Bandai did the same with the Wonderswan devices, which competed against the Game Boy Color and Advance. The device was only released in Japan around '98 - '01.
And so now, if you want to use headphones with it (and you do; as not only do you get stereo instead of monaural sound; you get an extra channel of audio so you'll be missing certain sound effects in some games without them!), you get to buy one of these pricey ($60-80) adapters for it, plus shipping fees from Japan: http://www.ebay.com/itm/361198122142
Of course, if you really want to see the fun of removing standardized ports, look no further than the Gamecube's component cables, which sell for a cool $250+ today: http://www.ebay.com/itm/131939975870
So, yeah. I'm strongly in favor of industry standard ports, even if it adds a few pennies onto the cost or a few mm onto the device size.
> The only cables that can output a 480p signal from the GameCube are the official Nintendo-brand YPBPR component cables, available in both RCA[note 1] and D-Terminal[note 2] variations. These cables are equipped with a unique digital-to-analog converter developed by Nintendo which has not been reproduced by any third party company.
So the adapter is proprietary and I'd imagine wasn't exactly manufactured in huge numbers back then, which attracts such a high price.
The real irony is that component is an analog standard; yet Nintendo chose to output it over their digital port by using a custom DAC. And yet they never released any true digital cable (eg HDMI) for said port.
Although the image quality is said to be slightly worse; at this point your best bet is to buy one of the older, backward-compatible Wiis to get component output. Much cheaper.
I might have my timelines confused a bit, but I could swear HDMI was not mass-adopted back when the Gamecube was out... I think DVI was the main digital video standard back then.
Yeah but HDMI is compatible with DVI so if they had output it conversion would be a trivial dongle. I think the point they're making is that they had digital output but didn't take advantage of it. But the digital out they had at the time was probably a standard they thought was going to be the winner or long term so I don't know if I'd knock them for not knowing what is obvious with hindsight.
Oh wow I had no idea Gamecube component cables are so crazy expensive now. I had a set back when I used to have my Gamecube and I gave it all away only a couple of years ago. Damn.
I bought second-hand Gamecube a while ago. I just checked and I have a cable which plugs into analog port. There is digital port too. I assume the digital port is used by component cable which I don't have. Funny, I've never noticed digital port until today.
Yep, you’re right. I bought my GameCube new back in the day and it only came with the composite cable. The component cable is a separate purchase and Nintendo only sold it in Japan. In addition to that, the Digital A/V Output Port was also removed from newer GameCube models¹, lowering the probability of someone wanting the cable even further.
re: Gamecube... How big of a market do you think there will be for 15 year old iPhones? As expensive as they are, I think they will hold much less retro appeal than old game systems.
I remember this as well (I still have mine in fact!).
However, I didn’t really care that much considering how much better the Game Boy Advance SP was than all the previous Game Boys.
It was the first Game Boy to have a backlit screen, which meant I could finally easily sneak and play on it in the night without alerting my parents (instead of trying to do the same with the much less effective wormlight accessory I had for my Game Boy Advance).
The D-pad was far more comfortable to use over long periods compared with the ones on previous Game Boys. I distinctly remember having my left thumb hurt after playing for a few hours on my Game Boy Advance, since the D-pad on that one makes you feel like you have to press down a lot harder than the one on the Game Boy Advance SP.
And the biggest point: it was the first Game Boy to include a rechargeable battery! This was huge, since people really didn’t buy rechargeable batteries nearly as much back then as they do now, so you’d pretty much be either wasting two alkaline batteries per day or two, or staying tethered to a wall by using the included AC adapter. That was a pretty annoying option too, especially when the power in your home died right before you could get to a save point…
When I got one, I essentially stopped playing GBA games on my Game Boy Advance, since playing them on my Game Boy Advance SP was a far more enjoyable experience (so much so that I didn’t really lament the loss of the headphone jack all that much).
>It was the first Game Boy to have a backlit screen, which meant I could finally easily sneak and play on it in the night without alerting my parents
Actually, there was another Game Boy with backlit screen released much earlier -- just a few months before the Game Boy Color, though only in Japan. I remember said Game Boy because a friend of mine whose father traveled to Japan had brought one such Game Boy back with him for his son. It was called the Game Boy Light.
The screen was monochrome with green backlight. Pretty badass.
