GBA gets Elite

British e-commerce barons Gameplay have been doing a bit of extra-curricular work these last few days, badgering developers and publishing houses with the results of their poll into the interests of retro-minded GBA owners. They asked "What classic game would you love to see on the GameBoy Advance?" A total of 2518 responded, with games as varied as Tempest 2000, Monkey Island and Paradroid making up the numbers. Top of the tree was the topical Grand Theft Auto, with 32% of the vote, but clutching gallantly onto 20% of the vote in second place was Frontier Developments' classic Elite. Apparently Frontier's David Braben was surprisingly receptive when Gameplay gave him a ring. "I'm pleased to see yet another demonstration of the strength of support that Elite and its sequels still enjoy amongst the game-playing community," David Braben himself was heard to say. "In fact we have been planning some form of Elite sequel for GameBoy Advance for a while now. We are just about ready to open talks with publishers about it, so unfortunately I'm not in a position to reveal any more detail at this stage." "We are very familiar here at Frontier Developments with the GameBoy Advance architecture, and are confident we can produce a new game that captures the appeal of Elite for today's mass audience whilst remaining true to both our track-record of innovation and the spirit of the original games." As long as Braben and co. stay true to the original game, we can probably expect this one to run and run. The GameBoy Advance has a few games that might be described as killer applications, but amongst more mature gamers none would be so meaningful as this.

Source - Gameplay