Nintendo may be working on a way to revive classic Game Boy games on your smartphone. It’s not the “Game Boy Classic Edition” that we might have been expecting, but it actually does make a lot more sense than a standalone device. Below, you’ll see a few images of a patented Game-Boy-style smartphone case that was filed back in March:
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Like the Nintendo Switch, this is a device that is immediately understandable and marketable. One look, and you know exactly how it’s supposed to work and why it’s so appealing. Why lug around extra hardware with you in your backpack or pocket, when you can transform your smartphone into a Game Boy at any time? With this sleek case, you’d keep part of your display open and functioning as a Game Boy screen. Even with the cropped screen size, we assume most phone models will end up yielding more screen real-estate than the original Game Boy.
SiliconEra points out an interesting feature of this case. Instead of connecting to your phone via Bluetooth for input, the buttons on the case would actually trigger touchscreen feedback from the screen below. This is kind of gross, but picture each button on the case as a little finger that can reach down and precisely poke your smartphone in a particular spot, triggering the corresponding in-game response. Whether that would be better than Bluetooth connectivity, or offer less input latency, we don’t know.
Nintendo did also note that this device design is not exclusively for smartphones, and could also function with tablet-like devices. The folks at SiliconEra suggested that we may see a device like this for the Nintendo Switch as well, but I think that the Switch would be a little too bulky with a functional case like this all around it. Holding the Switch vertically is already a bit cumbersome, and putting any kind of shell around it would make it even moreso.
At any rate, we still have a while to wait before we know what this patent is for. It’s also important to keep in mind that Nintendo files and renews patents all of the time, and they don’t always come to fruition as actual products. In fact, they rarely do.
As soon as we learn more, we’ll update you straight away.
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