The Nintendo Game Boy is 25 years-old Monday, which pretty much puts it in the hall of fame of electronics, if there was ever one. It was the device that changed the handheld gaming scene forever, and up to this day Nintendo's handheld gaming hardware is still going strong.
The device was originally released on April 21, 1989 in the land of the rising sun; Japan. The Game Boy was a true state of the art handheld gaming system with many followers, but none that managed to pull to meet the demand of gamers.
In no time after releasing in Japan, the Game Boy quickly found a home in North America and several places around the world. Because of its success, a new type of gaming platform was created, one that has grown to become more successful than home consoles.
To have an edge on competing platforms, Nintendo came up with a revolutionary idea that allowed multiplayer gaming via the Game Boy. All players needed were a simple cord, which would be attached to both systems. Not every child back in the 80s and 90s could have afforded to purchase the cord, but for those who could, it was worth it.
Nintendo did not end with the 1989 Game Boy. The company retuned again for another smash hit when it launched the Game Boy Color. This particular device shot to fame with the help of the very first Pokemon Games, and from there, nothing was able to stop Nintendo from succeeding where handheld gaming is concerned.
Several versions of the Game Boy were launched over the years, but while Nintendo is still in the handheld gaming market and doing a smashing job at that, the Game Boy title is no longer being used. The latest handset is called the Nintendo 3DS, but that is not stopping some gamers from calling it the Game Boy 3DS.
More than likely, the name Game Boy might never be used again as the title for a handheld system, but it will forever be in our minds as the very thing that changed the world of portable gaming, and continues to do so even after the abandonment of the name.
