Original Gameboy Games for the original Gameboy and Gameboy Pocket. These games are also compatible with Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advance, and Super Gameboy on SNES.
Gameboy Color The first colour handheld games from Nintendo. Original Gameboy games are not only compatible, but give a colour display on this version of the console.
Gameboy Advance Gameboy Advance games play on the original GBA, the Gameboy advance SP, the Gameboy Micro, Gamecube GBA player and the Nintendo DS.
Nintendo Gameboy Information
As the most successful console in gaming history, many of the stories regarding the Gameboy have passed into legend. Like the story of the senior designer, who got sacked for 'not' inventing the Gameboy for Sony. Created by gaming god, Gunpei Yokoi, and released in late 1989, the Gameboy was actually the second in a new generation of handheld consoles. In comparison, Atari's lynx was packed with power and with its full colour screen most industry watchers thought this battle would be over before it started. Enter a poor soviet computer engineer and his game Tetris, and Nintendo's black and white technological throw-back turned into a cultural phenomenon. Three generations later, the Gameboy has sold over 200 Million units, that's nearly four each for every man woman and child in the UK.
There are three distinct versions of the Gameboy. The original chunky version and the Gameboy pocket are both black and white, meaning games have to be clear in there display. Original Gameboys also don't handle scrolling very well, as the screen tends to blur. In 1997, Japan got an updated version of the Gameboy Pocket, the Gameboy light, which used watch technology to make the screen glow blue - finally you could play Gameboy under the bed clothes.
Despite the fans pleading, it took nearly ten years for Nintendo to release the Gameboy Color. Unfortunately they didn't employ the bright display of the Gameboy Light, and with pale colours harder to distinguish than the bolder black and white LCD displays, many gamers prefered their Gameboy pocket.
In 2001, twelve years after the first incarnation, Nintendo created the Gameboy advance, however, once again, the screen was devoid of lighting and incredibly hard to see.
Thankfully this time around it didn't take Nintendo ten years to listen to their customers. In 2003 the GBA SP was released, adding a completely back-lit screen and novel fold up design. The public reaction was huge, and again the Gameboy's sales surged onwards.
Finally in 2005 Nintendo gave us the Gameboy Micro, a tiny pocket sized version of the SP, which despite its must-have looks, is the worst selling Gameboy variation to date. The Nintendo DS has now taken the Gameboy's baton and run with it, and still maintains GBA compatibility.
Over the years there have been many ingenious adaptors and add-ons for the Gameboy. Barcode readers were one of the first innovations, then the Gameboy Camera and printer which allowed you to photograph friends and make silly stickers with the results. In more recent times, Nintendo have encouraged us to use the Gameboy advance as a Gamecube controller, but only a couple of games used the facility to any great effect.
Compatibility has been the key to the Gameboy's longevity. You can still play original Gameboy games on the Gameboy advance, and the huge diversity of software released for the format is astounding. Strangely though, and in sharp contrast to Nintendo's current DS policy, software for the Gameboy had a very short shelf life. Nintendo's own titles tended to do most of the business, leaving thousands of Gameboy games available in the shops for only a few short weeks. With this in mind, i'm certain that the Gameboy will become one of the biggest areas of Nintendo collecting in the future.
