The History of the Nintendo Game Boy

The Nintendo Game Boy debuted in Japan on April 21, 1989. It was designed by Nintendo’s Gunpei Yokoi and featured an 8-bit handheld console that supported interchangeable cartridges but only displayed games in 4 colors. On July 31, 1989, the Game Boy was bundled with Tetris and released in the U.S. On August 1, 1992, Kirby’s Dream Land became the first Nintendo game to debut on the Game Boy. The Game Boy Pocket, a slimmer version of the original, was released in 1996, and in 1998, accessories called the Game Boy Camera and the Game Boy Printer were released. In September of that same year, the ever-popular Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue were released for Game Boy. Then on November 18, 1998, the Game Boy Color was released. The first true successor to the original Game Boy, it was backward compatible and could support up to 56 colors. The Game Boy Advance arrived in 2001, followed by a few others. In September 2005, the last iteration of the Game Boy was released – the Micro. (A new, successful portable system called the Nintendo DS had debuted just one year earlier.) In 2011, Game Boy games appeared on the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console and in 2014, Game Boy Advance games appeared on the Wii U Virtual Console, giving new life to beloved favorites once lost to time. Today, Nintendo continues to create gaming consoles, most notably the highly popular Nintendo Switch.