Nintendo struck gold when it put the GameBoy to market way back in 1989. Since then, it’s gone on to become the most popular handheld gaming device in video game history.
Exactly how did the GameBoy become so successful? After all, it’s not much to look at, and was technologically inferior to the video game platforms of the time period. What gives? Let’s dive in and see if we can’t figure this out!
10 IT WAS PORTABLE
The GameBoy brought portable video gaming to the mass market before the term “portable” was even a thing. We take it for granted these days, with vastly superior gaming available to us on our smartphones. In 1989, this was a game-changer.
The only true competitors to the GameBoy at the time were other portable devices such as Casio’s gaming watches, which weren’t exactly gound-breaking. Atari and NEC would offer up their own gaming hand-helds in 1989 and 1990 with the Lynx and the TurboExpress, but neither company was anywhere near as established in the gaming market as Nintendo. The GameBoy had a clear path to victory.
9 IT WAS AFFORDABLE
In contrast to other hand-helds such as the aforementioned Lynx and TurboExpress, the GameBoy was remarkably well-priced at around $90 dollars. We might balk at that, but in the late 80s, it was more than worth the money.
Nintendo’s careful value-per-dollar balancing act would serve the company well, moving 40,000 units in America on the first day of release. That number quickly blossomed into over 100 million units worldwide, before it was put out to pasture.
8 IT WAS BUILT TO LAST
The GameBoy felt very sturdy, and this was important in an age which long predated YouTube device drop tests. The bulky casing gave it protection, while its ergonomic design made it relatively easy to hold in your hands. By today’s standards, it’s not the most striking design in the book, but it did include everything a gamer needed, including a headphone jack.
One of the best features of the device however, was its battery life. Clocking in at around 30 hours on a set of batteries, the GameBoy wasn’t about to conk out during those long car trips. This meant more gaming, and less hassle.
7 IT NAVIGATED AROUND ITS OWN HARDWARE LIMITATIONS
There’s nothing (we repeat, nothing) special about the GameBoy’s visuals, and they were just as underwhelming in 1989 as they are today. The challenge for Nintendo was to recognize what they were dealing with, and turn a negative into a positive. If Nintendo insisted on a 160x144 LCD display, the game experiences had to make up for it.
This meant good games like Link’s Awakening, Metroid II: The Return of Samus, and Kirby’s Dream Land, which played smoothly, and felt on par with the kind of movement we saw in NES titles. Without these great titles, the GameBoy would surely have fallen flat. One game in particular would serve to help the hand-held’s success more than any other, however.
6 IT HAD TETRIS
We’re not sure anyone could have predicted the massive impact that Tetris would have on a hand-held. Nintendo execs no doubt thought that it would serve as a decent, rudimentary pack-in title.
It turned out to be one of the company’s smartest business moves! On-the-go Tetris soon became a cultural symbol, putting the GameBoy firmly into the mainstream public consciousness. Sure, the platform would sport a number of memorable titles, but it was Tetris that fired the GameBoy out of the starting gate with a proverbial cannon.
5 IT HAD NINTENDO ON IT
The video game crash of 1983 nearly spelled the end for the entire industry. If Nintendo hadn’t boldly ventured forth into the smoldering aftermath with the NES console, we might not be having this discussion right now!
Nintendo’s breakthrough success with the NES meant that the company could make stronger pushes into other markets. With virtually no decent competition on the hand-held side, Nintendo was able to leverage its monstrously popular brand name (and their Seal of Approval) with the GameBoy. The NES was still in the public consciousness at the time, but the imminent arrival of the 16-Bit age meant that the company needed to break out of its shell. The Super NES would prove to be a contender, but on the hand-held side, Nintendo easily held the market.
4 IT HAD LOTS OF LOVE
The GameBoy could have easily been phased out after a 5-7 year lifespan, with a proud epitaph to mark its passing, but Nintendo put the kibosh on that idea. Instead, they kept updating the GameBoy over and over again, with better hardware, sleeker profiles and nicer displays. To date, it remains one of the most supported gaming platforms in history, with three in the classic line, and several altogether.
Nintendo would later go on to release the GameBoy Color in 1998, and the GameBoy Advance afterwards in 2001. The latter was backwards compatible with the existing classic GameBoy line, further extending the platform’s replay value, while introducing a new generation of high-quality, full-color games.
3 IT HAD MARKETING
Nintendo of America’s marketing manager Don Coyner was responsible for bringing the GameBoy to the Western market, and it seemed an unenviable task. It would take the ability to spin negatives into positives in order to successfully sell the console as a viable purchase.
Coyner focused primarily on the device’s portability, along with head-to-head play in the form of the link cable. At the time, this kind of thing was relatively unheard of. In the days of pre-Bluetooth, peripherals such as the link cable could serve as marketing gimmicks, themselves. That’s exactly what Nintendo ran with, and it ended up working to their advantage. This was all stuff that had never been seen before, at least not with this level of accessibility. Marketing the GameBoy as a viable, fun gaming platform with a low-cost barrier to entry would prove to be easier than anyone first thought.
2 IT WAS EASY TO PLAY
For all intents and purposes, the GameBoy was a portable NES without the colorful graphics. That’s about it, in a nutshell. It sported the same D-Pad as the NES, and the bright red B and A buttons were placed cleanly on the opposite side, with Start and Select underneath. This was a well laid out control scheme that maximized the use of space on the body of the device.
Game cartridges came in their own little cases, and they were easy to insert through the top of the device, giving them a snug feel. It may not seem like a lot, but these little elements all came together to make the GameBoy feel straightforward, and easy to use.
1 IT SUCCESSFULLY LEVERAGED POKÉMON
It’s safe to say that Pokémon played a gigantic role in solidifying the GameBoy’s already massive success. It wouldn’t debut until around 7 years after the console had hit the market, but it was the platform that kicked off the Pokémon craze, which is completely inescapable even to this day.
This no doubt had a lot to do with the GameBoy taking on new forms such as the GameBoy Advance. After all, having a hand-held that changed the pop culture world is certainly a good excuse to soldier on!
NEXT: 10 Best Original Game Boy Games Of All Time
