Advanced Pico Beena

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AdvancedPicoBeena Logo.png
AdvancedPicoBeena.jpg
Advanced Pico Beena
Manufacturer: Sega Toys, Applause Technologies
Release Date RRP Code
Advanced Pico Beena
JP		 ¥12,800e[1] ?

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The Advanced Pico Beena (アドバンスピコ・ビーナ), meaning "Be Natural"[1] is a video game console jointly developed by Sega Toys and Applause Technologies[2]. It was released in August of 2005 and is the successor to the Sega Pico. Similar to its predecessor, the Advanced Pico Beena is aimed at children between the ages of 2 and 8 and stands primarily as an educational device. It has since been streamlined further, and is now commonly referred to simply as the Beena (ビーナ) or BeenaLite (ビーナLite).

Unlike the Sega Pico, the Advanced Pico Beena has not been released outside of Japan, and is maintained entirely by the Sega Toys division of the company (which also took control of the original Pico later in its lifespan). After the release of Cars 2 Racing Beena: Mezase! World Champion! in 2011, the final game released for the platform, the Beena was officially discontinued two years later in 2013.

Hardware

The Advanced Pico Beena is built similarly to the original Sega Pico, though is more powerful from a technology point of view and has a much more streamlined design. Similar to the Pico, the Beena is a large, plastic foldable unit which acts as a hybrid between traditional cartridge-based video game consoles, tablets and electronic book readers. Cartridges are book shaped and the system keeps track of which pages have been turned, and the device connects to a television, with the users manipulating the game with the touch screen, magic pen and face buttons.

Like later models of the Pico, the Beena does not have a solid base to keep the top half of the unit upright, instead relying on a much thinner retractable plastic stand. Beenas can, however, be flipped 360 degrees, and every page of the cartridge can be manipulated by the magic pen (as opposed to just the last page as seen with the original Pico). This effectively creates a tidier, tabletop touch-screen device, hiding the buttons for games which do not need them. The Magic Pen can also be removed in the Beena, and a second can be aded for two player play.

Unlike the Sega Pico, the Advanced Pico Beena caters for both left and right handed children, with two sets of Red, White, Green, Orange and Purple buttons.

Newer Beena models can be powered by batteries as well as through an AC adaptor, and unlike the Pico, all Beenas have built-in speakers (similar to the Wii Remote). The system is also compatible with SD cards which can be used to save game progress. The Beena also offers score ranking and playtime which can be set by a parent, as well as superior graphics and sound.

Technical Specifications

The following specifications originate from a product catalog provided by the on-board LSI chip's manufacturer Applause Technologies[3][4].

  • LSI chip: Sega Toys 9H0-0008 (Applause Technologies AP2010)
  • CPU: 32-bit ARM7TDMI clocked at 81MHz (Input Clock: 27MHz)
  • On-Chip ROM: 128KB
  • On-Chip RAM: 16KB
  • Graphics: Composite Video Output
  • Resolution: NTSC (704×480), PAL (704×576 / 704×480)
  • Color palette: 32768 colors (BGR555)
  • Sprite plane: 128 sprites on screen
  • External RAM: 512KB x 16-Bit x 2 Banks (16MB) SDRAM (ICSI IC42S16100-7TG[5] / ESMT M12L16161A-7T[6])
  • Pen Tablet
  • Resolution: 176×122 / 352×244
  • Audio
  • Input: 8-bit Mono
  • Output: 12-bit Stereo
  • MIDI: SMF format, 32-voice polyphony
  • Speech coding: CELP (8kHz / 16kHz) encoded with Speex-1.0.4
  • Serial interface: UART (RS-232C, 16-byte FIFO × 1ch, 1.152Mbps maximum baud rate)
  • Debug interface: JTAG

Models

Main article: Beena consoles.

History

Release

Sega Toys expected to ship 250,000 units before the end of 2005, but by November 2006 had only sold 150,000 units. By May 2008 more than 350,000 units had been sold.

The Beena's poor sales were presumably caused by the success of the Nintendo DS, which was released a year earlier.

Games

List of games

SD Card Reader support

With accessories

Magazine articles

Main article: Advanced Pico Beena/Magazine articles.

Promotional material

BeenaLite CM (circa 2009)
BeenaLite PV (circa 2009)

Gallery

  • Older logo

  • Newer logo

Patents

  • WO2006107071A1

  • WO2006107072A1

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 http://www.beena.jp:80/index.html (Wayback Machine: 2005-06-22 02:39)
  2. ↑ http://www.applause-tech.com/pdfs/news/pr20050405_e.pdf (Wayback Machine: 2009-01-05 18:53)
  3. ↑ http://www.applause-tech.com/en_US/products/ap2010.html (Wayback Machine: 2007-05-17 04:29)
  4. ↑ http://www.applause-tech.com/ja_JP/products/ap2010.html (Wayback Machine: 2006-01-10 21:19)
  5. ↑ https://www.semiee.com/file/EOL/ICSI-IC42S16100.pdf
  6. ↑ https://www.esmt.com.tw/upload/pdf/ESMT/datasheets/M12L16161A(2Q).pdf
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