Game Boy
- Manufacturer
- Nintendo
- Production
- 1989–2003
- Generation
- Gen 4
- Type
- Handheld
- Launch price
- $89
- Media
- Cartridge
- Units sold
- 118.7M
About Game Boy
The Game Boy is a handheld game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on April 21, 1989, and in North America on July 31, 1989. 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.
Source: Wikipedia (text under CC BY-SA 4.0).
Lifetime sales
Official manufacturer-reported figures.
118.7Munits
501.1Mgames
4.2games / console
Worldwide; Nintendo combines Game Boy and Game Boy Color.
Source: Nintendo Co., Ltd. IR — Dedicated Video Game Sales Units, as of June 30, 2026.
Library & collector facts
1,057licensed games
- North America: 1,057
Lineage
Release timeline
- 🇯🇵 Japan
- April 21, 1989
- 🇺🇸 North America
- July 31, 1989
- 🇪🇺 Europe / PAL
- September 28, 1990
- Lifespan
- 14 years on market
Pricing
Launch price (1989)
- 🇺🇸 USD
- $89
- 🇯🇵 JPY
- ¥12,500
- 🇬🇧 GBP
- £70
Launch titles & exclusives
Tetris · Super Mario Land · Alleyway · Baseball · Yakuman (JP launch only) · Tennis
Tetris (NA / EU launch bundle) — credited as the system-seller
Tetris · Pokemon Red / Blue / Yellow · Super Mario Land 1 & 2 · The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening · Metroid II: Return of Samus · Kirby's Dream Land · Wario Land · Donkey Kong (1994, the puzzle remake)
Pokemon Yellow (1998, NA) was among the last major releases; some Japan-only titles released into 1999
Hello Kitty World (JP, very limited); Spud's Adventure (NA, low print run); sealed launch DMG-01 units
Variants of Game Boy
Hardware specs
- Cpu
- Sharp SM83
- Ram
- 8 KB RAM, 8 KB Video RAM
- Power
- Original: 4 × AA batteries (Up to 30 hours), Pocket: 2 × AAA batteries (Up to 10 hours), Light: 2 × AA batteries (Up to 12 hours w/ backlight on, 20 w/ backlight off)
- Weight
- 220 g
- Dimensions
- 90 × 148 × 32 mm
- Display Output
- Original: STN display, STN LCD, Pocket/Light: FSTN LCD, 160 × 144 px
Hardware revisions
- Original DMG-01(1989)
launch hardware, reflective monochrome LCD, 4 AA batteries, ~10–15h life
- Game Boy Pocket MGB-001(1996)
~half the size, true black-and-white screen (vs. green-tinted DMG), 2 AAA batteries
- Game Boy Light MGB-101(1998)
JP-only, EL backlight, the only original-line Game Boy with a lit screen
Launch colorways & special editions
- Play It Loud! line — Red, Yellow, Green, Blue, Black, Transparent (1995)
- Pokemon Yellow Pikachu Edition (1999)
- Game Boy Light (JP-only, electroluminescent backlight, 1998)
Modding scene
- Difficulty
- soft-mod
- Custom firmware
- N/A (no OS); flashcarts — EZ-Flash Junior, Everdrive GB X3 / X5 / X7
Reception & legacy
Skeptical reception inside Nintendo — staff feared the monochrome screen would lose against the color Atari Lynx and Sega Game Gear, but battery life proved decisive
Tetris licensing battle with Atari/Tengen (settled in Nintendo's favor); low-contrast screen a chronic user complaint pre-Pocket revision
Defined handheld gaming for a decade; Yokoi's 'lateral thinking with withered technology' (cheap, proven parts) ethos shaped every later Nintendo handheld through the DS era
References
More from Nintendo
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Game Boy in the news
Recent coverage mentioning the Game Boy, gathered from 80+ gaming-news sources.
O EMPIRE! WARD OFF THY ROT puts you in an abandoned, dithered world with a cursed object and asks you to do one thing: survive the journey
Do you remember, or do you even know, about the Game Boy Camera? It's exactly as it sounds, a little camera attached to an original Game Boy cartridge that you could plug in and take photos with. You could even get a printer! The aesthetic therewithin is a particular one, utilising a tiny 128x128...
Neon Drift 200 Brings 8-Bit Anti-Gravity Racing To The Game Boy
🤝 Like our website? Support us as an independent publisher by tipping, joining our paid community or checking out our accessories brand GAMENOOK! I recently discovered that there's a new feature on Itch.io that instantly gets rid of all games made using AI, which as you might
8Bitdo's FlipPad controller lands today, and for under $30, it could beat my go-to Game Boy controller
8Bitdo's Game Boy controller has landed, and while the FlipPad lacks the same wireless features as its Pocket Taco rival, it beats GameSir on sleakness.
Viral Pokemon PC port Gen1Recomp gets Gold support, as dev says it's "not vibe coded" even though "AI helped" with development
A Pokemon PC port known as Gen1Recomp has been going viral over the past few weeks, thanks largely to mods turning the original Game Boy RPG into a three-dimensional voxel world. The project launched with support for Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow, and beta support for Pokemon Gold has just been...
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's the Steam Boy, a Steam Deck crammed inside a Game Boy-like chassis
A legally distinct Game Boy-like chassis, of course.
"An Ambitious Technical Showcase" - The Game Boy Color Just Got A New Wolfenstein-Esque FPS
Wolf is out now on itch.io! The Game Boy Color was never meant to be a playground for fans of 3D shooters, but that hasn't stopped people from trying to turn it into one over the past couple of decades The most notable example is Xanth and Bullet Proof Software's 1991 Game Boy port of Faceball...