"It may not have had the best hardware, but it's the portability and massive library of games that made this a success."

Nintendo were the kings of the 8-Bit industry, trumping the Atari, Colecovision, Master System ,etc. with the almighty NES. Many games like Donkey Kong and Zelda made the NES a hit. Also in the 80's, Nintendo had released many Game and Watch handhelds, they were small handheld electronic games, that were limited but addictive. With good foundations from the NES, the formulae from the Game and Watch handhelds and NES hits, Nintendo brought out the Game Boy. Instead of buying lots of handhelds, you would just have the console and buy the cartridge for your game. You probably guessed that.
Nintendo were also rivalled by Sega with their Game Gear and the Atari Lynx with portable gaming. The Game Boy was a far cry from the Lynx and Game Gear in terms of technology, but it had a major advantage over the other two, as it was actually portable. The Lynx and Game Gear had colour, backlit screens but used up a lot of batteries in a short space of time, and were also big and bulky. Who would want to carry around a brick in their pocket on holiday? The Game Boy only had a monochrome screen, but it had a 15-35 hour battery life. The Game Boy was one of the best selling consoles of all time.

So why was it a success? Well, it was considerably cheaper than the Game Gear and the Lynx for a start, then it lasted up to 35 hours from 4 AA, so that would save you a lot of money from buying batteries all the time. It was smaller than the Game Gear and the Lynx, therefore making it easier to carry. Finally it boasted a huge collection of great games like Zelda, all exclusive to Nintendo, because remember, gameplay does count!

I got my Game Boy as a Christmas present back in 1995. I asked for a Sega Game Gear, but my dad kept kept telling me that I should get a Game Boy. I had never even heard of a Game Boy, and I was disappointed to get one, as the screen was monochrome. However, I never knew that the Game Gear had a short battery life, but I could easily take the Game Boy on holiday. I had 5 games, until my brother got Pokemon for it 4 years later, then I started getting more games for it. I guess my dad was right in getting a Game Boy instead.

The Game Boy was definitely not advanced and cutting edge, but one of the key factors of why this was a hit was it's efficiency. Yes, it's big, but it's smaller than the Game Gear and the Lynx. It measures 9cm x 14.8cm x 3.2cm, and weighs 300g with batteries. It takes 4AA, which was definitely better than the Game Gear's required six batteries. It's rectangular shaped, on the front side is the screen and controls. The screen's on the top half, and the control's are on the bottom half. The controls are friendly on the hands, as they're quite big, and there's A and B, a D-pad plus Start and Select buttons. On the sides of the unit are the volume control, and the contrast control, if you want the screen brighter or darker. There's also a socket for and AC/ DC plug and a socket for a Game Boy Link Cable to connect with another Game Boy for 2-player games.At the bottom is the headphone jack to enjoy the wonders of stereo sound as opposed to a monaural speaker on the bottom right. At the back is the battery slot and the cartridge slot. The power switch is on top, you slide it. It had a little notch on it, to prevent the cartridge being pulled out, hence the little dint in the corner of Game Boy cartridges. The problem was with the cartridge slot is that when you put in a cartridge, it doesn't naturally click in, so you might have to adjust the game a bit to get it to work.

The batteries could last for up to 35 hours, so you didn't have to worry about replacing them. The unit's robust therefore it can take several beatings before actually dieing. My system still wokrs today after 9 years, although the sound's broken, and I hardly use it.

The graphics capabilities aren't too great at all. They're the same as the NES, but the screen is a monochrome LCD screen, measuring 4.7x4.2cm, to keep the system cheap and long lasting.. It can display 4 shades of grey, which was limited but sufficient for a good game. The sprites are very choppy, as the refresh rate is relatively low, because of the CPU, but many games were made to work around that. The Game Boy can handle several animations, but again fast moving sprites became choppy. The Game Boy had 63-Kbit static RAM and 8-bit C-MOS. The other main problem is that the screen has no backlight, so you would have to hold it at a certain angle to see the screen properly. However, it was possible to get 3rd party accessories that allowed you to play in the dark.

The sound capabilities aren't the best, but at least it's polyphonic. It can play 4 channels of MIDI sound, and it's not just bleeps either. The sound is quite poor when listenining to the mono speaker, but it sounds a lot better with stereo headphones, as you can hear the bass better.

Apart from it's portability, another key factor of it's success was it's games library. Sure, the Game Gear and Lynx had a few decent titles, but Nintendo had the groundings from successful games, with NES hits like Mario, Donkey Kong, Tetris, Final Fantasy, Zelda, the list goes on. They weren't ported, but Nintendo and the other developers made original titles for it. There were a lot of bad games, but of course a lot of good titles cancel them out.

There were a few accessories available for it, with headphones, powerpacks and others. Nintendo made a smart move with the Link Cable. You can connect it to another Game Boy and play 2-player on a game, as long as the other player has the same game as you have. There was also the Super Game Boy, that was a SNES cartridge that enabled you to put in Game Boy cartridges and play them on the SNES, with some colour. Some games had SGB support, so it had colour programmed in it and a special border around the game screen on the SGB. Other accesories were the GB camera, a novelty for taking greyscale pictures; and the printer for printing off photos and stuff from games.

In 1996 Nintendo released the Game Boy Pocket. It has the same layout as the Game Boy, but it is a lot smaller, so you didn't look a chump when carrying it in your pocket. It also has a better screen, it was clear so you didn't have to adjust the contrast. It took two AAA batteries as opposed to 4 AA's. It was a bit more money than buying an original new, but it was probably made to cut costs on the plastic manufacturing and materials, like the PlayStation and PSone.

Overall

Graphics Capabilities OriginalMonochrome screen with sluggish framerate, but it was enough for programmers to make top games from. 3/10
GB Pocket Monochrome, but a lot clearer than the original. 5/10
Sound Quality 4 channel sound with stereo support. Wasn't just bleeps, but wasn't anything special. 6/10
Games Library A huge selection of games to choose from. 10/10
Portability Original The smallest console at the time, one reason why it was popular, but looks like a brick today. 6/10
GB Pocket Small, you can easily carry it. 8/10
Efficiency 35 hours of battery life? Get in! 10/10
Price Cheaper than the Game Gear and the Lynx, another reason for it's success. 9/10
Appearance and handling Original Nothing Snazzy, but friendly on hands. 8/10
GB Pocket Looks cute as small, but can hurt hands from excessive play. 8/10

Buy or Rent?

You can't rent it, duh. If you want a Game Boy, get the Game Boy advance or DS. Not only do they have better hardware, you can play even more games with a GBA/ DS, and also enhances original GB games. An original GB's only worth getting if you're a nostalgia freak.

Overall

As you see here, Nintendo may have sacrficed good graphics for efficiency, but didn't sacrifice fun, portable gameplay. Weak hardware made up for by portability and great games. 6/10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 02/13/05, Updated 02/16/05