The Game Boy Advance (GBA) is a handheld game console developed and marketed by Nintendo, which was released in Japan on March 21, 2001, and in other regions in June. It was later released in mainland China in 2004, under the name iQue Game Boy Advance. Compared to the Game Boy Color it succeeded, the console offered a significantly more powerful ARM7 processor and improved graphics, while retaining backward compatibility with games initially developed for its predecessor.