Celebrating the Gameboy family of handheld consoles
1The technology we use daily as gamers has evolved at an astonishing speed since the beginning of the new millennium, and we couldn’t be here in any way without the past gaming generations, today, we are celebrating the Game Boy family of handheld consoles.
The original Gameboy was Nintendo’s first handheld console with interchangeable cartridges, as the screen of its predecessor, the Game and Watch, was designed similar to a calculator’s, and as such it could only play one specific game. It was a huge leap forward to always have your one system, and only change your cartridge to have a different experience!
The Gameboy was wisely built, using at its best the technology available at the time, and despite its green monochrome screen, the portability qualities of the Gameboy and its lower price, marked a striking success for Nintendo, and the Gameboy became by far, the best selling handheld console at the time. The system was released in Japan in 1989, and finalized its worldwide launch at the end of 1990, at that point, everyone knew what a Gameboy was, and its name became synonymous with the concept of handheld game console.
With the Gameboy it was possible to play games like Tetris, Pokémon Red, Blue, Green and Yellow, Super Mario Land 1, 2, and 3, The Legend of Zelda Link’s Awakening, and many more!
The Gameboy Pocket was then released in 1997 as a slimmer redesigned version of the handheld, and then was released the Gameboy Light in Japan, that was essentially a Gameboy Pocket with a backlit screen.
The Gameboy Color was released in Japan on October 23d 1998 as the successor of the original Gameboy.
As the name suggests, this new system was capable of displaying many colors on screen, new games made for the handheld made great use of the feature, and old original Gameboy games could be played on the Color sporting some minor colored tints, this meant that the Gameboy Color was backwards compatible with all the existing Gameboy library, giving it a large games catalogue alongside the new releases.
Pokémon is now in full mania, Pokémon the movie joins Pokémon the video game and Pokémon the trading cards as must sees and must haves.
Thanks to the Gameboy Color, developer Gamefreak, was able to perfect their vision on the gaming series they’ve been working on since 1996, Pokémon! Between 1999 and 2001 every kid on Earth was going crazy for Pokémon! Red, Blue, Yellow and Green were so successful that Pokémon themed products were everywhere, t-shirts, toys, collectable cards, the anime series, plushes and much much more! As a kid back then, I also was lucky enough to live Pokémania, and in 2000 I got my first Pokémon game with a Gameboy Color: Pokémon Gold.
Other heavy hitting titles on the Gameboy Color were Super Mario Bros Deluxe, The Legend of Zelda Oracle of Seasons or Ages, Wario Land 2 and 3, Metal Gear Solid an many more.
After the Gameboy Color Nintendo designed and published the Gameboy Advance in 2001, this new handheld came with two new bumper buttons, better processing and graphical power and a wider screen. Some of the best games for the Gameboy Advance included Super Mario Advance 1 through 4, Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Red and Blue Rescue Team, Wario Land 4, The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap, Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire and many more.
The Gameboy Advance was also retro compatible with both Gameboy Color and Gameboy games, and many SNES games were also ported to the handheld, expanding in this way its games library even further than the Gameboy Color!
In 2003 Nintendo released a revision of this system in the form of the Gameboy Advance SP, now featuring a backlit screen and a clamshell design. The SP was then followed by the Gameboy Advance micro, the last Gameboy, as it released when the DS was overtaking the crown as most popular handheld console. As the name suggests, the micro was much smaller than the original Advance and sadly it was no longer compatible with old Gameboy and Gameboy Color games.
The Gameboy family of handheld consoles delivered millions of hours of entertainment to people all over the world, and as sales started dropping around 2005, it was time for the Gameboy to retire, and leave space to the Nintendo DS. But we will never forget the importance of the Gameboy, without it, handheld consoles wouldn’t be as popular and as interesting in today’s market, and its legacy as amazing handheld console will live on, thanks to the Nintendo Switch.
#Gameboy #Retrogaming #GamingHistory
Intro (00:00)
The Gameboy (00:23)
Games of the original Gameboy (01:34)
Revisions of the Gameboy (02:09)
Gameboy Color and backwards compatibility (02:27)
Pokémania/Pokémon mania (03:12)
Games of the Gameboy Color (03:58)
Gameboy Advance (04:59)
Games of the Gameboy Advance (05:14)
Interesting fact about Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire (06:05)
Gameboy Advance retro compatibility and revisions (06:25)
Celebrating the Nintendo Gameboy (07:05)
Bye bye! (07:31)