Game Boy
The Game Boy (Japanese:ゲームボーイ) is a series of handheld battery powered portable video game consoles sold by Nintendo. It is the best selling game system to date.The hardware:
- Game Boy - the original 8 bit (1989). Based around a Z80 processor. Tiny black and white LCD screen which was not backlit and looked more like black and yellow. It played games from ROM based media called cartridges (sometimes abbreviated as carts). The game that really pushed it into the upper reaches of success was Tetris.
- Super Game Boy - not a Game Boy portable, but a plugin cartridge for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, was the first Game Boy to offer display of "colored" games (although with a very limited palette). Super Game Boy was favoured by software developers and testers since they could use a larger television screen while working, instead of the small Game Boy screen.
- Game Boy Pocket - smaller, neater unit that required fewer batteries.
- Game Boy Light - only seen in Japan, same size as the Pocket, but has a backlit screen for improved visibility. Some suggest that its backlit screen impairs its battery life.
- Game Boy Color - update to the 8 bit range of Game Boy. It has double the processor speed, twice as much memory, a color screen, and an infrared communications port. Often referred to as GBC.
- Game Boy Advance (2001) - features a 32-bit ARM processor, a larger color palette, and a real-time clock for use in games. Technically likened to the Super Nintendo and backed up with superior ports of classics such as Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario Kart and F-Zero alongside new titles such as Kuru Kuru Kururin. Often referred to as GBA.
- Game Boy Advance SP (2003) - A new design of the Game Boy Advance with no change in processing capabilites, just a drastically altered form and functionality. In addition to the cosmetic change, the GBA SP also introduced a rechargeable battery and a frontlit screen, both firsts for Nintendo's portable. This version requires a special adapter to give it a headphone jack.
- Game Boy Advance Player (2003) - Similair to the Super Game Boy device (see above), this device allows Game Boy games to be played on the Nintendo Gamecube. It uses the same color palette as built into the cart instead of colorizing the games.
Thousands of games are available for the Game Boy, which can be attributed in part to its sales in the amounts of millions, a well-documented design, and a typically short development cycle.
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| Game Boy Camera | Game Boy Printer |
The Virtual Boy, a companion console, was released in 1995 but was a dismal failure.
The Game Boy Camera & Printer are accessories for the Game Boy handheld gaming console, released in 1998. They marked the beginning of a thus far mostly unsuccessful attempt by Nintendo to expand the gameboy from merely a gaming device into a rudimentary PDA.
The e-Reader accessory was launched in late 2002 and works only with GBA compatible models. This device is similar to a bar code reader. Simple games, often old NES titles, are printed on trading cards, scanned by the device to load each game into the GBA.
In January 2004, Nintendo announced a new portable game system to be released that year, the Nintendo DS (DS = Dual Screen); this new console will not be compatible with the Game Boy series and will be marketed separately.