No console makes a name for itself without the accompanying games being of equally high quality. The Atari because there were not enough companies that made games for it the Sega Game Gear because of its poor battery life, a lack of original games and support from Sega”. “Both the Atari Lynx and Game Gear didn’t make it against Nintendo, and the games on offer had a big part to play in their respective downturns. This she says, is where Nintendo really flourished against its competitors. This also made it possible for other gaming producers to develop games for the Game Boy”. “Before you had to settle with one game for the console – now you could change games. “With the arrival of the Game Boy, a new world opened up”, Diana explains. Tetris is one of the best-selling games of all time and came with every Game Boy Classic purchaseĪlthough the handheld aspect of the Game Boy is its most eminent and lauded feature, it was still a departure from previous consoles. And its controls mirrored that of the NES, with the same controller pad and four buttons that included A, B Start and Select, meaning gamers already experienced with the NES would easily adopt the Game Boy’s system. In the case of the Game Boy, its screen was 2.5 inches wide and virtually colourless (only a couple of grey shades were possible), yet its battery life promised to last up to 30 hours long. Yokoi adopted what is now one of Nintendo’s key design philosophies when creating the Game Boy–known as ‘Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology’–which advocated for cheap (‘withered’) technology and using it creatively (or laterally).
The Game Boy was less technologically advanced than some of its counterparts, including the Atari Lynx and Sega Game Gear, yet it was simpler to construct, cheaper and more durable in terms of design and battery life. What helped set the Game Boy apart from a manufacturing standpoint was its simplicity. Within the first days of its release, the entire Game Boy stock (300K plus) was sold and a cultural icon was born.
Nine years later on April 21st, 1989, that same team (led by legendary Nintendo engineer Gunpei Yokoi) created the Game Boy, which combined the hardware of the Game & Watch as well as the NES home system. The first Game Boy drew from the Game & Watch design, adding simplified hardware system and a multi-game feature The Game & Watch, which featured a single game on it, was a major success.
The Nintendo Company, however, sensing the demand for portable gaming, spotted an opportunity and launched the Game & Watch in 1980, modelled on the Microvision. Launched in 1979, this small, cartridge-based system was popular for a while, yet its small screen and the scarce supply of cartridges led to its demise. It’s hard to imagine there were handhelds before the Game Boy, but the first portable game console was actually the Microvision. “It was the first handheld to really change gaming”. “The Game Boy Classic revolutionised the industry”, says Diana. But back in the 1980s, the Game Boy was proof long before the phones of today, that handheld devices were the contraptions of the future. Today, the gaming industry touches on everything from movement-sensor gaming to virtual reality. The first of its kind in many ways, we asked video games expert, Diana van der Valk, to tell us more about its history and revolutionary nature. While the Game Boy’s appeal nowadays tends to lie more heavily in its retro aesthetic, when Nintendo launched this portable console, it was a game changer.