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Game Boy
The Game Boy is a handheld game console developed by Nintendo, launched in the Japanese home market on April 21, 1989, followed by North America later that year and other territories from 1990 onwards. Following the success of the Game & Watch single-game handhelds, Nintendo developed the Game Boy to be a portable console, with interchangeable cartridges. The concept proved highly successful, and the Game Boy line became a cultural icon of the 1990s and early 2000s.
The Game Boy was designed by the Nintendo Research & Development 1 team, led by Gunpei Yokoi and Satoru Okada. The device features a dot-matrix display, a D-pad, four game buttons, a single speaker, and uses Game Pak cartridges. Its two-toned gray design included black, blue, and magenta accents, with softly rounded corners and a distinctive curved bottom-right edge. At launch in Japan it was sold as a standalone console, but in North America and Europe it came bundled with the wildly popular Tetris which fueled sales.
Despite mixed reviews criticizing its monochrome display compared to full-color competitors like the Sega Game Gear, Atari Lynx, and NEC TurboExpress, the Game Boy's affordability, battery life, and extensive game library propelled it to market dominance. An estimated 118.69 million units of the Game Boy and its successor, the Game Boy Color, released in 1998, have been sold worldwide, making them the fourth-best-selling system of all time. The Game Boy received several redesigns during its lifespan, including the smaller Game Boy Pocket, released in 1996, and the backlit Game Boy Light, released in 1998.
The Game Boy was designed by Nintendo Research & Development 1 (R&D1), the team behind the Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong arcade games and the successful Game & Watch series of handhelds, which had helped stabilize Nintendo financially. By 1983, while Game & Watch remained popular internationally, sales in Japan had begun to decline, pressuring R&D1 to innovate. At the same time, they faced competition from Nintendo Research & Development 2 (R&D2), an in-house rival created by Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi. That same year, R&D2 had launched the Family Computer, intensifying the pressure on R&D1. Looking to improve Game & Watch, R&D1 researched new screens from supplier Sharp, including dot-matrix displays that could support multiple games—unlike Game & Watch, which used pre-printed segmented LCDs, limiting each device to a single game.
On June 10, 1987, division director Gunpei Yokoi informed R&D1 that Yamauchi wanted a successor to Game & Watch priced under ¥10,000 (equivalent to ¥11,796 in 2019). From the very first meeting, the team knew they wanted to use a dot-matrix display and codenamed the project Dot Matrix Game (DMG), a name later reflected in the Game Boy's official model number: DMG-01.
Within R&D1, Yokoi championed "lateral thinking with withered technology", a design philosophy which eschewed cutting-edge technology in favor of finding innovative uses of mature technologies, which tended to be more affordable and reliable. This led to early clashes between Yokoi and his assistant director Satoru Okada. Yokoi envisioned a simple toy, akin to an advanced Game & Watch, while Okada pushed for a more powerful system with interchangeable cartridges—essentially a portable NES. Some within R&D1 believed Yokoi resisted the idea simply to avoid links to the NES, developed by their rivals at R&D2. Eventually, in a heated meeting, Yokoi relented, approving Okada's vision and giving him full responsibility for the project.
Initially, R&D1 considered using a Ricoh CPU, similar to the NES, for potential compatibility. However, R&D2—then building the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES)—blocked this, claiming it would strain Ricoh's resources. R&D1 suspected this was simply an attempt to hinder their project. Ultimately, they opted for a Sharp CPU. A key side effect of this choice was the CPU's built-in communication feature. In the early 1980s, Okada had worked on an earlier Nintendo project called Computer Mah-jong Yakuman that featured multiplayer gaming over a cable connection between two devices. He saw an opportunity to implement a similar feature. Despite skepticism from his team that the feature would be too difficult to use, he personally developed the Game Link Cable technology, which later enabled Pokémon's "battle" and "trade" game mechanics. The Game Boy also retained a key innovation from Game & Watch: the D-pad. Yokoi had designed it as a compact alternative to joysticks, making it ideal for handheld devices. Its use on the NES controller also helped ease the transition for players.
Early in development, R&D1 evaluated dot-matrix displays from Sharp but found them unsuitable due to severe ghosting. Seeking alternatives, they approached Citizen, Epson, Hosiden, Matsushita, and Seiko. Most declined, but Citizen, already producing LCDs for portable TVs, was eager to collaborate. The team was impressed by Citizen's chip-on-glass technology, which integrated the screen controller into the display, reducing cost and production time. They offered Nintendo a monochrome screen for ¥1,300 or a color version for ¥3,900. However, following Yokoi's philosophy, the team rejected color due to higher power consumption and cost, opting for a simple grayscale screen without a backlight. This decision proved wise, as competing color handhelds would suffer from poor battery life, giving the Game Boy a significant advantage.
