Today's Game Boy modding scene largely sprang up in response to Nintendo’s own conservative tendencies. Groups of hackers who congregate on the r/Gameboy subreddit, on Discord, on Instagram, and across YouTube have been dragging Nintendo’s tiny, world-beating machine into the 2020s by creating a cottage industry of parts, custom components, and prebuilt modified Game Boys along the way.
Rather, these underpowered, inexpensive toys are canvases for creativity and experimentation.
And because the system was propped up by Nintendo's thousands-deep library of titles, the Game Boy remains one of the top-selling videogame consoles of all time.īut for a gang of modders and hackers on the internet, these machines aren’t something to be left in the past. It went through seven different design iterations, six of which were sold in the US. From its launch in 1989 until its discontinuation in 2008, Nintendo's handheld gaming device sold hundreds of millions of units.
