 x 96, 176 x 144, 240 x 176, 320 x 240, and 352 x 288. Bitrates are from 64kbps to 1Mbps; framerates from 6fps to 30fps. The audio for the video is in the G.726 format, with a 32kbps bitrate. The samepling frequency is 8kHz. Because the Playan also supports the SD-Video format, videos recorded o­nto a SD card with Panasonic's "DMR-E500H," "DMR-E200H," "DMR-E100H," and other hybrid recorders can be played.

The Playan's supported music format is MP3. Supported CBR bitrates include 32, 40, 48, 56, 64, 80, 96, 112, 128, 160, 192, 224, 256, and 320kbps; VBR and ABR are also supported. 32, 44.1, and 48kHz sampling frequencies are supported. Furthermore, ID3 tags up to version 2 are supported.

"MediaStage Ver.4.2 for Nintendo" is a video conversion software optimized for creating video for playback o­n the Playan. However, it does not contain MP3 creation functionality. Created video and audio files can be transferred directly to the SD card using a PC, without the use of any special transfer software, and played. Windows XP is MediaStage Ver.4.2 for Nintendo's supported operating system.

Continuous playback time, when using the Gameboy Advance SP, is about 4 hours for video, and 16 hours for audio. When using the Nintendo DS, it is about 5 hours for video and 20 hours for audio. The external dimensions are 58.5 x 11 x 43.4mm (W x D x H). It weighs about 16g.

The Playan furnishes an earphone jack, and though the sound can be produced from the handheld's own speakers, Nintendo has reportedly tuned the audio quality for listening o­n headphones. MP3 playback using the speakers will be in stereo for Nintendo DS users and monoaural for GBA SP users.



Inspired by:
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/docs/20050119/nintendo.htm

Official Site:
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/n08/playan/index.html