The handheld console introduced millions to the joy of video games, and remains one of the best-selling consoles ever
The original 1989 Nintendo Game Boy had lower specs than its rivals, but its robustness and simplicity made it a success.The original 1989 Nintendo Game Boy had lower specs than its rivals, but its robustness and simplicity made it a success.
n April 21, 1989, Nintendo released a chunky grey game-playing rectangle to stores in Japan. It’s fair to say that nobody expected much of it. Internally, at Nintendo’s Kyoto HQ, the portable console was reportedly not a well-loved project. But within two weeks, it had sold out its entire 300,000-unit initial run. The Game Boy would arrive later that year in the US, and across the rest of the world over the next couple of years. Everywhere it went, it proved just as popular.
Like Sony’s Walkman, the Game Boy is a tech design icon of its time, still instantly recognisable from its silhouette alone. Developed by a team led by Satoru Okada and Gunpei Yokoi in Kyoto, the Game Boy is perhaps the preeminent example of Yokoi’s “lateral thinking with withered technology” maxim, a do-more-with-less. It’s so simply designed – with four buttons and a cross-shaped directional pad – that you already know how to use it as soon as you look at it.
It remains incredible to me that such a nerdy little game – Pokémon battles are largely about numbers and type match-ups – became the single most profitable entertainment franchise on Earth, more so than Mickey Mouse and Star Wars. It’s a testament to the creative vision of its creators – and to the imaginations of 90s children, who were unbothered by the rudimentary presentation. But it also tells us something about the power and intimacy of handheld gaming.
Game Boy, and she’s showing the kids the way through one of its tougher levels. This image is a perfect encapsulation of this console and how it felt to play it, for me. The Game Boy was played by everyone, girls and boys, men and women, shared among families; it was a portal to other, smaller worlds, and it introduced millions to the magic of games.
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