New Arrival: The Original 1989 Japanese Game Boy

Some arrivals are not additions so much as foundations. This is the original Game Boy, Nintendo's first portable console with interchangeable game cartridges, in its 1989 Japanese release, and it is the piece the whole collection is built around.

The unassuming grey brick that became the best-selling handheld of its generation.

What It Is

This is the machine that set the template for the entire line: a directional pad, A and B buttons, Start and Select, and a monochrome green LCD with no backlight, all running on four AA batteries. It launched in Japan on 21 April 1989, and from that unassuming grey brick grew the best-selling portable console of its generation. Everything else in the collection, every colour variant, every accessory, every cartridge, ultimately traces back to this original Japanese unit and the design decisions frozen into it.

Why It Joined the Collection

A collection dedicated to the DMG-01 must, at its heart, hold the DMG-01 in its first and purest form: the Japanese launch console. It is the reference point against which every regional variant, coloured shell and special edition is measured, the origin of the model numbers and the starting line of the whole story this project tells. Having it here is less a matter of rarity than of meaning. This is where the Game Boy began, and so it is where the collection truly begins too.

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