The Game Boy is one of the most important pieces of gaming hardware in history. It successfully created an entirely new market of experiences, rendering single-serving LCD portables like Tiger Electronics' output and Nintendo's own Game & Watch line all but obsolete. It has had a fascinating life, which can be enjoyed and appreciated in the above 16-minute restrospective.
This video was put together by famed game journalist Jeremy Parish as a supplement to a written feature about the history of Game Boy. During the video, he touches upon the lead-up to the hardware's release, the specs of the machine, the breadth of the library, the competition, and the later years. He drops many fascinating bits of information, such as how the "Game Boy" name itself was an inversion of Sony's "Walkman," or how the success of Pokemon revived flagging hardware sales and pushed the launch of the Game Boy Advance back five years. Most interesting is that the final game to be compatible with the original Game Boy was a One Piece title released in Japan on June 28, 2002, over 13 years after the handheld's launch!
If you have a few moments, watch the entire feature above. Afterwards, think about browsing Jeremy Parish's Game Boy World site, an in-progress repository of Game Boy knowledge.
