Nintendo Game BoyA team
headed by Gumpei Yokoi designed the Game Boy. Yokoi had previously
designed hand held games for Nintendo with the cartridge based Game
& Watch system, introduced in 1980. His staff, called Research and
Development (R and D) team #1, had designed the successful NES games
Metroid and Kid Icarus. What Yokoi's team did was create a hybrid of
the NES and the Game & Watch systems.
When the Game Boy was introduced it immediately fell under scrutiny.
Critics noted the system is built around a small, monochrome screen
less than two square inches in size.
When stacked up against the more modern color home consoles, the
Game Boy appeared inadequate. However, these apparent shortcomings
all served a purpose which Yokoi had intended. The small size of the
LCD screen helped make the whole system portable; it only weighs
10.6 ounces. The fact the screen is monochrome and not color helps
it provide excellent battery economy. Four AA batteries allow up to
35 hours of game play.
When compared to other portable game systems like Milton Bradley's
Microvision, Game Boy represented a quantum leap in technological
growth. Though its screen is black and green, the system features
highly defined graphics and scrolling backgrounds. Unlike any
portable consoles before it, the Game Boy has a headphone jack to
hear games in digital stereo sound.
Even with all of these attributes, Nintendo realized the Game Boy
would require a highly sought after game to successfully launch the
system. In June 1988, Minoru Arakawa, CEO of Nintendo of America
Inc., saw a new game at a trade show. It was called Tetris and was
invented by a Russian mathematician named Alexey Pajitnov.
Tetris is based on a series of four squares that can form any one of
seven different shapes. The squares scroll down the screen and come
to rest on the bottom. By manipulating the shapes, players can
either build rows or add to an ever-rising wall. When an unbroken
row is formed, it quickly disappears. The object of the game is to
make as many rows vanish as possible before a wall fills to the top
of the screen.
As with Super Mario Brothers and the NES, Nintendo packaged the
ideal game with its system. In the United States alone, Nintendo
sold 1 million Game Boys in 1989, 3.2 million in 1990 and 4.4
million in 1991.
One other advancement the Game Boy made in the field of portable
technology was with Video Link. Through this small cable, two people
can compete against each other by linking their Game Boys and using
their own copies of the same two-player game. The best two player
Game Boy cartridges include: Tetris, Kirby's Star Stacker, Spy vs.
Spy, Atomic Punk and Dynablaster.
The Game Boy does come with a couple drawbacks. Its small screen has
created eyestrain for players who have squinted at games for
uninterrupted hours. The Game Boy also needs to be played under an
external light source because it does not feature a backlight. The
screen cannot be viewed in total darkness.
In November 1996, Nintendo introduced an improved version of its
successful hand held system. The Game Boy Pocket maintains the same
size screen as the original with a smaller and slimmer console. It
requires only two AAA batteries and provides even more economical
power consumption. Its retail price was $59.99.
Best games for the Game Boy system include: Final Fantasy Legend,
Final Fantasy Adventure, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening,
Metroid II, Castlevania II, Gradius: The Interstellar Assault,
Operation C, Tetris and Chessmaster.
— Dave Beuscher
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