A symbol which has conquered many generations. This device by Nintendo was the world’s number one portable console and it has now become a cult object, sought for online on eBay and among specialist collectors. Created by Gunpei Yokoi and Satoru Okada, it is timeless and has kept its appeal even in the era of the smartphone, which in some way is its heir as a portable object that plays a central role in the every-day life of everyone (or at least of the 118.69 million followers who bought the console in order to play wherever and whenever they wanted).

The Game Boy paved the way, marking the beginning of a second, profitable phase for portable consoles within the Kyoto-based company. It was not inspired by previous protable devices produced by either Mattel or Microvision, the first console with interchangeable cartridges produced by  the Milton Bradley Company in 1979. What was decisive was the idea of Yokoi who, on observing a man who was playing with a small LCD calculator, had the idea of uniting that type of case with fun games, an idea which was to be a success. This led to the creation of Game & Watch, a series of portable electronic games produced from 1980 that integrated one or two LCD screens, a directional cross pad and other buttons into a compact structure. The Game & Watch was a winner, selling more than 40 million units, crushing the competition and providing the foundations for the development of the small, durable, light and economical Game Boy.

On the eve of its thirtieth anniversary - it was launched in Japan on 21 April 1989, and soon after appeared in North America, Europe and then the rest of the world - the enduring attractivness of the Game Boy is the ultimate symbol of the retrogaming trend, with games like Tetris and Super Mario Land. These, together with Tennis, Alleyway and Baseball, were the first legendary grey interchangeable games cartridges (Game Paks), characterised by the hardware port integrated into the slot which allowed them to be connected to the console. Despite Nintendo having stopped marketing the Game Boy in 2003, it has continued to be an object of desire, so much so that, looking at Italy alone, the second hand digital platform Subito.it has registered a peak in searches in the run-up to the thirtieth anniversary. In the first half of April, the over-1,300 announcements published on the portal dedicated to the various versions of the console saw a 72% increase in clicks.

On his Instagram page, Mark Ruffalo has published a photograph taken during a break in filming for Avengers: Endgame that shows Scarlett Johansson and Chris Evans as they play a duel with two first-generation Game Boys connected with a cable. The possibility to challenge other players thanks to multiplayer was in fact one of the reasons for the success of the Nintendo console which, despite its technical inferiority to its competitors at the time (the Sega Game Gear and the Atari Lynk which, for example, had colour displays, something the Game Boy didn’t get until 1998),  led the portable console market for more than a decade, also thanks to games that made history, such as the aforementioned brick puzzle, the dynasty of the most famous plumbers in the world and the Pokemon saga.