New on the Shelf: The Red Limited Edition Game Boy

If the grey Game Boy was the everyman, the red one was the show-off. This arrival is the red console from Nintendo's European Limited Edition series, one of the most recognisable colours in the run that finally took the DMG-01 beyond its original grey.

What It Is

The full European Limited Edition line covered red, green, black, yellow, white, blue and clear, and the collection now holds all seven. The console itself is a completely standard Game Boy underneath: the same monochrome green screen with no backlight, the same controls and the same four AA batteries that powered every DMG-01. Only the colour changed. Red is simply the most extroverted member of the family, the one that shouts where the grey original whispered.

If the grey Game Boy was the everyman, the red one was the show-off.

Why It Joined the Collection

With red in place, the collection documents the complete seven-colour European run, and that completeness is the whole point. Gathered together, the colours tell a story no single console can: how Nintendo used nothing more than a change of casing to refresh a maturing product and turn identical hardware into a set worth collecting. The red unit is the eye-catcher of the group, and a colour line is only truly finished when its most famous member is present.

The red Limited Edition console is documented, with photographs, on its own page in the collection.

More on this in the Play It Loud colours.