‘Game Boy’: A Brief Look Back on the Handheld That Started It All

The Game Boy hand-held by Nintendo brought its 8-bit glory to gamers everywhere in 1989 and kickstarted an entire era of portable adventures. From the black and white mobile adventures, to spawning systems like the Game Boy Advance, and eventually the beloved 3DS line enjoyed today.

While portable gaming is once again on the rise thanks to the Nintendo Switch, the team over at Lore in a Minute wanted to take a moment to reflect back on the revolutionary innovation that changed gaming forever. Because of that, let’s dive right into the history of the Game Boy from Nintendo!

The Beginnings

Not in a place to watch the short video at the top of the article? No worries, the Lore team always provides a full transcript for those looking to learn on the move. According to the YouTube channel, “Legend has it Nintendo engineer Gunpei Yokoi was taking a train to work one day when he noticed a businessman passing the time by pressing keys on his calculator. From this incident, Yokoi was inspired to create the Game and Watch series.”

They added, “In the early 1980s, the Game and Watch were a line-up of portable games by Nintendo that used the technology from the calculators of the era, namely their LCD screens. Yokoi’s design philosophy was called “lateral thinking of withered technology” which meant instead of trying to innovate with the newest and most powerful hardware, Yokoi believed in using existing technologies in new and creative ways. By using this older tech, the price point for the Game and Watch was reasonable and was one of the reasons for its success and popularity.”

Game and Watch and the Birth of Game Boy

Due to limitations, the innovation behind the Game Boy birthed an incredible system. “Each Game and Watch could only play one game, but that would change with Yokoi’s next and most famous invention, the Game Boy. By late eighties, Nintendo had found huge success with the Nintendo Entertainment System. Yokoi wanted to combine the portability of his Game and Watch line with the interchangeable cartridges and 8-bit processing power of the NES. And thus, the Game Boy was born.”

Hardware Choices

“Despite the availability of color screens and more powerful CPUs, Yokoi adamantly stuck to his design principles and the Game Boy was launched with a monochrome screen that could only display four shades of grey. Meanwhile competitors like the Sega Game Gear had color backlit screens and the Atari Lynx had both a color screen and a powerful 16-bit processor which allowed for Super NES mode 7 like effects.”

A Successful Launch

“But Yokoi’s Game Boy would prove to be the victor as what these competitors failed to realize all these more powerful technologies drained the batteries quicker than you could say “carbon footprint”. The Game Boy offered almost twice the amount of battery life and also had the exclusive rights to a little game called Tetris. Eventually the Game Boy sold over 120 million units and launched franchises like Kirby and Pokemon.”

What are some of your favourite Game Boy memories? Join in on the conversation in the comment section below!