Game Boy Console 05 186 Ns - article by New Look 4 Article Every Hour

Nintendo's handheld Game Boy console is to date the worlds biggest selling video game system. Nintendo claims that they have sold over 100 million of them since its initial release in 1989. Since its release, there have been various follow ups to the original, both by Nintendo and by its competitors trying to share in the market for portable gaming consoles.

One of Nintendo's most innovative employees, Gunpei Yokoi, is credited for dreaming up and inventing the Game Boy handheld. Yokoi was involved in some of the earlier attempts to make video games portable, but got it right with his Game Boy console. His next idea, the Virtual Boy, released in 1995, was a failure and in its wake Yokoi left Nintendo. He began his own company called Kyoto, and produced another handheld gaming console before dying in a tragic car accident two years later.

The Game Boy console relies on a Z80 processor and simple LCD display. Much like its non-portable predecessor, the NES, it operates using ROM cartridges containing the game information. It has 8 kilobytes of internal S-RAM, and 8 kilobytes of video RAM. The ROMs themselves vary between 256 kilobits and 8 Megabits. There have been many different versions of the original Game Boy, coming in various shapes and sizes and sporting different names, but they all used the same basic specifications internally.

Small and easy to program, there have been countless game titles made for the Game Boy console. The game that the system is most well know for is also one of its simplest games; Tetris. As I kid, I recall playing many countless hours of Tetris myself.

It is perhaps its simple and uncomplicated presentation that made the Game Boy as popular as it was. Indeed, even thought the technology is vastly out dated today, the Game Boy system remains popular today. Recently, in 2004, the Game Boy console celebrated its 15th birthday. Some of the more popular NES games were remade for the Game Boy, sparking a revival of interest in the now classic gaming system.

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