Also realized I made another error too: the original Game Boy Advance didn’t include an AC adapter; in fact the Game Boy Advance itself doesn’t even have a barrel connector on it to plug one in in the first place! I misremembered that the AC adapter that I have lying around for my Game Boy Advance didn’t come with it, but actually came from a third-party accessory my parents had ended up buying for me so they could stop wasting money on alkaline batteries (a controller grip similar to this¹ one that plugged into the battery compartment).
Interestingly enough, Nintendo made such an accessory²³⁴ themselves as well (although without the grip part).
Japan-only just means that there was a marketing and distribution effort by Nintendo there and nowhere else. Third-parties could still have imported the GB Light consoles to places like Germany. Could also be that the GB Light consoles you saw ended up in your area the same way my friend got one -- through family visiting Japan.
As someone who went from GBC to original purple GBA and then to DSLite (and I still haven't gone to DSi or 3DS), I don't see what all the fuss is about. I never really had problems with lighting - sure I couldn't play at night, but I had a lighted magnifier for GBC and a light for my GBA. The shift from real batteries to rechargeable on the DS was actually a stopping point for me. I guess it's just how I think, but I want control over my power source. I don't want something where I rely on Nintendo or any one company. On my GBC and GBA, I could use any brand of battery I wanted, change 'em around, etc. Sure, I had one of the recharge packs; but that got used very rarely, only for very long trips. Most of the time, I was on battery power only.
> And the biggest point: it was the first Game Boy to include a rechargeable battery! This was huge, since people really didn’t buy rechargeable batteries nearly as much back then as they do now, so you’d pretty much be either wasting two alkaline batteries per day or two, or staying tethered to a wall by using the included AC adapter.
I definitely had a rechargeable battery pack for my Gameboy Color[1], and at the height of the Pokemon craze, it was an essential investment...
True, I did eventually get a similar one¹ for my Game Boy Color as well, but it took quite a while before that happened since I didn’t want to ask my parents to buy me something else when they already paid for the Game Boy Color and an AC adapter (which I now realize wasn’t included with the Game Boy Color; they actually had to buy it separately!) that I could use to power it instead. It’s definitely more convenient for kids (and parents!) when rechargeable batteries are already included.
I still have my GBA SP, too, but I'm pretty sure part of why charging it is so finicky now is that I used the headphone adapter so often. Which is a bummer. But it still charges with a little bit of a wiggle and I've got a flash cart with a bunch of translated versions of Japanese games. It's still a bunch of fun and I bring it when I fly.
This reminds me of the "feature phone" era in the early 2000s, where every phone had a proprietary charging port, proprietary headphone jack and the removable memory interface was not yet standardized on MicroSD.
Thankfully European Union pushed for MicroUSB standardization. While vendors (like Apple) can still get around it by bundling an adapter in European markets, it was enough to push the entire industry to standardize.
Still, both Nintendo and Apple still change charging port standards frequently (and not adopting the universal standards even when they're superior): the original GBA used a certain proprietary charging port, then both GBA SP and the original Nintendo DS shared a (different) charging port. But Nintendo DS Lite used another standard (looks a lot like MicroUSB but wasn't). Finally all handhelds since DSi (including DSi XL, 3DS XL and New 3DS variants) all use another proprietary variant!
New 3DS systems don't even ship with AC adapters! Not even a cable from the proprietary 3DS connector to USB type A! This means little Johnny will get between 0 and 1 charges out of the system on Christmas Day, while his exasperated mother has to go find a shop that's open during the holiday period just to charge the device.
Very surprising since Nintendo have sometimes been very good regarding backwards compatibility of interfaces on their hardware - Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64 and Gamecube all shared the same video cable (a proprietary connector to composite audio/video out via Red/White/Yellow RCA connectors)
Apple of course do it with constantly changing MagSafe variants, as well the old 30-pin iPod/iPhone connectors (and not switching to the MicroUSB standard) and chasing Firewire (and to a much less degree Intel Thunderbolt) and most recently choosing the superior (to USB2.0) reversible Lightning connector over the new industry standard, USB3.1 Type C.
The reasons for doing this appear to be mostly related control of an ecosystem to enable price gouging. (Can't really be due to increasing water resistance, as competitors show it's possible to have even better water resistance without removing any standardized jacks)
They have 2 MegSafe versions in 10 years (MegSafe was introduced in 2006), the 2nd one was necessary to make slimmer laptops. Same thing with 30-pin connector and lightning. Lightning was before USB-C and it's superior to the old 30-pin connector.