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Game Boy
The Game Boy is a handheld game console developed by Nintendo, launched in the Japanese home market on April 21, 1989, followed by North America later that year and other territories from 1990 onwards. Following the success of the Game & Watch single-game handhelds, Nintendo developed the Game Boy to be a portable console, with interchangeable cartridges. The concept proved highly successful, and the Game Boy line became a cultural icon of the 1990s and early 2000s.
The Game Boy was designed by the Nintendo Research & Development 1 team, led by Gunpei Yokoi and Satoru Okada. The device features a dot-matrix display, a D-pad, four game buttons, a single speaker, and uses Game Pak cartridges. Its two-toned gray design included black, blue, and magenta accents, with softly rounded corners and a distinctive curved bottom-right edge. At launch in Japan it was sold as a standalone console, but in North America and Europe it came bundled with the wildly popular Tetris which fueled sales.
Despite mixed reviews criticizing its monochrome display compared to full-color competitors like the Sega Game Gear, Atari Lynx, and NEC TurboExpress, the Game Boy's affordability, battery life, and extensive game library propelled it to market dominance. An estimated 118.69 million units of the Game Boy and its successor, the Game Boy Color, released in 1998, have been sold worldwide, making them the fourth-best-selling system of all time. The Game Boy received several redesigns during its lifespan, including the smaller Game Boy Pocket, released in 1996, and the backlit Game Boy Light, released in 1998.
The Game Boy was designed by Nintendo Research & Development 1 (R&D1), the team behind the Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong arcade games and the successful Game & Watch series of handhelds, which had helped stabilize Nintendo financially. By 1983, while Game & Watch remained popular internationally, sales in Japan had begun to decline, pressuring R&D1 to innovate. At the same time, they faced competition from Nintendo Research & Development 2 (R&D2), an in-house rival created by Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi. That same year, R&D2 had launched the Family Computer, intensifying the pressure on R&D1. Looking to improve Game & Watch, R&D1 researched new screens from supplier Sharp, including dot-matrix displays that could support multiple games—unlike Game & Watch, which used pre-printed segmented LCDs, limiting each device to a single game.
On June 10, 1987, division director Gunpei Yokoi informed R&D1 that Yamauchi wanted a successor to Game & Watch priced under ¥10,000 (equivalent to ¥11,796 in 2019). From the very first meeting, the team knew they wanted to use a dot-matrix display and codenamed the project Dot Matrix Game (DMG), a name later reflected in the Game Boy's official model number: DMG-01.
Within R&D1, Yokoi championed "lateral thinking with withered technology", a design philosophy which eschewed cutting-edge technology in favor of finding innovative uses of mature technologies, which tended to be more affordable and reliable. This led to early clashes between Yokoi and his assistant director Satoru Okada. Yokoi envisioned a simple toy, akin to an advanced Game & Watch, while Okada pushed for a more powerful system with interchangeable cartridges—essentially a portable NES. Some within R&D1 believed Yokoi resisted the idea simply to avoid links to the NES, developed by their rivals at R&D2. Eventually, in a heated meeting, Yokoi relented, approving Okada's vision and giving him full responsibility for the project.
Initially, R&D1 considered using a Ricoh CPU, similar to the NES, for potential compatibility. However, R&D2—then building the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES)—blocked this, claiming it would strain Ricoh's resources. R&D1 suspected this was simply an attempt to hinder their project. Ultimately, they opted for a Sharp CPU. A key side effect of this choice was the CPU's built-in communication feature. In the early 1980s, Okada had worked on an earlier Nintendo project called Computer Mah-jong Yakuman that featured multiplayer gaming over a cable connection between two devices. He saw an opportunity to implement a similar feature. Despite skepticism from his team that the feature would be too difficult to use, he personally developed the Game Link Cable technology, which later enabled Pokémon's "battle" and "trade" game mechanics. The Game Boy also retained a key innovation from Game & Watch: the D-pad. Yokoi had designed it as a compact alternative to joysticks, making it ideal for handheld devices. Its use on the NES controller also helped ease the transition for players.
Early in development, R&D1 evaluated dot-matrix displays from Sharp but found them unsuitable due to severe ghosting. Seeking alternatives, they approached Citizen, Epson, Hosiden, Matsushita, and Seiko. Most declined, but Citizen, already producing LCDs for portable TVs, was eager to collaborate. The team was impressed by Citizen's chip-on-glass technology, which integrated the screen controller into the display, reducing cost and production time. They offered Nintendo a monochrome screen for ¥1,300 or a color version for ¥3,900. However, following Yokoi's philosophy, the team rejected color due to higher power consumption and cost, opting for a simple grayscale screen without a backlight. This decision proved wise, as competing color handhelds would suffer from poor battery life, giving the Game Boy a significant advantage.