What you need to know
- iFixit has done a teardown of the original Game Boy on its 30th anniversary.
- The Game Boy hit North America on July 31, 1989.
- The Game Boy went on to become one of Nintendo's most successful products ever.
The original Game Boy may have been released 30 years ago, but its influence is still being felt across the industry today. To celebrate the release of the iconic portable console, iFixit did a teardown of the handheld to reveal just how far we've come.
The Game Boy was originally released on April 21, 1989, in Japan, before making its way to North America on July 31 of that same year. Its promise was simple: Offer a great console experience in a portable package.
Needless to say, it succeeded and then some. Combined with sales of the Game Boy Color, Nintendo says its original portable sold nearly 120 million units, with over 500 million units of software—a staggering sum for Nintendo, which was at the time coming off the high of the NES.
Not only is the Game Boy iconic for its software library, but its utilitarian design. The console was a heavy hunk of plastic that featured a 2.6-inch display and a whopping 8 KB of RAM.
Consoles have evolved considerably over the past 30 years, with the Nintendo Switch being the latest hit handheld. But we wouldn't be where we are today without the original Game Boy.
What's your favorite memory of the Game Boy?
