The Game Boy is a handheld game console created and sold by Nintendo. It was first sold in Japan on April 21, 1989, in North America on July 31, 1989, and in Europe on September 28, 1990. It was Nintendo’s first handheld device that used ROM cartridges to store games. The Game Boy replaced the Game & Watch line of handheld games and competed with other systems like Sega’s Game Gear, Atari’s Lynx, and NEC’s TurboExpress during the fourth generation of video game consoles.
Nintendo’s Research & Development 1 team, led by Gunpei Yokoi and Satoru Okada, designed the Game Boy. To improve on the single-game Game & Watch devices, Nintendo used a dot-matrix display and game cartridges that could be swapped between devices. The company focused on making the Game Boy affordable, long-lasting, and durable, even though its competitors had faster processors and color graphics. Following Yokoi’s idea to use simple, low-cost technology, the Game Boy had a black-and-white screen and an 8-bit processor. It kept the Game & Watch’s directional pad and included the Game Link Cable, developed by Okada, which allowed players to connect with others and share data.
In North America and Europe, the Game Boy was heavily promoted in marketing campaigns and often came with the game Tetris, which helped attract a wider audience. While its black-and-white screen and limited technology were criticized, the Game Boy’s low cost, long battery life, and wide variety of games led to strong sales worldwide. The popularity of Nintendo’s Pokémon series helped keep the Game Boy popular through the 1990s. Nintendo later released redesigned versions, including the smaller Game Boy Pocket (1996) and the Japan-only, backlit Game Boy Light (1998).
After the 1998 release of the Game Boy Color (GBC), Nintendo continued to support the original Game Boy. The Game Boy could play many GBC games, while the GBC and its 2001 successor, the Game Boy Advance, could play Game Boy games. Together, the Game Boy and GBC sold about 118.69 million units. At the time they were discontinued in 2003, they were the best-selling console, and as of 2025, they remain the fourth-best-selling console. Reporters say the Game Boy helped make handheld gaming a popular industry and introduced many players to video games.
History and development
The Game Boy was created by Nintendo Research & Development 1 (R&D1), the team that made the Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong arcade games and the Game & Watch handhelds. These handhelds helped Nintendo become financially stable. By 1983, Game & Watch was still popular worldwide, but sales in Japan started to drop. This put pressure on R&D1 to create something new. At the same time, they faced competition from Nintendo Research & Development 2 (R&D2), a team started by Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi. In 1983, R&D2 launched the Family Computer, which added more pressure on R&D1 to improve Game & Watch. To make Game & Watch better, R&D1 looked into new screens from Sharp, including dot-matrix displays that could support multiple games. Unlike Game & Watch, which used pre-printed segmented LCDs (limiting each device to one game), these new screens offered more flexibility.
On June 10, 1987, R&D1’s division director, Gunpei Yokoi, told the team that Yamauchi wanted a Game & Watch successor priced under ¥10,000 (equivalent to ¥12,840 in 2024). The team decided to use a dot-matrix display and named the project Dot Matrix Game (DMG), later reflected in the Game Boy’s model number: DMG-01.
Within R&D1, Yokoi promoted a design philosophy called "lateral thinking with withered technology," which focused on using older, proven technology in new ways instead of relying on the latest, more expensive innovations. This idea caused disagreements with assistant director Satoru Okada. Yokoi wanted a simple toy similar to Game & Watch, while Okada pushed for a more powerful system with interchangeable cartridges, like a portable version of the NES. Some team members thought Yokoi avoided the cartridge idea to prevent ties to the NES, made by R&D2. After a heated meeting, Yokoi agreed to Okada’s plan and gave him full control of the project.
Early on, R&D1 considered using a Ricoh CPU, like the one in the NES, for compatibility. However, R&D2, which was building the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), blocked this, claiming it would strain Ricoh’s resources. R&D1 suspected this was an attempt to slow their progress. Instead, they chose a Sharp CPU. A key benefit of this choice was the CPU’s built-in communication feature. Earlier, Okada had worked on a Nintendo project called Computer Mah-jong Yakuman, which allowed multiplayer gaming over a cable. He saw an opportunity to use this feature again. Despite doubts from his team, Okada developed the Game Link Cable, which later enabled Pokémon’s "battle" and "trade" mechanics. The Game Boy also kept a key innovation from Game & Watch: the D-pad. Yokoi designed it as a compact alternative to joysticks, making it ideal for handheld devices. Its use on the NES controller also helped players transition to the new system.
During development, R&D1 tested dot-matrix displays from Sharp but found them unsuitable due to ghosting. They then approached Citizen, Epson, Hosiden, Matsushita, and Seiko. Most declined, but Citizen, which made LCDs for portable TVs, was eager to work with Nintendo. Citizen’s chip-on-glass technology, which combined the screen controller with the display, reduced costs 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 chose the monochrome screen because it used less power and was cheaper. This decision proved smart, as competing color handhelds later struggled with poor battery life, giving the Game Boy an advantage.
