Game Boy - Videogame History #4 - Retro Review

gabox (68)in #gaming • 7 years ago

The portables in the world of video consoles, small devices that could transmit emotions and fun for long periods of time, their first appearances in the market were at the end of the 70s, time of the golden age of the Arcades, at that time they tried of transmitting these cabinets but in very small size, however they did not have a property that for today is very normal, they did not have the capacity to exchange cartridges, in their internal memory they had a single game, an example of this is the famous Game & Watch.

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One of the companies that wanted to implement the idea of interchangeable cartridges through a portable was the MicroVision in 1979, but because on that date the technology was still in its infancy and various technical problems presented by the console did not have a resounding success, being in the forgotten car of the laptops of yesteryear.

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Gunpei Yokoi (1941-1997) creator of the famous Game & Watch and engineer of the great Nintendo, wanted to make a portable console that had the properties of the MicroVision, have a device which could exchange cartridges and that had a good catalog was its dream, however, he knew that he had to be patient for the technology to advance. While the success of the company with the NES, the classic tabletop console of the 8 bits was at its best, Yokoi was already determining what would be the future portable console and it was in 1988 that it started with the design of the same, Finalize the first prototype which was very similar to the final model called Nintendo Game Boy.

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This prototype was shown to the former president of Nintendo Fusajirō Yamauchi, who only saw the great versatility and functionality of the laptop was very interested in it, indicating that it would sell more than 20 million consoles in 3 years, a figure that fell short with the time, when giving green light to the great project of Yokoi proceeded to the mass production of the same, removing 300,000 units for the country of the rising sun, Japan.

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However they had a problem, as every console must have games that really call the attention of consumers, took advantage of the success of the great Super Mario Bros of the NES, creating from scratch a new Mario for the console which was called Super Mario Land, his goal was that this video game was included with the Game Boy at the time of his departure but one person made them change their mind.

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Henk Rogers designer and visionary in the world of video games I present to Nintendo the possibility of including in the console a video game that was designed for all audiences, with a very simple gameplay and an unimaginable addiction, the great Tetris (soon I will talk about his story), Yamauchi delighted with this proceeded to make the sale of the brand new Game Boy influencing Tetris great, his success was relentless, selling in just 2 weeks the first 300,000 units in Japan, it was from this point that they decided to export massively to America this great portable.

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Its similarity with the NES was undoubted, allowing to transport many of the games of the console of desktop to the portable world, this did that the Game Boy had an extensive catalog of games, apart from the great innovations as it was it Pokémon did that the console had a renown in all senses worldwide.

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Although the Game Boy had a great competition as was the Atary Lynx or the Game Gear, its size, battery life and catalog of games made it surpass any adversary, being as the supreme portable of that time with more than 120 millions of sales, undoubtedly it was a great portable console, it gave us to know excellent titles which evolved with the passing of the years, until the date is still very remembered, you can notice this by some accessory that they take out for the Smartphone trying that They look like the old laptop, for my part I have a lot of appreciation because it made me enjoy the best moments with family and friends in the world of video games.