Just In: The Game Boy Watch

Some arrivals are here purely because they are a delight, and this is one. It is a wristwatch styled like a Game Boy, and rather than a plain beep it wakes you with music from Super Mario Land. It is a small object with a big smile built into it, and a nice example of how the console's charm keeps being packaged into everyday things.

What It Is

This is an officially licensed watch by Paladone, the lifestyle-goods maker responsible for a whole line of Game Boy pieces. It takes the console's look and shrinks it onto the wrist, and its party trick is the alarm: instead of a generic tone it plays sounds from Super Mario Land, so waking up comes with a little jolt of nostalgia. It arrives in a neat crystal case, which makes it as much a display object as a wearable, something you might keep on a shelf as readily as on your arm.

Wear your Game Boy on your wrist

Why It Joined the Collection

Modern licensed merchandise like this is a real part of the Game Boy story, the chapter where the console lives on as a cultural icon long after it stopped being current technology. The watch joins the collection's other Paladone Game Boy lifestyle items, and together they show how a games machine became a design motif, reproduced on objects that have nothing to do with playing. It is not rare or valuable in the traditional sense; it is here because it is charming, well made and unmistakably Game Boy, and because a collection about the console should have room for the joy it still gives.

The Game Boy Watch is documented, with photographs, on its own page in the collection.