Ah the Game Boy, so
many journeys as a child were filled by the seemly never ending onslaught of
the Game Boy’s heavy-hitters including Pokémon and Zelda. Even to this day,
when given the choice between playing a PlayStation 4 or Pokémon Blue,
the latter will always win. There’s something about the simplicity and easy
controls that made the Game Boy one of the highest grossing and most popular
handhelds in the world. Here we’re going to look at 15 odd facts about this
gaming icon.
1.
In 1993, Soviet
cosmonaut Aleksandr A. Serebrov took his Game Boy to space on his TM-17 space
mission. Later, it was auctioned for $1,220 and is said to have orbited earth
3000 times.
2.
In the New York
Nintendo World Store, a Game Boy sits proudly on show which survived a
Gulf War barracks bombing. The mangled handheld still displays a picture
clearly.
3.
Tetris, although released on the PC, was a huge hit
on the Game Boy. With its more casual gamer demographic, it sold 35 million
copies.
4.
The first game boy
could run for 30 hours on two AA batteries, this was due to the screen having
only 4 shades of grey and having no backlight.
5.
The Game Boy allowed
for multiplayer via link cables, usually 4 people at most. The handheld’s
first-person shooter Faceball 2000 released in 1991 changed
this, with an interlope of cables and adapters resembling spaghetti junction,
16 players could link up and play together.
6.
Nintendo announced, in
1995, that 46% percent of Game Boy’s gamers were female, the first time a
console was so popular with women. A 2014 study found 52% of gamers are female.
7.
The Game Boy and Game
Boy Color sold more than the Atari Lynx and Sega Genesis combined with 118.69
million units before being discontinued in 2000.
8.
Satoshi Tajirri,
inspired by the concept of monsters running through the Game Boy’s link cables,
created the original trio of the Game Boy’s renowned Pokémon series;
Red, Green and Blue. Green, due to poor image quality, wasn’t available outside
Japan.
9.
The Game Boy Light, a
Japanese-only release, had a built-in backlit screen allowing people to play in
low light conditions, an insane concept for those used to the original, that
needed the add-on clip light when it got even slightly dark.
10.
Game Boy sold an
external camera and printer for their handheld, the camera took low res images
of the user and in turn, Game Boy may actually be responsible for the world of
the selfie.
11.
The original Game Boy
was over twice as fast as the NES with both having 8-bit CPU’s and, with the
NES’ 2kb and the Game Boy’s 8kb, it had four times the RAM.
12.
The Game Boy is the
“chiptune” artist’s instrument of choice; these are musicians who use vintage
game hardware to make electronic music. With special sequencer cartridges,
artists can get the device to make a range of weird sounds.
13.
Game Boy Color’s Kirby
Tilt ‘n’ Tumble game had a built-in accelerometer in the cartridge
which recognized when a player moved the hand held itself; this was then used
to direct Kirby in game.
14.
Neil Young used the
previously mentioned Game Boy camera to produce his Silver and Gold album art
work, the photo was taken by his daughter Amber.
15.
The handy boy was a
weird accessory for the Game Boy which included a magnifier, stereo speakers
and light, when constructed it looked more like a spaceship than a games
console.
The pure sales figures
of the games and console alike show the popularity of the Game Boy, whatever
your thoughts on the device are, you have to admire the undeniably simple and
yet addictive nature of the games. The amount of cult classics started on the
Game Boy are far reaching and some, including Pokémon, are still going strong
today. The Game Boy even seemed to make its way into popular culture, so not only
was it a gamer’s dream it seemed to be the chosen method for one of the most
popular singer-songwriters album art and somehow became an instrument. There
is, as per all retro consoles, such a strong following for the handheld and if
something can survive a bombing it has to be shown a certain level of respect.
Kindly share…
Source: Wikipedia
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