○On April 21, 1989, Nintendo released a chunky gray gameplay rectangle for Japanese stores. It’s safe to say that no one expected much of it. Inside Nintendo’s Kyoto headquarters, the portable console was reportedly not a very popular project. However, within two weeks, the initial production run of 300,000 units had all been sold out. The Game Boy was released in the United States later that year, and would be released around the world over the next few years. We’ve found it to be equally popular wherever we go. Thirty-five years later and nearly 120 million units later, it remains the fourth best-selling gaming console of all time.

Like Sony’s Walkman, the Game Boy was an icon of technological design at the time, and is still instantly recognizable just by its silhouette. Developed by a team led by Satoru Okada and Gunpei Yokoi in Kyoto, the Game Boy was probably inspired by Yokoi’s dictum of “lateral thinking through dead technology” – do more with less, which continues at Nintendo to this day. This is an outstanding example of the technical principle of doing. It has a very simple design with four buttons and a cross-shaped D-pad, so it’s easy to use just by looking at it. Thanks to the grayscale screen, the battery lasted for several days of play. And, most importantly for the accident-prone kids of the ’90s (and their parents), you can throw this thing off a bridge and it’ll probably still work.

The Game Boy wasn’t the first handheld game console, nor was it the best game console at the time. Even in the late 80’s, it had a thick, retro feel. That screen didn’t have a backlight, but it was also sensitive to glare from bright sunlight, so I had to crawl across the screen to find the perfect amount of light (or use a large square I had to buy a portable lamp. more battery). Meanwhile, the Atari Lynx and Sega Game Gear arrived soon after with much better hardware and color graphics.

But it was the Game Boy that was the bestseller, spawning direct and spiritual successors from the Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance to the Nintendo DS and even its Switch. These are all consoles that you can hold in your hand. The reason is that, unlike its rivals, it had an extraordinary game whose vibrancy went beyond the scope of its small gray-green screen.

The most memorable of these is definitely Tetris. Tetris wasn’t made specifically for Nintendo’s small console – it’s been playable on computers since 1984 – but it turns out the Game Boy was made for Tetris. Alexey Pajitnov’s shape slot puzzle game has found its perfect home on this small console. Its rudimentary graphics abilities were sufficient to render some configurations of falling blocks. In the US and Europe, the Game Boy was bundled with the game. So when you think of Tetris’ Earworm theme song, the bleeppy 8-bit Game Boy version of him probably comes to mind.

You can even play Tetris with friends, as there’s a port on the side that lets you connect your console with a cable, the Game Boy’s most advanced feature. This is what inspired Satoshi Tajiri, a quiet programmer who had a childhood interest in insects, to create Pokemon, the Game Boy’s most enduring game. From pixels and pure imagination, Pokémon has created a world full of distinctive creatures that kids and adults alike can lose themselves in and swap and battle over Link’s cables. Despite being released towards the end of the Game Boy, it became a phenomenon.

How a geeky little game like this – Pokemon battles are primarily about numbers and type matchups – became the single most profitable entertainment franchise on the planet, surpassing Mickey Mouse and Star Wars. is incredible to me. This is a testament to the creative vision of the creator, as well as the imagination of his 90s children, who did not suffer from elementary expressions. But it also teaches us about the power and intimacy of handheld gaming consoles. With television, games were rooted in the living room or bedroom. On the Game Boy, it became part of family vacations, long car trips, and lunch breaks at work. Games have become part of everyday life.

Perhaps this is what helps games like Super Mario Land and the heartbreaking, otherworldly The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening stay alive in the memories of those who play them. I remember we played Zelda on the commuter train. I met lifelong friends at my first job. After school, I got together with my friends at the playground and played Pokemon. On my day off, I played Tetris and had a high score competition with his older brother. Many people still have their Game Boys sitting in drawers or boxes in the attic. Their emotional value is so high that people can’t bring themselves to throw them away.

Here’s a favorite photo of four kids with bowl cuts from the ’90s crowd around women I was concentrating on my Game Boy. You can almost see the cartridge inside. It’s Super Mario Land. As far as I know, the origin of this photo is lost to time, but I’d like to think it’s her Game Boy, and she teaches the kids how to get past one of its more difficult levels. This image, for me, perfectly sums up this console and what it feels like to play it. Gameboys were shared by families and played by everyone, girls and boys, men and women. It was a portal to other small worlds and introduced millions of people to the magic of gaming.