After having read 8 pages of this, it shocks me that still noone has seen the some of the many benefits of having a GBA Emulator, or whatever you wish to call it, running on the DS.
The only one people seem to have stumbled upon, which seems obvious as it was handed to you by the title of the original news entry is running GBA on a Slot-1 Device. However, there are numerous other benefits of running a GBA emulator in DS mode.
Nintendo in all their wonderfullly airheaded glory completely bowled over the possibility that people might actually WANT to play GBA games multiplayer on their DSes. While I'm not going to get into a technical discussion of how this would happen with an emulator (as this is all a discussion of whether or not a basic emulator would even work), this is one of the many benefits that *could* be realized by doing something like this. Another benefit is graphical enhancement, and full screen modes. Using software or hardware filters to increase the size of the screen to fill out a full DS screen, would provide a much more polished feel. Nintendo's own attempts here actually feel less polished than your average 25 cent screwdriver at your local thrift store.
Then there's the crossplatform playability options through multiplayer. Imagine being able to play multiplayer games over wifi from the DS, to someone emulating the game on Virtualboy a few hundred miles away. Then there's the added benefit of using the secondary screen for other things in the game. How about using it to control some games instead of the DS gamepad, some games could heavily benefit from this.
This part is pure speculation, as I only barely understand how backgrounds, sprites, and layers work on GBA games, but imagine being able to map one of the backgrounds to the secondary layer? From my understanding, some games put information screens on other background layers, making them inaccessible until you press a button. Using this method it would keep the information background layer on the other screen, allowing you to see the information you want, without ever having to pause the game. This would actually make GBA games (at least some) run in a dual screen mode, breathing new life into them.
It also provides the option of giving GBA homebrew devs access to some further hardware on the DS to have fun with. While this in and of itself may not be what some consider to be useful, people WILL use it, just like the number of devs that have begun to use the motion card, and the arkanoid controller, and DSerial, etc... devices that people don't always have access to, but some devs have chosen to use.
ALWAYS remember, when you provide other ways to do the same thing, you provide other methods to exploit the hardware, and software. You open new avenues for development, and play. Development like this, always broadens horizons, and only helps to improve the scene.
Having said that, I'm sure there are plenty of things wrong with what I've said, some things probably can't happen, and even more probably won't ever happen, but there's nothing wrong with wishful thinking, or providing options. Variety is the spice of life, as it were, and I would love to see some more variety to this scene.