Btw, MegSafe is one of the best thing about MacBooks, I'm actually sad they're not using it in the new MacBook.
My only gripe with the newer MagSafe variant is that the part that attaches to the actual port comes out much further than the old one, so when I sit with the laptop on my lap and my legs crossed, I always accidentally push it upwards with my left leg just enough that it becomes unplugged, and then I don't notice it's not charging until I get a notification saying my battery is low. I can't imagine anyone else has this problem, but it happens to me several times a week.
Bear in mind: not invented by Apple. Japanese kitchen appliances (e.g. deep fryers, fondue appliances) have had that type of connector since the late 90s/early 2000s.
Yeah, the original Game Boy Advance doesn’t actually have a charging port on it in the first place!
Unlike the Game Boys that came before it, the Game Boy Advance didn’t have a barrel connector on it to connect an AC adapter for powering it without batteries. Due to that, Nintendo made an accessory¹²³ for the Game Boy Advance that plugged into the battery compartment (which completely replaced the battery cover). It had a proprietary port on it which you would use to plug in an AC adapter that would then plug into a wall outlet and power (not charge) the Game Boy Advance. I believe that may be what the parent poster was referring to.
I doubt it's about price gouging -- Apple makes most of its money selling phones, tablets, and computers, not adapters and accessories. Sure, you could argue that they're trying to lock their customers in by getting them to invest in tons of adapters and accessories that would need to be replaced if they switch to another ecosystem, but I think iOS and the App Store ecosystem are much better at that. Besides, why would they keep changing port designs every few years if lock-in was the goal? There's no better time than a port redesign to switch to someone else's hardware if you need a new device and have to buy new accessories anyway.
USB C seems like the future for basically _all_ ports on all devices, so I do think it's a shame that Apple's going to stick with Lightning for iOS devices. It's hard to blame them for this -- Lightning is quite a bit thinner[1]. But I also don't share their obsession with device thinness.
Apple does care about its service business revenues, and I think they felt they needed to compete with Spotify, etc. instead of letting others slowly erode iTunes' share. This isn't about lock-in to iDevices -- Apple Music is also available on Windows, Android.
For Apple Beats Audio was a talent acquisition (eg: they got the founders, Trent Reznor and the like) for Apple Music, and a technology Acquisition (Beats streaming service and content is powering Apple Music) as well as buying a profitable accessories business.
Apple has great gross margins on computers because they have such operational excellence in building them, but still a Mac makes much less margin than headphones- at any price point along the quality curve.
Hmm, apparently they don't have to start until 2017 (after looking into the (2014) EU directive, it's still unclear to me the timeline of events leading to MicroUSB adoption and how it is enforced)
What? Yes they do! I unpack dozens of iPhones and Macs at work each year and a charger is included every time. Now, I think this just might be a terminology mix-up as a charger is technically not an "adapter", but e.g. where I live the words are often both used for a charger. I suspect that this is what the parent comment meant.
Ah. Yes, I thought that by "adapter" OP meant micro-usb to lightning adapter, which is available, but not bundled. The charger is, of course, included in the box.
I distinctly remember this at the time. I just played all my games with no sound, a mild frustration at best as it was the only real option as a kid if you wanted to play games at night without goofy adapters for your GBA!
It's more akin to the iPhone 1 not including a jack then adding one later than the iPhone 7 removing it.
Another note: Original Gameboy games stuck way out the back. The GBA SP sure made a lot of sacrifices, and odd design choices but the fact that it fixed the biggest issue means a lot for it.
> It's more akin to the iPhone 1 not including a jack then adding one later than the iPhone 7 removing it.
And I came to the iphone from the ipod. To me the iphone was (and still is) an ipod with wifi and a crappy mobile connection. Hence me seeing the removal of the audio jack as killing one of the core features.
Nintendo really did some cool things. I had played with my daugther's GBA; my son wanted the Sony PSP.
I inherited the PSP from my son. My daughter sold her GBA. They got a lot of use out of them.
I wound up coding on the PSP. Simple stuff, but I almost got into some high-end things, but then PIC chips and 32 bit uCs, and FPGAs flooded the market.
I am to this day amazed at how modern the PSP still looks and feels compared to the way that phones and computers age. Good screen too! I still charge it and play with it once and a while. Something about a dedicated game unit with no distractions from the internet, although it does have connectivity!
