Nintendo Game Boy Turns 25 Years Old

25 years ago, before cell phones, if you wanted gaming on the go you had a few cheap baseball games, crappy Tiger handheld games, and maybe a Nintendo Game and Watch if you were lucky. The games were rather primitive and each handheld only played a single title.

A Nintendo employee by the name of Gunpei Yokoi was about to hit something special, something that would change video games forever. Yokoi was a toy designer at Nintendo well before they ever released a video game, as well as being one of the main people involved in the creation of Donkey Kong. Through the NES years he helped launch other classic Nintendo masterpieces like the first Metroid game. By taking the portable LCD technology of the Game and Watch and marrying that with the cartridge based game format of the NES, the Game Boy was born on April 21, 1989.

The system launched with a pack-in copy of Tetris, and ended a 10 year run of games with Pokemon: Yellow-- two of the most successful video game series in history. That was what made the Game Boy special... despite having many technically superior color handhelds on the market like Sega Game Gear, TurboExpress, and Atari Lynx-- Game Boy ruled the market with the best games, best price, and best battery life. There were also very smart decisions by Nintendo to bring known franchises like Mario and Zelda to the system, but rather than straight ports of NES titles, they were new titles. In some cases there were even direct Game Boy sequels like Metroid II: Return of Samus.

The Game Boy went through multiple revisions that saw thinner, lighter versions with back-lit screens and ultimately the Game Boy Color. In all these systems sold 118 million units. It wouldn't be until 2001 that the Game Boy Advance launched, which was really the first true successor with a significant redesign and much higher specs. GBA would also have to significant revisions with the flip top Game Boy Advance SP and the compact Game Boy Micro, before Nintendo officially retired the Game Boy line by launching the Nintendo DS in 2005. Yokoi was only involved with the creation of the original Game Boy before creating the embarrassing flop that was the Nintendo Virtual Boy and a direct competitor to the Game Boy-- the Bandai WonderSwan. In 1997 his life was unfortunately cut short in a car accident.

Echoes of the Game Boy still resonate in today's current market, with the 3DS being the much higher performing system compared to the WiiU. Besides portable gaming, there were also many other concepts introduced by Nintendo on the Game Boy platform that made their way into modern cell phones. Many were never released in the USA, so this list might surprise a few people.

Game Boy Camera 



Released in 1998 when film cameras were still more common in homes and cellphones still looked like bricks. The camera shot low resolution black and white bitmap images and was really more of a toy than a camera. The camera did still have a few notable moments, like being used to photograph a Neil Young album cover. The developers of Perfect Dark on the N64 had also implemented a feature called Perfect Head which would allow gamers to put their own face on an in-game character using the Game Boy Camera. Unfortunately that feature was removed from the final build of the game. There was also a Game Boy Printer released in conjunction with the camera that would print your black and white images on thermal paper.

Game Boy Pocket Sonar



Not actually produced by Nintendo, this accessory by Bandai was designed to find fish underwater. This is something I'm not sure many cell phones can do today, but it makes perfect sense considering you would want to bring a Game Boy along on a fishing trip. When the fish weren't biting, you could always just play the included fishing mini-game.

Work Boy

Long before apps and qwerty keyboards were a common feature on phones, a company called Fabtek developed the Work Boy personalised digital assistant (remember when PDA was a thing?). There was a full keyboard that would connect to the Game Boy with its own power supply and it could run 12 programs that ranged from simple conversion calculators to a digital diary. Ultimately the Work Boy never made it to retail.

IZEK



It was Y2K and the newly released iMac had changed the way people look at the design of their home electronics. Sewing maching company Singer was set to ride the wave as well... with their not-so-hit, not-so-revolutionary IZEK. With a special cart you used the Game Boy controls to design a patterns or use set fonts and Nintendo inspired pre-set patterns. Let's see your cellphone talk to your sewing machine... not likely!

PediSedate



The final... and somewhat disturbing accessory on this list. One look at the device and you might think PedoSedate-- but the Pedi actually stands for Pediatrics. The intended function of the device was to sedate children by administering the release through a Game Boy Color. They could have probably just skipped the sedatives and put in a copy of a really boring game... but this was a real thing in doctor's offices. I'm sure that anyone that still owns one of these devices probably shows up as a red dot on a police database website.

So not only did the Game Boy have a full library of amazing games, it could also take your picture, print that picture, organize your calendar, sew your clothes, sedate your children, and find you some fish. This was all 18 years before the first iPhone was released, and it did on 4 AA batteries. Happy Birthday Game Boy, you are perhaps the single greatest console ever made... and you did it all in the palm of my hand.