Retro Revival: History of the Game Boy

On January 10, 1989, a patent was filed that would lead to the creation, distribution, and ultimate enormous success of the world’s most popular videogame machine: the Game Boy portable gaming series. Nintendo’s previous handheld experience with the Game & Watch (a watch that included mini-games for quick play), led to the invention of a fully-developed, portable gaming system. Many people imagined the Game Boy would play just like the Game & Watch systems, with different games available for purchase but featuring little differences amongst them. Surprisingly, the Game Boy allowed for development of sophisticated games of many styles and genres. The Game Boy has had many different variations over time and eventually led to the creation of the Nintendo DS. Hop along as we explore the history of the Game Boy franchise and take a look at how things have changed along the way.

GAME BOY
The original, bulky, battery-draining Game Boy was released on April 1989 in Japan and August of the same year in America. The system featured an 8-bit processor, 8 KB of RAM, a 160×144 LCD screen featuring four shades of gray, and four channels for stereo-simulated sound. As bare-bones as these features seem today, they were enough to produce the popular and famous franchises such as Pokémon, Mario Land, and Tetris.

GAME BOY: PLAY IT LOUD
In 1994 the popular portable system received its first small but important evolution; the introduction of different-colored systems, a Nintendo standard for their handheld systems. Black, yellow, green, red, and the nowadays-missing see-thru were the new colors. Imagine a see-thru DS Lite; hmm…no thanks.

GAME BOY POCKET
40 % smaller than the original, with AAA batteries and longer lasting life, a truly gray and not yellowish screen, and the disappearance of the battery life LED marker, the Game Boy Pocket was a big change. Released in 1996, it was first available on a limited-edition platinum color.

GAME BOY LIGHT
Only released in Japan in 1997, the Game Boy Light was a Game Boy Pocket with a bluish backlit screen, similar to the feature found in most wristwatches. With two AAA batteries, you could play for 20 hours without the light or 12 hours with it. Nintendo didn’t release this version of the system in America because US players “wanted color, not light”. Hey, I would’ve bought one of these back in the day!

GAME BOY COLOR
Featuring double the processor speed and four times as much memory as the standard Game Boy Pocket, the Game Boy Color introduced color gaming to the Game Boy line in late 1998. You could even play your old Game Boy games with four different colors from ten different palettes of your choice. The system could display up to 56 colors on screen at once from a palette of 32,000.

GAME BOY ADVANCE
In 2001 Nintendo flipped the Game Boy on its side and called it Advance. The system was likened to the SNES and had a bunch of great ports from that console system. The screen was larger too, but not backlit…yet. This version introduced the L and R trigger buttons. You could still play your old Game Boy / Color games on a square screen or with the new, widescreen resolution.

GAME BOY ADVANCE SP
The GBA got a slick redesign in early 2003. Roughly half the size, this new version had a flip screen, an internal front light, and kept the backwards compatibility of the GBA. This system, however, didn’t feature a headphone jack for rich, stereo sound. Another version, commonly known as the GBA SP-2, was released in 2005 with a brighter, truly-backlit screen.

GAME BOY MICRO
Why did Nintendo drop the ‘Advance’ tagline? Anyways, the Game Boy Micro is four inches wide, two inches tall, and weighs 2.8 ounces. The smallest Game Boy features a beautiful bright and small screen, and you can swap faceplates to customize the look of your system. Backwards compatibility with Game Boy / Color games was dropped due to the old age of the chip required to play those games.

Although by far the most popular, handhelds are not the only way to play Game Boy games; let’s investigate some other devices that are compatible with gameboy cartridges:

WIDE BOY
The Wide Boy was available to developers and the gaming press only. It would play Game Boy games on the NES.

SUPER GAME BOY
The Super Game Boy, at $60, would plug in like a normal SNES cartridge and run Game Boy and ‘black-cartridged’ Game Boy Color games on your TV using a variety of colors. A special, mail-order only in America version was released which featured a cable link port for multiplayer action. I loved renting this device back in the day!

WIDE BOY 64
Just like its predecessor, only a certain group of individuals could get this piece of hardware that would play Game Boy / Color games on the N64. The cost? Only $1,400.

GAME BOY PLAYER
This piece of hardware was designed to fit underneath your GameCube home console and allows it to run Game Boy / Color / Advance games. The device even features a link cable port. You need a boot-disc (included) to be inserted on your GameCube in order to play the games.

NINTENDO DS / DS LITE
Finally, the current generation Nintendo handheld. We included it here because the DS is the first handheld not to use the “Game Boy” moniker, even though both versions of the DS will play Game Boy Advance games in single-player mode.

While there have been a plethora of contenders, there seems to be no widely-accepted “perfect” Game Boy system. The GBA is great but lacks backlit screens. The GBA SP requires an special headphone jack adapter. The Game Boy Micro won’t play old-school. Game Boy games, just like the DS / DS Lite. And of course, the old systems can’t play new GBA games.

What’s next for the Game Boy line? Who knows; even Nintendo might be confused on what to do next. The release and splendid success of the Nintendo DS has attracted a lot of attention from the GBA to itself, practically overshadowing the old portable. Will we see two Nintendo handhelds in the future, perhaps aimed at different markets, each with different features? We’ll have to wait and see, although we already have a few ideas about what should be included if Nintendo ever decides to update the Game Boy lineup.

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