I'm going to become a father in roughly 6 weeks. Besides all the other emotions flying around, your post just made me look forward to it a little more. Thank you. :)
You're welcome, and all the best to you and yours!
I joke with my son that when I come home to visit him, I am going to take back the fancy telescope I bought him several years ago! He uses it a lot. There is a secret side of me that wants it, that and the microscope I bought my daugther ;)
Remember the time when the first Android phone was released and it didn't have a headphone jack? The HTC Dream AKA the G1? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_Dream
Yup. I recall upgrading to an HTC Hero the next year and feeling relieved that I no longer needed to constantly have a usb to headphone dongle on hand.
The gameboy advanced SP was the first gaming device, and in fact the first piece of technology I owned. I still remember my excitement of going to the mall with my dad on my birthday to get it + pokemon leaf green. In my eyes, it was perfect.
I never felt like it needed a headphone jack, and my friends at school who had the previous generation which had a headphone jack never used it either.
Very interesting reminder of the parallel that exists in the GBSP...
However, since Apple's focus is unequivocally (and technologically and commercially viably) on wireless headphones, the author does this fact a disservice by burying Apple's counter argument in the middle of the article:
> On the other hand, the GBA SP existed before Bluetooth headphones were a relatively cheap and widespread alternative to the wired standard. And Apple includes both Lightning headphones and a Lightning-to-3.5mm adapter in the box with the iPhone, which ought to ease the transition for many.
Many mobile phone manufacturers did the same at some point. Sony used to cell phones with their own propietary sound output and their propietary memory sticks. LG did the same for sound.
Then the industry matured with standarized chargers, memory and sound output. But Apple somehow got their own way, sound is just one more thing.
Mobile phone companies didn't "mature" into using the same micro USB charger. The European Union sat them all down at a table and said "you standardize on something you like, or we make a law to force a standard". They agreed, and renewed the agreement yearly.
Few years down the line and Samsung says "I'm not signing this year, because Apple doesn't play ball and use their own cable", and the EU moved on their threat and started process on a law. Don't know if it's finally passed or not.
(the EU original intent was to limit waste, and was triggered by seemingly every single Nokia phone needing its own specific charger)
Yes, it's true, they needed some help. Although memory and sound was product of maturity, I always thought that Samsung has been a big pusher in this matter.
I do not know what does, I am just pointing out that I cannot move over to BT as it is right now. I have all my music in ALAC and I am using a great headphone that has no alternative in post iPhone 7 Apple land.
I rarely used headphones on any handheld console (except for the PSP, on which I watched movies sometimes). I remember being annoyed though because whenever I actually did want to use headphones on my GBA SP, I had to look for that stupid adaptor.
If you wanted to replace the headphone jack with your "new thing" the most effective way to do that would have to involve as many audio hardware companies as possible also producing headphones that work with your "new thing". You would want to pre-announce it along with specs and make it an open standard that other companies can utilise without paying royalties.
The GBA still wouldn't have had anywhere near enough market share to pull it off. Apple definitely could've, I think. I haven't followed closely enough, but are other accessory manufacturers able to produce headphones for the new iPhone, or is it completely limited to whatever Apple release?
No shit. Regular cabled earbuds sell for $2 in every gas station and CVS in the US. Just the Bluetooth components cost more than that, not to mention batteries.
> I haven't followed closely enough, but are other accessory manufacturers able to produce headphones for the new iPhone, or is it completely limited to whatever Apple release?
I cannot fathom the amount of (legitimate) outrage that would follow Apple's decision to limit audio output to Apple-branded products.
Several companies already make Lightning-connected headphones, and you can still connect whichever Bluetooth headphones/speakers you want.
The thought process would be "Apple want to own the peripherals market for their devices and their fans won't be perturbed by such a buyer hostile approach".
IIRC from a previous comment here Apple are charging about $5 per lightning connector that a 3rd party makes. They presumably designed it exactly for the purpose of getting money from every sale in "their" product space.
Other accessory manufacturers can produce Lightning headphones (what the new iPhone uses, and older ones can use them too) and they are starting to. A quick search reveals a decent selection, although of course tiny in comparison to what's out there with the standard connector. Some of them are in stock right now, which implies that Apple gave them information in advance. A royalty-free open standard probably isn't happening, though.
