Nintendo Game Boy

Nintendo (originally called Nintendo Karuta) is a Japanese company founded by Fusajiro Yamauchi in 1889. In its early years, Nintendo Karuta primarily produced playing cards.  

Starting in 1977 with the release of the Color TV-Game, Nintendo started producing video game consoles. The Color TV-Game and its subsequent versions were released only in Japan but were quite popular and sold very well.

In 1980, Nintendo released its first handheld, battery-operated gaming system called the Game & Watch. Each handheld device had one game preloaded on it. Popular games included Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda and Donkey Kong. 

In 1985, Nintendo released the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). This differed from Nintendo’s previous releases in that it didn’t have preloaded games, rather it had individual game cartridges. 

Game Boy

In 1989, Nintendo released Game Boy. Game Boy combined elements of Nintendo’s previous releases combined together – a handheld, battery-powered video game device that utilized interchangeable game cartridges. 

Please excuse the discoloration on the pages of the owner's manual below.

Game Boy Color

Nintendo released Game Boy Color in 1998. Besides allowing for the video game to be in color as the name suggests, the device itself came in many different colors rather than the standard gray shade of the original Game Boy. Game Boy Color also allowed for backward compatibility, meaning that video game cartridges from the original Game Boy could be played in the Game Boy Color.