Nintendo's Play-Yan player for the GBA will get an update to tie-in with the launch of the GBA Micro in Japan!

The device, which allows your GBA, GBA SP or DS to play MP3 music tracks and some video files stored on a SD memory card, will be updated next month.

So what are the differences? Well, both still play MP3s and ASF format MPEG-4 video, and both still require a firmware update to recognize MP4 format video. Additionally, both versions still will work on all GBA, SP and DS units. The newer edition will feature plenty of tweaks, however.

The new system's graphical interface has been spruced up and is now more colourful. To accomodate the Game Boy Micro's design, de-activating the sleep function has been changed to accomodate the new button layout. Play-Yan Garage Games will no longer work on the Micro version, but the bundled Media Stage software now comes on a full-sized disc. The software is the same version as before however and still refuses to support the new firmware-enabled MP4 video.

While Play-Yan has so far been exclusively sold through Nintendo's website, the Play-Yan Micro will be available through other online retailers, such as Amazon Japan. The product will still only be available online, however.

From September 11th the current Play-Yan model available in Japan will be taken off-sale, and two days later the new Play-Yan Micro will be yours to purchase. It'll be priced the same as the original model - �5,000 ($46) for the stand-alone unit, or �6,000 ($55) for the Play-Yan/Media Stage software bundle.

We hope to have firm news on a European release of Play-Yan (expected to be the newer version of the software) soon.

UPDATE: The site for the new Japanese Play-Yan Micro is now open. You can find it here. At the bottom of the page there is a list of the retailers who will be selling it on their websites. If they ship out of Japan, it is perhaps a cheaper alternative to importing through import game specialty sites. I know for a fact that Amazon.jp will ship out of Japan (of course, you can always wait for the official Play-Yan in your territory... whenever that will be.)