A game system (worth around $100) that was not meant to have a multimedia experience vs something that has been a multimedia experience that costs around $850 (the only one I would buy)...
Is the comparison a joke? Because they also omitted reference to more comparable products that deleted the jack.
Smartphones are really terribly designed to be actually used as a telephone.
Personally, I say good riddance. Anything that can be communicated in text, whether email, SMS or other, ought to be. That leaves very little use for telephone, which has all of the disadvantages of synchronous, face-to-face voice communication, with none of the benefits.
Eh, telephone doesn't help that much either. Video you can at least get some indications of body language, but on the whole I'd be perfectly content if I never had to make another phone call. Bad connections, constant reverb from garbage mics, people forgetting they are on mute, incomprehensible accents. None of these are problems in text communication, and the signal-to-noise ratio is higher.
I use my smartphone almost entirely for texting and browsing. I think my monthly talk time averages 30-60 minutes. Observing my peers (20-40 something tech-savvy people) this seems to be the norm.
Yes, but I didn't just mention phone calls. On the browser you'd be getting video feeds, needing sons. Facebook is full on video these days, also needing sound.
However, if you look at the money and the plans that Telcos are providing, it's pretty evident that phone calls are still very much an important part of having a phone.
Viber, Facebook calling, Whatsapp phone calls, Skype and FaceTime are all extremely popular. Even sending Vines requires sound.
You might have meant sound in other apps, but the original comment that spawned this thread was "phone calls wouldn't even be top 5". I don't do any voice in fb or whatsapp. Hangouts would be about it and that's mostly from my laptop.
I'm not defending the 3.5mm port removal or anything, I think it sucks. But voice chat in any form is not top 5 and probably isn't top 10 for me either. I suspect many others are similar.
I'm sure others use the iPhone for things other than voice calls, but with 1 billion iPhones sold even a million people who don't make voice calls is still a tiny fraction of the market.
Most people are still using their phone to make phone calls, even if you and others are not.
Fully 97% of smartphone owners used text messaging at least once over the course of the study period, making it the most widely-used basic feature or app; it is also the feature that is used most frequently, as the smartphone owners in this study reported having used text messaging in the past hour in an average of seven surveys (out of a maximum total of 14 across the one-week study period). Younger smartphone owners are especially avid users of text messaging, but this group has by no means abandoned voice calls — 93% of smartphone owners ages 18-29 used voice or video calling on at least one occasion during the study period, and reported doing so in an average of 3.9 surveys.
I fear this thread is getting a little long already, but let me point you to the graph in your own link (looking at 18-29 year olds).
SMS: 100%
Internet: 97%
Voice Calls: 93%
Looking at those numbers, from an article you provided, could you imagine a fairly large portion of those users using 5 apps on their phone more than they use the phone app? That's the only argument being made here.
We must be looking at different graphs. It shows that text messaging, voice/video calls and email rank amongst the most popular smartphone features.
And sure, if you want to restrict yourself to 18-29 year olds, possibly there is a dropoff on phone calls (though I'm still doubtful). But the market is pretty much larger than that now.
I can't speak for the others but let me list some things I think we usually find in the top 5: Facebook, email, Messenger/WhatsApp/equivalent, Instagram, Snapchat, games, browser etc. The study lumps all those together which is not relevant to this discussion. The point is that people are mainly using their devices as computers, not phones.
I do disagree. The study might lump all the Internet apps together, but it still shows that 92% of all users used voice/video calling at least once in the survey period, whilst it shows that 89% of all users used the Internet at least once. Hence placing voice and video calls in the top 5 most used features.
The 30-49 year olds have 1% greater use of phone over internet, but I'm (totally) guessing that would skew closer to the 49 side of the band rather than the 30 year old side of the band. Since we were considering 20-40 year olds, and your own quote spoke about 18-29 year olds, I think that distinction was fair.
Anyway, since you haven't answered my question, and instead want to restate the question differently over and over, I'm done speaking with you. For what it's worth I haven't downvoted you, but I can guess some likely reasons. Mainly, that you keep shifting the argument and avoiding direct questions.
Since when did I mention only 20-40 year olds? That graph shows the percentage of each age group who used a particular feature once, the graph I showed provides the data in aggregate across all age ranges.
No need to get so annoyed, and no need to call me obtuse.
> phone calls are still very much an important part of having a phone
According to the telephone company. SoftBank in Japan kept lowering data caps without lowering the price. (Unlimited > 7GB > 5GB). They made voice calling "free" in exchange. How generous.
