Nintendo e-Reader
add-on manufactured by Nintendo
The Nintendo e-Reader, commonly abbreviated as e-Reader, is an add-on manufactured by Nintendo for its Game Boy Advance handheld video game console. It has an LED scanner that reads "e-Reader cards" — paper cards with specially encoded data printed on them as dot codes. It was released in Japan in December 2001 and in North America in September 2002.
Depending on the card and associated game, the e-cards are typically used in a key-like function to unlock secret items, levels, or play mini-games when swiped through the reader. The cards themselves contain data, as opposed to unlocking data already on the device itself.
Usage and versions
Two versions were released in Japan: the original Card-e-Reader (カードeリーダー, Kādo-Ī-Rīdā) without a link cable port (released on December 1, 2001), which could read cards to display the data stored on those cards; and the Card-e-Reader+ (カードeリーダー+, Kādo-Ī-Rīdā Purasu) (released on June 27, 2003) which came with a link cable port to connect with GameCube and Game Boy Advance games. Outside of Japan, only a single version was released, the e-Reader, which has the same functionality as the Card-e-Reader+ and was released in North America on September 16, 2002. In Japan, the Card-e-Reader+ was bundled with Animal Forest e+, the enhanced re-release of the GameCube version of Animal Crossing.
The e-Reader can connect via Game Link cable to GameCube games such as Animal Crossing, and Game Boy Advance games such as Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire and Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3.
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This entry incorporates text from “Nintendo e-Reader” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.