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Game Boy turns 25 years old

by GH Staff
Game boy

Feeling old yet? That’s right, 25 years ago today the Game Boy was released in Japan. The portable gaming system took the world by storm in 1989 with its addictive puzzle game Tetris, selling over 35 million copies. Portable gaming has certainly changed. In today’s society, kids can simply download an app on their phone in seconds and be entertained for hours, and the best part is that a lot of apps are free. However things weren’t so simple before the Game boy was released. Kids were limited to simple LCD games from the Game & Watch series. The Game Boy changed all of that when it was released, featuring a directional pad similar to its popular console counterpart the NES. Not only that, but the Game boy gave users the ability to swap out cartridge based games which allowed the Game Boy to play any game that kids could get their hands on. Multiplayer was also a big feature of the original Game boy, as it featured a special port for a link cable, allowing friends to connect their handhelds to each other and play various games. (That’s right kids, back in the day we didn’t have wireless communication with our handhelds, we had to physically hook them together!)

For those of you curious, the tech specs of the original Game Boy are as follows:

  • An 8-Bit 4.19 Mhz CPU
  • 8 kb of video RAM
  • 2-bit color palette with four shades of gray
  • 160 x 144 pixel LCD display

Impressive specs by today’s standards right? Well it may not be the strongest machine now, but the Game boy became immensely popular and was a major step forward in the handheld gaming market. Together the Game Boy and its successor, Game Boy Color would go on to sell over 118 million units worldwide. The Game boy paved the way to an entire new generation of handheld gaming and has left a major legacy and fond memories in the hearts of gamers everywhere.