25 years of the Nintendo Game Boy

[vnisanian2001]

It was 25 years ago today that the Nintendo Game Boy made its world premiere in Japan. The Game Boy was designed by Gunpei Yokoi, and was based on the Game & Watch, which he also designed. Successors included the Game Boy Pocket, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Advance SP, and Game Boy Micro. They have sold 200.20 million units. The original four launch titles were Super Mario Land, Alleway, Baseball, and Yakuman. The handheld retailed for 12,500 Yen (about $94 in American money for 1989), and the launch titles each retailed for 2,600 Yen (about $20 in American money for 1989).

The original model, simply called the "Handy Game Machine", could also hook up to speakers, recharge without the need of four AA batteries, hook up to 2 players (later 4 players), and hook up to a battery case. It was an immediate hit, and soon took the whole world by storm, with the release of Tetris, the handheld's most successful title ever.

Happy 25th Game Boy.  I always have, and always will, consider it the best handheld ever. And now, some pictures:

The original box for the handheld.



The original launch titles:



Japanese advertisements





And commercials, as aired on Japanese television

www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkOk_E_3J0E

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hXxgNT3ib0

[1983parrothead]

I still have my brother's same Game Boy that he got for his birthday the year it was released. Unfortunately, it doesn't work anymore, probably due to the alkaline batteries leaking into the system.

[Ike]

I remember getting my first Gameboy from my grandma. That huge gray brick went everywhere with me. I can't believe I played and loved that nasty cabbage screen so much.

[1upsuper]

I feel like I have a pretty good tolerance for the old and archaic, but these days I cannot handle the brick's green screen. I HAVE to use my Pocket or SP.

[Scylla]

I can't even really tolerate the Pocket or Color, I'm too spoiled by the backlit SP (the frontlit SP is meh since it washes out colors, and the less said about the original GBA the better). The Pocket and Color were significant improvements, though, and I was still using them until around the mid 00s (when I got my backlit SP not that long after launch; I got the original GBA around its launch and was too bitter to buy a frontlit SP but I borrowed one often until I heard about the backlit model coming).

Anyway, going back to the original Game Boy, I still have mine. I don't think I got it until, uh, '94, I think? But I loved the heck out of that thing. I don't think I used it as a portable system that much, go figure. The funny thing is that I often left it on this one chair that was in direct sunlight, which would make the screen screwy and even harder to see. It didn't seem like it ever did any permanent harm, but you'd think I would wise up and keep it elsewhere. But we were all so used to that sludge back then that Donkey Kong Land was honestly the only game where I really thought to myself "this is hard to see".

[kaoru]

Ah, the brick. Good ol' times when being able to hog the TV with the "real" gaming system, playing Kirby, Mario, the only good Zelda, or Revenge of the Gator an the tiny green screen.

[Deleted]

I always wanted an original Game Boy but was never able to get one. The closest I got was a purple ciruitry style Game Boy Color for my birthday in 1998. Got Pokemon Red and Blue with it, played it for about an hour and never touched it again.

[kingmike]

Got mine for Christmas '92 and I played it all the time.
I had an original Game Boy, but at some point someone took it and all my games (with manuals).
I think I've replaced all the games, but I'm sure I'll never replace some of the manuals (Mega Man 1-4, Kid Dracula).

I later got a replacement green Play It Loud GB.

[jorpho]

I was astounded to learn a few years ago that apparently Super Mario Land actually sold more copies than SMB3. It would be cool if Nintendo tried to make a remake of it – brown-haired Daisy's never actually appeared in something other than a sports game or Mario Party, has she? – though it would either have to be a budget title or greatly expanded.

I still have my first Game Boy, though it's gotten a bit yellow with age. The buttons eventually wore out and I bought a clear Play It Loud model when they were selling for $50. Eventually I opened it up and replaced the pads, but I handled it a bit roughly in the process and now one of the lines in the middle of the screen is slightly fainter than the others; it seems repairing screen defects like that is hopeless due to the way the ribbon cable is constructed. (I intended to post the videos one day, but never got around to it.) One of these days I will link them together and use them to finish Pokemon Yellow.

[kingmike]

I was surprised a month or so ago to find the Pokemon in my Red and Blue games are still alive. (only owner, original batteries, I don't even know if I could replace it)

[sabbacc108]

I got mine for Christmas of '93, and played the crap out of it, until I got a GBA in 2002. I still played it off and on through around 2006, usually when I picked up a game I had never gotten around to playing when I was a kid. It then went through a renaissance a couple years ago, and I started playing it a lot again, taking it with me to play on the bus during my commute to and from work every day.
Strangely, though a few of the scan lines on one side had gone out over the years, when I picked it up today to play, I realized that all the scan lines were working perfectly!
...A 25th-anniversary miracle!?

Oh, and I just found this:


(yes, that's me)

[kingmike]

Doesn't have enough box-scratching.

[vetus]

Game Boy is my favourite console. Unfortunately I never had my very own Game Boy, I was always borrowing a Game Boy from my cousin (she was rarely playing with it) and later from my sister's boyfriend (now her husband). My very own Game Boy was Game Boy Color which I bought second-handed along with Pokemon Yellow (the first Pokemon game I played) and Super Mario Bros Deluxe. I still play Game Boy games at Game Boy emulator on Nintendo DS flash-card. And althought I prefer to play at emulator now and I'm not a collector I would like to buy a classic Game Boy for the nostalgia. Just like I got a SNES for the nostalgia from a friend of mine (he gave me his SNES on the box with all the stuff for free).

Here is a japanese commercial for Game Boy Wars:

Apr 21, 2014 20:28:14 GMT -5 sabbacc108 said:

Oh, and I just found this:


(yes, that's me)

Copy-paste from the comment I made at YouTube:

Not as "freakout" as N64 kid. Still great video. Unfortunately I never had my own Game Boy classic (my first console was SNES at 1995 - Atari 2600 and handheld LCD games don't count - and my first, own Game Boy was Game Boy Color).

[Dee Liteyears]

I got my first GameBoy together with a travel case and a bunch of games for christmas in 1994, that was after I already had a SGB, which I got earlier that year together with my SNES. Usually I just used the GB when travelling and resorted to the SGB for the rest of the time. But hell, it was just to much fun to mess around with the palettes^^
And while were at it, I always loved this Wario Land commercial (also I just realized who Warios VA is^^)

[moran]

Iirc I got mine for Christmas in '91 along with Metroid 2.