In 1989, Japan saw the launch of a piece of technology that would take the world by storm. Exactly 30 years ago to this day, the original Game Boy released, on April 21, 1989. Looking somewhat like a grey brick with a small screen inside of it, the Nintendo Game Boy was portable, meaning you could take your games on the go, wherever you went, provided that you had enough AA batteries. It was a magical device at the time, with launch title classics such as Super Mario Land and the always beloved Tetris. Though competitors in the form of the SEGA Game Gear and Atari Lynx would quickly try to join in on the fledgling portable gaming market, the Game Boy would win out, despite its inferior graphics and lack of a lit screen, thanks in part to its long battery life and incredibly fun games, which lead to the Game Boy becoming a absolute titan in the industry.

Sales were so popular that Nintendo would create multiple revisions later on, like the smaller and more elegant Game Boy Pocket, or to the chagrin of any and all westerners, the Japan-only Game Boy Light. To this day, over 118 million Game Boy (and Color) units have been sold, placing it as the third most popular piece of gaming hardware of all time. So, take a moment to either grab your old Game Boy (don't forget a worm light!), launch a GB virtual console title on your 3DS, or fire up your emulator, and remember an integral part of gaming history today.

 

[DANTENDO]

I just found Gameboy on the grandma cellar . I thinking to sell it on the ebbay . It is a cool game and almost work fine.

What mean almost either works or dont

 

[raxadian]

I just found Gameboy on the grandma cellar . I thinking to sell it on the ebbay . It is a cool game and almost work fine.

If the screen is too scratched then it's worthless unless you fix that.

 

[ryguy2010]

I still have my original GB. Got it for Christmas in 1989. Still looks like it did when I unboxed it 30 years ago.

 

[DANTENDO]

Does anyone keep ther receipts has anyone got one from the 80s 90s be interesting to see

 

[SLiV3R]

One of my favorite consoles of all time!

 

[VitaType]

It has such a great diverse collection of titles and so many experimental things. The GB lib is surpisingly amazing. So many smaller titles that where obviously developed in rather short time and still don't feel like shovelware paired with a decent amount of larger titles like Pokémon, Zelda games, Mario platformer, the Wario platformer, Havest Moon and and and... One of the very few consoles where it's totaly worth to scroll trough all the rather unknow titles and look-up what to find. Battle City, Survival Kids (maybe the only good entry in the series), Choplifter, James Bond 007 (a good license title which was even more rare back then), Sword of Hope series, ...
Beeing build in a time where still a single developer could easily make a handheld title and yet beeing in a time where computer games overall where fairly developed did you a favor. Happy Birthday GameBoy.

 

[petethepug]

forgot to say this.
Congratulations

 

[MaxiBash]

It's just a bummer nobody really celebrated this milestone. Sure, we got a small taste of GB Studio, but that's it! I've seen not a single Youtuber talk about the DMG Game Boy on that day!

 

[codezer0]

A shame that all these years later, and there is still not a GOOD, proper screen replacement mod for the game boy color.

Backlighting and bivert for improved contrast is a thing with the original DMG and pocket series, but i find those screens far too blurry to be usable anymore. In other words, I'm nostalgic for the game; not so much, for the handheld's design constraints. GBC is about as far back as i would want to go on real hardware.

To date, all i have found has been among the following:

• Tao bao screen replacement, which used a second-hand sourced cell phone screen and some custom logic board. Fit perfectly without damaging the shell, but also not mass produced nor reverse engineered. And in videos that did a teardown of a unit, it's like the chip labels were deliberately scrubbed to try and thwart copying. Kind of hilarious tp me, considering it came from one guy in China.
• Harvesting a gba 101 screen. Not only is this already bad because those SP screens were hard enough to source already, but the required modding to the game boy color shell to fit it makes it so it doesn't hold together like a finished product.

I'm aware there is a knockoff gbc that is rather good for its purpose, but I already have an original GBC on hand. I'd rather mod and upgrade that. But i want it to look and feel like a finished product that could have come from Nintendo that way. Get what I'm saying?

To date, I've not heard of any way to make this possible. And that's really disappointing.

 

[SonicRings]

Yay! Let’s celebrate with the gameboy mini, the nes and snes mini need a new friend

There's no point in a gameboy mini, the gameboy micro already exists.

 

[leonmagnus99]

my only memory of the gameboy oh boy, that is a darn long time ago, i barely remember it.
but i believe i was fortunate enough to play mario on it..

now im 28, back then i was in zakho (iraqi kurdistan) and i was probably around 5 years or so.
1994 or 1995 phew..

edit: and oh ,the gameboy was not mine, it was my uncle's i have no idea where he had gotten it from... and so yeah its not like i often got to play with it, but it was a fun experience. (we owned a sega genesis back then at home , damn!)

 

[RandomUser]

It has such a great diverse collection of titles and so many experimental things. The GB lib is surpisingly amazing. So many smaller titles that where obviously developed in rather short time and still don't feel like shovelware paired with a decent amount of larger titles like Pokémon, Zelda games, Mario platformer, the Wario platformer, Havest Moon and and and... One of the very few consoles where it's totaly worth to scroll trough all the rather unknow titles and look-up what to find. Battle City, Survival Kids (maybe the only good entry in the series), Choplifter, James Bond 007 (a good license title which was even more rare back then), Sword of Hope series, ...
Beeing build in a time where still a single developer could easily make a handheld title and yet beeing in a time where computer games overall where fairly developed did you a favor. Happy Birthday GameBoy.

Highlighted in Bold, I thought I was the only one whom played that game, that was a fun game, but didn't like the fact it uses password system instead of the save system, however the second sequel used the save function though so there is that.
Anybody that played Shadowgate on the NES should play the original Sword of Hope, it has a remarkably similar concept, except for the battle, Shadowgate didn't have any battling going on.

 

[xs4all]

I don't wanna break my old brick gameboy, so nope.

Should re read my reply, reason why I broke my Pocket was because I took it apart for cleaning, you DO NOT need to take it apart and @Stwert explained it spot on what you need to do.

 

[thekarter104]

i guess you could say he's not a boy anymore HAHAHAHAHA

Game Man?

 

[FAST6191]

Game Man?

Going by some of the comments in lifestyle rags said gaming types are in fact afflicted with peter pan syndrome (I thought that was for frogs/tadpoles but who knows) so might have to revise that further.