Despite this, Sharp remained important, so Nintendo asked if Sharp could match Citizen’s technology and price. Sharp gave vague answers and quoted prices of ¥2,500 to ¥3,000 per screen. In response, Citizen lowered its price to ¥1,000. With Yamauchi’s approval, R&D1 finalized a deal with Citizen on September 1, 1987. However, as Citizen’s representatives left Nintendo’s offices, they saw Sharp’s team arriving for a meeting with Yamauchi. Without explanation, Yamauchi canceled the Citizen deal and gave the contract to Sharp. To avoid hurting Citizen, R&D1 told them they would buy color screens next year, even creating fake project documents. Citizen later supplied color screens for Sega’s Game Gear, which had a design similar to Nintendo’s fake project. Citizen never admitted to sharing the design.
R&D1 soon discovered Sharp was unprepared to make the needed screens, causing delays. Early prototypes with low-quality twisted nematic (TN) screens led to internal doubts, with some employees jokingly calling the project "DameGame" (meaning "hopeless" in Japanese). In the summer of 1988, R&D1 showed Yamauchi a prototype, who canceled the project due to the screen’s poor visibility. Team members argued that small adjustments or a slightly higher budget could fix the issue, but Yamauchi refused, leading them to believe other teams had convinced him the device would fail. With the NES still popular and the SNES on the way, a Game & Watch successor no longer seemed necessary.
Most of R&D1, including Okada, was reassigned. However, Yokoi stayed committed. He continued refining the display and learned from a Sharp director about a secret super-twisted nematic (STN) display. Though it had a green tint and lower contrast, it improved the viewing angle. Yokoi convinced Sharp to share the technology. R&D1 secured a prototype and installed it in a Game Boy.
Three months after canceling the project, Yamauchi saw the STN prototype. Though still unimpressed by the screen, he approved the console for sale, possibly influenced by delays in SNES development, which was now two years from launch.
Using the STN display increased production costs. To save money, the team reduced the screen’s size, but it was too late to shrink the console itself. The target price of ¥10,000 was not met, and the Game Boy sold for ¥12,500 (equivalent to ¥15,594 in 2024). To make the product seem more valuable, Yamauchi included headphones and four AA batteries in the box, which cost little but made the Game Boy look like a better deal.
On January 17, 1989, Nintendo officially announced the Game Boy. It launched in Japan on April 21, selling out its first 300,000 units in two weeks. By August, sales reached 72
Hardware
The Game Boy uses a special system on a chip (SoC) called the DMG-CPU by Nintendo and the LR35902 by its maker, Sharp Corporation. This chip holds most of the Game Boy’s parts. Inside the DMG-CPU is the main processor, the Sharp SM83, which combines features from two other processors: the Intel 8080 and the Zilog Z80. The SM83 uses seven 8-bit registers from the 8080 and adds programming instructions from the Z80. It also includes new instructions for the Game Boy’s hardware. The SM83 runs at a speed of 4.194304 MHz.
The DMG-CPU also includes the Picture Processing Unit, a basic GPU that uses 8 KB of Video RAM on the motherboard to create images. The screen is a 2.5-inch reflective super-twisted nematic (STN) monochrome liquid-crystal display (LCD), measuring 47 mm wide by 43 mm high. It has a resolution of 160 pixels wide by 144 pixels high in a 10:9 aspect ratio and shows four shades of grey/green.
The SoC also has a 256-byte "bootstrap" ROM to start the device, 127 bytes of High RAM for faster access, and an Audio Processing Unit with four sound channels: two pulse wave channels (one with frequency and volume control, the other only volume control), a wave channel that can play any waveform stored in RAM, and a white noise channel with volume control. The motherboard also includes an 8 KB "work RAM" chip for general operations.
The Game Boy has a D-pad for direction, four action buttons labeled 'A', 'B', 'SELECT', and 'START', a sliding power switch with a cartridge lock, and volume and contrast dials on either side.
The original Game Boy used four AA batteries. For longer use, it could connect to an AC adapter or rechargeable battery pack via a coaxial power port on the left side. The right side has a Game Link Cable port for multiplayer games or data transfer. It has a monaural speaker and a 3.5 mm headphone jack for stereo sound.
The Game Boy sold well in the 1990s, especially with popular games like Pokémon. Around 1992, it sold about 10 million units. Nintendo avoided replacing it because of its strong sales. At a 1994 press conference, Nintendo’s marketing vice president said the company planned to keep improving the Game Boy instead of making a new handheld system.
In 1995, Nintendo released colored cases as part of the "Play It Loud!" campaign. These were only cosmetic changes, with no hardware updates. In 1996, the Game Boy Pocket was introduced. It was smaller, used two AAA batteries, and had a better FSTN LCD screen with improved visibility and no ghosting. It also had a true black-and-white display instead of green hues. The Pocket’s Game Link port was smaller and required an adapter for older models. The new SoC, CPU MGB, moved Video RAM to the chip.
The Game Boy Pocket launched in Japan in 1996 and in North America in 1996 for $69.99 (about $144 in 2025). It helped boost sales, especially with the release of Pokémon. Some critics called it a minor upgrade, but reviewers praised its compact size and display. It had a 10-hour battery life and no power LED to show battery strength.
