How to play Play-Yan on Mac

Game summary

The Play-Yan (trademarked PLAY-YAN) is a media player for the Nintendo DS and Game Boy Advance. It uses SD flash memory to play MP3 audio files and H.264/MPEG-4 AVC video files. It can also play 13 bonus mini-games, all of which are available freely on the Nintendo website in Japan. It is designed for the Game Boy Advance SP and also compatible with the Game Boy Micro. Due to its power requirement, use with an original Game Boy Advance system is not recommended. Sales of the Play-Yan were discontinued on September 11, 2005. An updated version, the Play-Yan Micro (trademarked PLAY-YAN micro), known as the Nintendo MP3 Player in Europe, was released two days later alongside the similarly branded Game Boy Micro, with features such as MP4 and ASF support built directly into the hardware. Play-Yan Garage Games are not supported in the Play-Yan Micro.
First released: Dec 2005

Play Play-Yan on Mac with Parallels (virtualized)

The easiest way to play Play-Yan on a Mac is through Parallels, which allows you to virtualize a Windows machine on Macs. The setup is very easy and it works for Apple Silicon Macs as well as for older Intel-based Macs.

Parallels supports the latest version of DirectX and OpenGL, allowing you to play the latest PC games on any Mac. The latest version of DirectX is up to 20% faster.

Our favorite feature of Parallels Desktop is that when you turn off your virtual machine, all the unused disk space gets returned to your main OS, thus minimizing resource waste (which used to be a problem with virtualization).

Play-Yan installation steps for Mac

Step 1
Go to Parallels.com and download the latest version of the software.
Step 2
Follow the installation process and make sure you allow Parallels in your Mac’s security preferences (it will prompt you to do so).
Step 3
When prompted, download and install Windows 10. The download is around 5.7GB. Make sure you give it all the permissions that it asks for.
Step 4
Once Windows is done installing, you are ready to go. All that’s left to do is install Play-Yan like you would on any PC.
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