HAPPY BIRTHDAY OLD BOY! GAME BOY TURNS 35
It would be remiss of us this week not to mark a significant landmark in the world of video game gadgets.
Gaming on the go is taken for granted now, but it wasn’t always that way. Consoles in the olden days were tethered to power and hooked up to a TV… that is, until 35 years ago this week. Nintendo changed everything with the Game Boy.
By today’s standards, it was pretty basic – a tiny monochrome screen in what today looks like an oversized casing.
But it was a revolution and paved the way for all the other hand-held gaming devices that have arrived since.
The Game Boy’s success was thanks in no small part to it boasting the killer app of all killer apps – it was the only way you could play Tetris. And that’s why it sold somewhere in the region of 65 million units before Nintendo eventually sold its last in 2003.
If you count the colour version of the Game Boy that came out in 1998, almost 120 million units were shipped globally, making the Game Boy the fourth best-selling games console of all time. Happy birthday!