Most of my calls consist of a) "please send me 2 bottles of whatever tomorrow ... thanks", b) listening to "your call is important to us, stay on line ... what is your passphrase, please wait while I'm getting information ... thanks for five-minute waiting, your xxx is yyy, can I zzz?"
I wish I could do everything in text and not use people's ears and fingers as middle layer between my intents and their databases.
I didn't downvote, but I suspect he's getting downvoted because what he said is not rational, but actually a pretty bad rationalization.
The Gameboy Advanced SP is used to play video games, and I don't know of a single game on it that doesn't include music and sound-effects. In other words, 99% of the GBA SP's use case involves sound, in contrast to the iPhone, where there are plenty of apps that don't require sound, such as texting, browsing the web, looking at maps, etc.
Better to just accept that the SP not having a headphone jack was bad, but it sold anyway, and that the iPhone not having a headphone jack will be bad, but it'll probably sell anyway, instead of coming up with illogical post-hoc justifications for why it's okay for the SP but not the iPhone.
near-0% of the Gameboy's use-cases are audio-centric. I almost always played my Gameboy(s) with the volume down, so as not to annoy parents/siblings/whoever-else-was-around, and the games I played were all perfectly playable. In fact, some of them I enjoyed better that way, given that some sound was annoying, but that's purely subjective.
When I go to the gym, 95% to 100% of what I want to do with my phone is put it in my pocket and listen to music. This is a use-case that requires audio, and so removing the headphone jack would make this entire very-common use-case painful.
When I'm in my car, I want to plug my phone into the aux input (or the "aux cord" as kids call it nowadays) and listen to a podcast or audiobook. My 2006 car does not have bluetooth audio. This use-case is (if I'm being safe and legal while driving!) 100% audio-centric. Removal of the headphone jack would make this painful.
When I'm at work, I have two primary usages for my phone: testing a native app I develop, and playing my music through my headphones. I play music far more often than I test the native app on my phone (I don't usually work on the native app). Removal of the headphone jack would make that primary usage of my phone much much more painful.
I've just described ~65-70% of what I use my phone for. ~65-70% of my phone's entire usage would be made more painful and expensive if I bought a phone that for no real reason omitted a jack that is cheap, ubiquitous, and simple-to-use (compare the 3.5mm jack to HDMI in terms of reliability and simplicity), my phone would lose ~65-70% of its usefulness to me.
Meanwhile, the Gameboy, since its purpose is to play games (which have sound and music that is optional to the experience of playing games), loses near-0% of its usefulness without having a headphone jack, because even if it had no audio output whatsoever (not even speakers), I can still play games without sound.
I don't tend to make many phone/FaceTime calls that lack sound. I also tend to enjoy listening to music and videos with sound. Could be just my illogical post-hoc rationalisation kicking in though.
"Why Nintendo, why why why why why? The speaker is just as tinny and pathetic as the GBA, and thus if you have any intention of playing a game with the sound on while in the presence of human beings around, you'll know that you'll get that glare. Try the same thing on a train or a plane (or better still, in a library) and your life won't be worth living. Headphone socket. Where the hell is it?"
I don't know if you've ever played a handheld in public, or been around somebody doing it, but you do not want to be that jerk who forces everybody on the bus to listen to Mario stomp red turtles.
On the other hand, the GBA SP existed before Bluetooth headphones were a relatively cheap and widespread alternative to the wired standard. And Apple includes both Lightning headphones and a Lightning-to-3.5mm adapter in the box with the iPhone, which ought to ease the transition for many.
It's worth remembering these devices are primarily used by children. Children who are both at risk of permanent ear damage and lacking in judgement as to what is too loud.
I call this an unintended benefit.
And so now, if you want to use headphones with it (and you do; as not only do you get stereo instead of monaural sound; you get an extra channel of audio so you'll be missing certain sound effects in some games without them!), you get to buy one of these pricey ($60-80) adapters for it, plus shipping fees from Japan: http://www.ebay.com/itm/361198122142
Of course, if you really want to see the fun of removing standardized ports, look no further than the Gamecube's component cables, which sell for a cool $250+ today: http://www.ebay.com/itm/131939975870
So, yeah. I'm strongly in favor of industry standard ports, even if it adds a few pennies onto the cost or a few mm onto the device size.