Game Boy Advance is a 32-bit handheld console released in 2001 by Nintendo as a successor to Game Boy Color. The most obvious difference between Game Boy Advance and its predecessors is its appearance, since it has a more landscape design with the buttons on the sides of the console, unlike Game Boy (and its variants) and Game Boy Color that have them under the screen.
Game Boy Advance sold 81.51 million units with Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire to be its best selling games with 16 million game cartridges sold. It uses two AA batteries as a power source, which give around 15 hours of game play, and there are two redesigns of the console: Game Boy Advance SP (which has two versions, one with frontlit screen and one with backlit screen) and Game Boy Micro.
Game Boy Advance has backwards compatibility with Game Boy and Game Boy Color, meaning that the games of the older consoles, Game Boy and Game Boy Color can be played in Game Boy Advance. It has also forward compatibility with Nintendo DS and Nintendo DS Lite but not with Nintendo DSi, which doesn't receive cartridges of the same size. In addition, Game Boy Advance games can be played in a Game Cube home console using an extra accessory, Game Boy Player, which released in 2003. Game Boy Player is the successor of Super Game Boy that allowed the use of Game Boy games in a Super Nintendo Entertainment System home console. Game Boy Player also gives the ability to play Game Boy Color and Game Boy games in a Game Cube, however, some games have compatibility issues.