In 1997, a revised version added a power LED and more case colors, with a lower price of $54.95 (about $110 in 2025). By 1998, the price dropped further to $49.95 (about $99 in 2025).
The Game Boy Light, released in Japan in 1998, kept the Pocket’s improvements and added an electroluminescent backlight for low-light play. It used two AA batteries, offering 12 hours of gameplay with the backlight on and 20 hours without it. It was slightly larger than the Pocket but still smaller than the original Game Boy. The Light came in gold and silver and sold for ¥6,800 (about ¥7,502 in 2024).
Games
More than 1,000 games were released for the Game Boy, not including games that were canceled or not officially licensed. Additionally, over 300 games made for the Game Boy Color could work with the older, black-and-white Game Boy models.
Games are stored on cartridges called the Game Boy Game Pak, using read-only memory (ROM) chips. At first, because of the 8-bit design of the device, ROM size was limited to 32 KB. Nintendo solved this problem by adding a Memory Bank Controller (MBC) inside the cartridge. This chip is placed between the processor and the ROM chips. The CPU can only access 32 KB at a time, but the MBC can switch between different sections of 32 KB ROM. This technology allowed Nintendo to create Game Boy games that used up to 1 megabyte of ROM. Game Paks could also add extra features to the Game Boy system. Some cartridges included up to 128 KB of RAM to improve performance, which could be battery-backed to save progress when the device was turned off. Other cartridges had real-time clock chips to track time even when the device was off, and Rumble Pak cartridges added vibration feedback to improve gameplay.
The most popular game series for the Game Boy was Pokémon Red, Blue, and Yellow, the first games in the Pokémon video game series, which sold more than 46 million copies. The best-selling single game was Tetris, with over 35 million copies sold. Tetris was included with many original Game Boy devices when they were purchased.
Besides official games, as of 2025, an online community continues to create new games for the Game Boy and Game Boy Color using tools like GB Studio, a free and easy-to-use game-making program that simplifies the process compared to writing code manually.
When the Game Boy was released in Japan in April 1989, it had four launch games: Alleyway (a Breakout-style game), Baseball (a version of an NES game), Super Mario Land (a handheld version of the Mario series), and Yakuman (a Japanese mahjong game). When the console was introduced in North America, two more launch games were added: Tetris and Tennis (another NES version). Yakuman was not released widely outside Japan.
Reception
The Game Boy was not as advanced as other handheld game consoles like the Game Gear, Atari Lynx, and NEC TurboExpress, especially because it did not support color. However, its lower cost and longer battery life helped it become very popular.
When critics reviewed the Game Boy in 1997, their opinions were divided. Four editors from Electronic Gaming Monthly gave it scores of 7.5, 7.0, 8.0, and 2.0. The reviewer who gave it a 2.0 criticized the black-and-white screen and blurred movement, while the other three praised its long battery life, strong collection of games, and the smooth, easy-to-carry design of the Game Boy Pocket model.
The Game Boy was first sold in Japan on April 21, 1989, with 300,000 units released. These sold out quickly. In the United States, 40,000 units were sold on its release day, July 31, 1989, and sales reached one million units within weeks. By 1995, Nintendo of America reported that 46% of Game Boy players were female, which was higher than the percentages for the Nintendo Entertainment System (29%) and Super Nintendo Entertainment System (14%).
Before the Game Boy Color was released, over 59.89 million monochrome Game Boy models had been sold worldwide by September 30, 1997. After that, Nintendo combined sales reports for the Game Boy and Game Boy Color. By the time the system was discontinued in 2003, the combined sales of all Game Boy models reached 118.69 million units globally: 32.47 million in Japan, 44.06 million in the Americas, and 42.16 million in other regions.
At the time it was discontinued, the Game Boy was the best-selling game console in history. Later, it was surpassed by the Nintendo DS, PlayStation 2, and Nintendo Switch, making it the fourth-best-selling console as of 2025.
By 1997, the Game Boy and Game Boy Pocket models had sold over 64 million units worldwide. Combined sales of all Game Boy models reached about 118.69 million units globally by the time the system was discontinued.
The Game Boy had a lasting cultural influence. Its affordable and durable design helped make handheld gaming popular, bringing video games into everyday life. It is often mentioned in reviews as an introduction to gaming for many players.
Smithsonian Magazine describes the Game Boy as a permanent part of American cultural history, noting its economic importance and lasting appeal. The Guardian calls it "a portal to other magical worlds," with players remembering important gaming experiences from it.
An original 1989 Game Boy is displayed at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History as part of the "American Enterprise" exhibition, along with early mobile devices. It is also shown at the Nintendo Museum in Kyoto, Japan. In 2009, the Game Boy was added to the U.S. National Toy Hall of Fame.
The Game Boy is used in the chiptune music scene, where people create music using homebrew tools like Little Sound DJ and Nanoloop.
In 2025, Lego released a set based on the Game Boy in partnership with Nintendo.