Looks like yet another step is being taken towards the brave new tomorrow by those nutty folks in Japan. Gamespot.com is reporting that a company in Tokyo, am3, is going to start offering downloadable anime, music, manga and more in a format that can be played on the GameBoy Advance with use of am3’s peripheral devices. I figure that if this is a success, it’ll be the next big thing to hit the US comic book market, only to be ignored by Marvel, DC, etc. and embraced by Tokyopop, Viz and other forward-thinking comic book companies.

>b>GBA movie vending machine to hit Japan
New machine will sell downloadable anime for Game Boy Advance owners.

TOKYO–Japanese peripheral manufacturer am3 announced today that it will begin testing a new vending machine that sells movies for the Game Boy Advance. Market testing of the vending machine will take place at 20 locations around Japan from August through September.

To get movies from the new machine, customers will insert a proprietary rewriteable Smart Media card and then download the movie data, which can then be viewed with a separate GBA device called Advance Movie. Each movie will cost between 100 ($0.91) to 400 yen ($3.70), depending on the content. On sale since last year, all Advance Movie titles thus far have been based on anime programs.

You can read the entire article here.

The News