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Game Boy

ConsoleHandheld game console1989

Game Boy

The Game Boy is a handheld game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on April 21, 1989, followed by North America on July 31, 1989 and Europe on September 28, 1990.

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First released
1989
Made by
Nintendo
Generation
4
Units sold
118.69 million (including all variants a

Overview

The Game Boy is a handheld game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on April 21, 1989, followed by North America on July 31, 1989 and Europe on September 28, 1990. Nintendo's first handheld to use ROM cartridges, it succeeded the Game & Watch line of handheld electronic games and competed with Sega's Game Gear, Atari's Lynx, and NEC's TurboExpress in the fourth generation of video game consoles.

Nintendo Research & Development 1, under Gunpei Yokoi and Satoru Okada, designed the Game Boy. To expand on the single-game Game & Watch, Nintendo adopted a dot-matrix display and interchangeable game cartridges. They prioritized affordability, battery life, and durability over the faster processors and color graphics of its competitors; following Yokoi's philosophy of using mature, low-cost technology, the Game Boy has a monochromatic display and an 8-bit processor. It retains the Game & Watch D-pad and the Game Link Cable, developed by Okada, which enables multiplayer connectivity and data transfer between consoles.

In North America and Europe, the Game Boy was backed by a large marketing campaign and bundled with Tetris, which increased its appeal beyond traditional video game audiences. Although its monochromatic display and technical limitations drew criticism, the Game Boy's low price, long battery life, and extensive game library drove strong sales worldwide. The success of Nintendo's Pokémon series helped maintain its popularity late into the 1990s. Nintendo released multiple redesigns, including the smaller Game Boy Pocket (1996) and the Japan-exclusive, backlit Game Boy Light (1998).

Specifications

Manufacturer
Nintendo
Developer
Nintendo R&D1
Type
Handheld game console
Generation
Fourth
Discontinued
March 31, 2003
Units sold
118.69 million (including all variants and Game Boy Color)
Media
Game Boy Game Pak
Processor
Sharp SM83
Memory
8 KB RAM, 8 KB Video RAM
Video output
Original: STN display, STN LCD , Pocket/Light: FSTN LCD , 160 × 144 px
Predecessor
Game & Watch, Computer Mah-jong Yakuman
Successor
Game Boy Color
Best-selling game
Pokémon Red, Blue, and Yellow (46 million) (list)

Models

  • Game Boy Light
  • Initial version
  • Game Boy Pocket

Model names as listed by IGDB.

Games

24 Game Boy games are written up here, with trophies, patches and what still works online.

See the Game Boy games

More from Nintendo

Sources

The overview is adapted from Wikipedia and shared under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence.

Checked October 2026.

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