Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Bringing some Game Boy Pocket love today, and this little handheld deserves way more credit than it usually gets. Nintendo released it in Japan in July 1996 and in North America that September for 69.99 dollars, shrinking the original's bulky four AA battery design down to just two AAA batteries and nearly cutting the weight in half. The real upgrade though was the screen, switching to a true black and white display that basically eliminated the ghosting and motion blur that made the original Game Boy's green tinted screen so hard to play fast games on. It actually launched only in silver, but Nintendo dropped the ball by cutting the battery level LED to save costs, and public demand got it added back in early 1997 alongside a much wider color lineup including red, green, yellow, black, gold, clear, and blue, plus a price drop to 54.99. There were even rarer variants out there like a metallic Ice Blue edition and a pink model that only released in Japan. This was also Gunpei Yokoi's last project at Nintendo before he left the company following the Virtual Boy's rocky reception, so there is something fitting about him signing off with a handheld this well refined. Did you have the original silver launch model or one of the later colors?
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Bringing some Game Boy Pocket love today, and this little handheld deserves way more credit than it usually gets. Nintendo released it in Japan in July 1996 and in North America that September for 69.99 dollars, shrinking the original's bulky four AA battery design down to just two AAA batteries and nearly cutting the weight in half. The real upgrade though was the screen, switching to a true black and white display that basically eliminated the ghosting and motion blur that made the original Game Boy's green tinted screen so hard to play fast games on. It actually launched only in silver, but Nintendo dropped the ball by cutting the battery level LED to save costs, and public demand got it added back in early 1997 alongside a much wider color lineup including red, green, yellow, black, gold, clear, and blue, plus a price drop to 54.99. There were even rarer variants out there like a metallic Ice Blue edition and a pink model that only released in Japan. This was also Gunpei Yokoi's last project at Nintendo before he left the company following the Virtual Boy's rocky reception, so there is something fitting about him signing off with a handheld this well refined. Did you have the original silver launch model or one of the later colors?
Subscribe to Game Forest GF for retro gaming content every single day.
#gameboypocket #gameboy #nintendo #retrogaming #90snostalgia #gaminghistory #vintagegaming #handheldgaming #classicgaming #retroconsole #videogamehistory #nintendonostalgia #90scommercial #gameforestgf #youtubeshorts #gaming
