A: The e-Reader is a device that you can plug into the cartridge slot of the Game Boy Advance. It allows you to scan special cards (called e-Cards) that contain data encoded as strips of tiny dots along the edges of the cards.

The data stored on e-Cards can be pictures, sounds, text, and even mini-games! Each card can hold up to 2.2 kilobytes of data on its long data strip, and 1.1 kilobyte of data on its short data strip. So with two long data strips and two short data strips along its edges, a single card can theoretically hold up to 6.6 kilobytes of data. But most e-Cards only have one or two data strips. With such a limited data storage capacity, many e-Card applications are segmented into multiple cards, and you must therefore scan all the cards to load the complete application into the GBA.

The e-Reader unit can be used in many ways:

A: No. The e-Reader draws power from the Game Boy Advance.

A:You can find the e-Reader in any store that sells video games. The device retails at about 40$US.

The e-Cards are usually sold in packs of five, similar to other trading card series. Some packs contain a random assortment of cards (this is the case of the Pokémon-e Expedition series), while others contain a finite collection of cards (this is the case of the NES-e series). e-Card packs have a price tag between 3$US and 6$US, depending on which series the pack belongs to.

A: The procedure is very simple: Put the e-Reader in "scan" mode, and manually swipe the card through the card slot. You mustn't swipe the card too fast, however, or the e-Reader will complain and display a "read error" on the GBA screen. A correct swipe usually takes about 2 seconds, and you'll hear a happy sound effect if the e-Reader manages to read the card successfully. Note that you scan swipe the cards from left to right or from right to left.

A: They are pretty much the same as other modern trading cards, meaning they can last if they are treated with care. I wouldn't leave these cards in the hands of small children, if I were you...

A: Many things: The US model has twice the internal memory of the japanese version. The japanese model doesn't have a Flash ROM (so it cannot store games like the US model can) and it cannot connect to the Nintendo Game Cube. The US model has a built-in NES emulator which allows classic NES games to be played on the Game Boy Advance, and there's also a female voice that gives instructions while you are using the e-Reader.

A: No. The encoding on the US e-Cards is different from the one used for japanese e-Cards. Scanning a japanese e-Card with a US e-Reader will not work. Scanning a US e-Card in a japanese e-Reader will not work either.

On the plus side, since the US and japanese GBAs are identical, you can use a japanese e-Reader with a US GBA.

A: Sadly, no. As stated above, a single e-Card can only hold a few kilobytes of data, and NES games contain hundreds of kilobytes of game information. To input some of the most popular NES games (such as The Legend of Zelda, Metroid or Punch Out!) via the e-Reader, you would need to swipe dozens and dozens of e-Cards. This would get very tedious very quickly. So you should only expect to see the earliest NES games ported to the e-Card medium.

A: It's not impossible, but it's not something that you could do in the privacy of your own basement, mainly because the dots in the data strips are very tiny. I tried scaning an e-Card using a domestic scanner, with a resolution of 600 dpi, and the results were too fuzzy to be useful. This is what I obtained after scanning an e-Card at 1200 dpi, with a little bit of image sharpening

To successfully scan and reproduce e-Card data strips, you need a high-caliber scanner, and to make your own e-Cards, you also need an industrial printer. In the end, the total cost of making your own counterfeit e-Cards will be more than the cost of buying the originals at your local store. With this said, there are surely people out there who have access to all the hardware required to make counterfeit e-Cards. It's just not possible to the common John Doe.

A: Yes! This is demonstrated by a small application built into the e-Reader, called the "Melody Box", which is activated by swiping certain Pokémon-e Expedition e-Cards into the e-Reader. There's a small menu where you can select to load another compatible card while the application is running. There are three types of Pokémon e-Cards compatible with the Melody Box: Sound, Music and Pattern. Each time a compatible card is scanned, the data on the card overwrites any previous data loaded from a previously scanned card of the same type.

It can be assumed that the built-in "Scan Card" function can be triggered by any e-Reader application to load additional e-Card data. This carries major implications in terms of the types of applications that can be designed on e-Cards!

A: Nintendo's plans are still unclear at this point. The e-Reader has a lot of potential, and it will be interesting to see where (and how far) Nintendo goes with the device. Nintendo's marketing strategy will probably become clearer in 2003.

A: It's too early to tell right now. Nintendo is currently the only company making e-Cards, and there is still no indication that third-parties will start making games and applications for the e-Reader anytime soon. But we can expect this to change in 2003, because many developers and publishers, both in Japan and North America, are interested in making software on e-Cards.

There's one thing we can be sure of: Nintendo created the e-Reader to make a profit from e-Card sales, and so they will probably want to establish a licensing structure that will enable them to collect some money from all third-party e-Card sales. Since the e-Card technology is very new, Nintendo needs to be careful about sharing this technology with other companies. The last thing Nintendo wants is to see the market flooded with e-Cards, with no profits being drawn from the sales of those cards. For now, we just need to be patient, because it may take a while before we see some third-party e-Card offerings.