On July 31, 1989, Nintendo released the Game Boy to the US, a gray brick of a handheld console that would go on to dominate the market for years to come.
Sadly for us in the UK, we had to wait more than a year to get one ourselves. On the plus side, it did drop just two days before my 7th birthday. Oh, what a joyous occasion that was! Thanks, parental units!
Although Game Boy itself has long departed as both hardware and a line entirely, the mark it left on the gaming sphere is long and deep. In fact, it’s less of a mark and more of a geological fault line that shatters everything in its wake, leaving millions to recoil from its impact.
The Game Boy and Game Boy Color have sold more than 118 million units worldwide combined, right up until they were discontinued in 2003. Even though that figure combines sales data for the original gray model and its 1998 color version (while the Color is technically the Game Boy’s successor, Nintendo has always treated it more like what we would call a mid-gen refresh today), it still makes the Game Boy the fourth-best selling console of all time.
A young boy’s obsession
It’s tough to look back across the decades without some sense of nostalgia. The Nintendo Game Boy was a phenomenal success at a time when gaming as an industry was still finding its feet. But we’d had consoles in our home for some time now, such as the Atari 7800, SEGA Genesis, and Nintendo’s NES. We were accustomed to playing games from our sofas and beds or sitting cross-legged on god-awful shag carpets. We were ready to move on.
And move on we did. While mobile gaming wasn’t a completely new idea, the Game Boy revolutionized the concept of digital play on the go, despite its hardware limitations. In many ways, because of said limitations. It may have had a tiny screen capable of only displaying shades of green at resolutions no bigger than 160 x 144 pixels, but what it did have was Tetris.
Its roster of games was probably what set it apart from potential competitors. Remember, Nintendo was already flying high on the success of its home console, so the name carried weight. We knew of Super Mario, so when he got his own title on the Game Boy, that was a surefire hit. It’s also worth remembering that the handheld was the springboard for Pokémon adaptations. We all know how that story goes.
Sadly, I never got into the whole Pokémon craze. But I did have some stonking games, like the aforementioned Super Mario Land, Tetris (which came bundled with the console itself), Batman: Return of the Joker, Mortal Kombat 2, and maybe some others.
Over its lifetime, the Game Boy amassed over a thousand titles, around 765 of which were on the original gray model. Obviously, my collection was barely a speck compared to the sheer amount of games that were available at the time.
Some that I sadly missed out on – but are deemed classics on the console – include Kirby’s Pinball Land, Dr. Mario, a series of Mega Man titles, Harvest Moon, The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, Wario Land, and even some Final Fantasy games. Well, the Final Fantasy Legend games, at least.
Many may look at the Game Boy as a kind of conduit simply for Tetris, but the small example I’ve listed above lists some of the best-known names in gaming, proving that the Nintendo handheld was capable of making a huge impact on a growing industry. I sadly never had the Game Boy Color or Game Boy Advance – or any other variation on the OG – so I missed out on even more potential classics.
Nokia who?
The Game Boy was not exactly a portable powerhouse of hardware supremacy. It didn’t even have its own backlight, so good luck playing in the dark. However, Nintendo was able to make the most of what it had. This also meant the machine was not as sizeable, weighty, or pricey as some of the alternatives. While the Game Boy cost around $90 when it was released, the SEGA Game Gear was a pretty hefty $150 when it was released a year later.
The reduced hardware also meant Nintendo’s device flexed a boast-worthy battery life. According to the Nintendo website itself, the original could last up to 30 hours on four AA batteries. That’s 30 hours of playtime, as well, not just it being idle. Sega’s Game Gear devoured battery in comparison. Even the Steam Deck’s rechargeable battery can’t touch the Game Boy.
It was also a sturdy mother. I can’t tell you how many years I had my Game Boy, but I almost certainly dropped it on the floor, and it kept on ticking. While it’s popular to meme the Nokia 3310’s alleged indestructible nature, the Nintendo Game Boy was proving its worth as a machine built to last long before Nokia. One Game Boy, which was previously on display at Nintendo New York, literally survived an explosion during Operation Desert Storm. The fact that it’s said to still work feels like an alien concept in an era of planned obsolescence.
Of course, that hardiness was never really a selling point, mind. We were too young to truly appreciate the structural integrity of technology. But to have a portable gaming console that can last for a day and a bit – even through constant use – and survive global conflict sort of puts the Game Boy on a pedestal of gaming greatness that I’m proud to have experienced.
The memory remains
Yes, that is a rather obscure Metallica reference. However, what I wanted to talk about was the cultural significance of the Game Boy. You mean I haven’t been doing that already? Well, yes, but I think there is another aspect that’s worthy of mention.
Although we’ve moved on somewhat over the years, video games can still be seen as a masculine hobby. Many strides have been taken, and glass ceilings have been broken, but it often feels like there’s still a discrepancy when it comes to attitudes. When gaming started becoming a global phenomenon, girls didn’t get much of a look-in.
When the SEGA Genesis came out, it very much aimed to appeal to young boys, with promises of action, sports, and—inexplicably—the ability to emasculate school bullies. But the Game Boy had a broader appeal. In 1995, an article in the Gainesville Sun that looked at gender disparity in gaming quoted Nintendo of America as saying that girls accounted for 46% of those who were playing its handheld device. That’s compared to 29% for its own NES console.
The fact that nearly half the Game Boy players were female was newsworthy even then. Nintendo was a company that was leading the charge in moving away from gaming being largely a boyish pursuit.
For me, the Game Boy was the perfect console. I know that just sounds like rose-colored glasses, but I was genuinely obsessed with mine. Despite not having that many games for it, I racked up hours and hours on that thing. I shudder at the thought of how much my parents had to spend on batteries (sorry, Mum).
I remember the Game Boy-shaped carry case I had for it, as well as the monstrous attachment that added a magnifying glass and light (sort of like this one, only somehow bigger). I remember running down to the arcades with my console in hand, looking for my sister so I could excitedly tell her that I’d completed Super Mario Land for the first time.
I’m not going to berate the current generation by insisting that ‘we had it better in those days.’ All forms of nostalgia are just desires. Desires for youth. Desires for innocence. Desires for shell suits (maybe). Or perhaps just desire to hear the Game Boy’s iconic DING one more time and know that the only thing you had to worry about was which TMNT figure to ask for for Christmas.
I’m glad that I was around to experience the Game Boy, even if knowledge of its age and the fact that it was discontinued more than 20 years ago makes me feel old. But then, everything makes me feel old. I got excited the other day when our new clothes air dryer arrived (it’s black!), and I no longer recognize most artists and actors who appear on Sunday morning cooking shows. Oh yeah, I watch cooking shows now. That old.
Published: Aug 10, 2024 11:00 am