In 1989 we saw the birth of one the most famous gaming devices that has graced gamers. The Gameboy line was famous for being one of the greatest portable gaming machines with an extensive library that has been around longer than most consoles could even dream
hope for. With the whole line selling over 200 million units it has become one of the greatest achievements from Nintendo.
In this thread we will look at the history of the Gamboy and how this tiny device flourished to what it is today. Please use this thread to list your memories of the system and the games you have played on it.
Before the Gameboy Nintendo was creating a storm with its successful handheld electronic games. Each handheld had one specific game that could be run and was created by Gunpei Yokoi who came up with the idea after seeing someone play with a lcd calculator by integrating the lcd into a clock and alarm as well as a mini game created a device that became the first steps for Nintendo to branch out into gaming, the Game & Watch is still considered one of Nintendo's earliest realms into gaming after the Color TV. The Game & Watch still has influences today, the DS family clamshell design originates from the Game & Watches series of devices.
It would be hard to say anything about the Gameboy without mentioning Gunpei Yokoi. A long term Nintendo employee he was born in 1941 and graduated with a degree in electronics he joined Nintendo in 1965, at that time he was in charge of maintaining the conveyor belts for the Nintendo Hanafuda cards. Yokoi liked developing toys in his spare time which was soon noticed by the former president of Nintendo who asked him to make a finalized product was called the Ultra Hand. Soon after the success of the "Ultra Hand",. Yokoi was asked to make other Nintendo toys. With the success of the Game & Watch and his involvement in the Mario and DK
games that he worked on the Gameboy which was deemed as his crowning success.
However not everything was perfect for Yokoi, the release of the Virtual Boy was considered a failure, the console which was a rushed product was put on shelves so that Nintendo could focus on the N64. After Nintendo, Gunpei Yokoi moved onto making his own company and worked on the development of the Bandai ColorSwan. Unfortunately life was cut short in 1997 in a road traffic incident. In 2003 The International Game Developers Association awarded him with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Game Developers Choice Awards.
The Gameboy was created by Yokoi and the RD1 division, introduced in 1989 it allowed people to play games that were on par with the NES (minus the colour) . It was bundled with Tetris which became the best-selling game for the Gameboy with 30 million copies sold. The Gameboy in it's first two weeks had it's whole stock cleared and hailed as a instant success.
The culminating library of Nintendo games as well as 3rd party support was expansive and offered a rich variety of games that were now available for consumers to play away from their TV sets. Games such as Pokemon and Tetris were instant successes and showed that gamers could have rich experiences with games outside of their home consoles.
The Gameboy had competition during this reign was the Atari lynx and the Game Gear, both were more technologically more advance and offered colour but were more expensive and consumed power at a much faster rate, this put consumers off and made the Gameboy a more attractive proposition for gamers. The console is also considered the first devices that tapped into the female market with reports saying 46% playing the GameBoy were female.
Later changes in the Gameboy's life saw revisions such as a slimmer device, back-lighting and the Gameboy color which finally let it display colours onscreen. The Gameboy Advance was the most progressive change of the GameBoy line of handhelds, by opting for a
new cart format it somewhat broke the compatibility with older handhelds being able to play the newer games, however the GBA could play older GamBoy games with no problems.
Overall the Gameboy line (excluding GBA) has sold over 118 million handhelds, something which even consoles find hard to achieve. It was a global powerhouse and made games more accessible for everyone. It brought Nintendo's franchises onto the little screen
and introduced us to some of the most established franchises in the gaming world today.
In 2004, Nintendo showed off the future of Handheld gaming with the Nintendo DS, this system opted for a new whole format for media, however it had a GBA port which could play back old GBA titles, (It could not play GB/GBC games however). The DS was an instant success and beat it's rival the PSP which was more faster and had better features for multimedia playback.
The Gameboy is still remembered fondly by many millions of gamers, with its huge backlog of games and iterations it has become iconic in the gaming world and a juggernaut for Nintendo. Recently Nintendo having been offering some of its classic titles from the GameBoy line on its recent platforms such as the WiiU and 3DS.
Peron ally my first experience with the GameBoy was the GamBoy color, given to my unlce as a present, it was a blast playing pokemon with it, he passed a few yeas after I got this gift and I still keep it and play from time to time.
What's you memory of the GameBoy? Tell us in this thread.
Last edited:
