The History of the Nintendo Gameboy

Game Boy

• The original Game Boy used a design similar to the Nintendo Entertainment System (more commonly referred to as the NES). It featured a cartridge slot on the back, A and B buttons, Start and Select buttons and a directional pad. The screen was 2.6 inches and used a limited color palette of only four different types of grays.

Game Boy Pocket

• The Game Boy Pocket was released in North America on September 3, 1996. One immediately noticeable difference was that the Game Boy Pocket used a true black &white screen in place of the shades of gray found on the original Game Boy.

Game Boy Color

• The Game Boy Color was released in North America on November 18, 1998 and was the official follow up to the original Game Boy. As the name suggests, the Game Boy Color featured a color screen with 12 palettes, each of which contained up to 10 different colors. An addition to color, the GBC included infrared, which allowed two GBCs to connect wirelessly.

Game Boy Advance

• The Game Boy Advance was released in North America on June 11, 2001. The Game Boy Advance featured a 2.9 LCD display and was technically superior to previous Game Boy models in all aspects. In 2003, Nintendo released the Game Boy Advance SP, a much smaller version of the GBA. The SP featured a backlight that made playing in complete darkness possible, however, because of the smaller size, the headset jack was removed altogether.