SongPro Music Players Will Link to Game Boys

SongPro Inc. said it will launch a digital music player this fall that will attach to Nintendo Co.’s Game Boy hand-held consoles.

The Los Angeles company, founded by Silicon Graphics Inc. co-founder Marc Hannah and former News Corp. executive Jon Richmond, expects to sell the device for less than $99.

About the size of a Game Boy Color game cartridge, the plug-in player will have 32 megabytes of memory, enough to hold about 30 minutes of digital music.

Users can download music stored in MP3 or Windows Media formats to the device from a computer via a Universal Serial Bus port.

Richmond said he expects to have “hundreds of thousands” of licensed, downloadable songs--both free and for sale--on SongPro’s Web site by the launch. The songs will come with pictures and words, such as album covers and lyrics, for display on the Game Boy screen.

SongPro files, however, can be played back only on the company’s device. The plug-in is designed to be compatible with Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance consoles.

Nintendo has sold about 125 million Game Boys worldwide.

Alex Pham