Modelled off their "Game & Watch" monochrome games, it captured the hearts of gamers the world over with games such as Tetris, Pokémon and Super Mario Land, beating off competition from Sega and their manly Game Gear.
The Game Boy was popular enough to spawn new varations, such as the Game Boy Pocket, a cut down version of the breeze block original, and the Game Boy Colour.
The GBC evolved into the Game Boy Advanced, a portable SNES, for all intents and purposes, and the line continued to flourish. The GBA was popular enough to get two updates, first of all, the Game Boy Advance SP and Game Boy Micro.
The Clamshell design of the Game & Watch series and the GBASP eventually morphed into another revolutionary system, the Nintendo DS. This handheld didn't carry the Game Boy name because Nintendo was afraid of it being rejected and didn't want the Game Boy name tarnished, Nintendo promised us a three tier gaming plan: Wii, DS and Game Boy.
Life was good, for a time.
Fast forward to 2007, September 2007, and Nintendo have announced they are retiring the Game Boy line because of the popularity of the DS.
The Game Boy line ends with the DS to carry us into the future.
Waggle and touch are now the standards of Nintendo, replacing innovation and fun.
RIP Game Boy
(1989-2007)
No comments:
Post a Comment