The Gameboy is the handheld that will not die.
Not only did a Gameboy survive the Gulf War, it’s now being updated to be playable on your HD television.
A new Kickstarter has launched that allows you to upgrade your original Gameboy to be playable on your television. It’s called hdmyboy, and it does just that. It lets you connect your gameboy to your television via HDMI. You then play your old Gameboy games with a replica NES controller.
The way it works is pretty interesting. It does ask users to do a tiny bit of tinkering by having them unscrew their gameboy. Users will then wedge a new board in between the old board and the front face, chunking up your machine, but also giving you HD capabilities.
You can see the hdmyboy in action, playing The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening.
Of course, the question must be asked, how necessary of a device is the hdmyboy? With so many ways to play your old-school games in HD, does the world really need another solution? Currently the Retron 5, a clone console that plays games from multiple systems, including the Gameboy, Gameboy Color, and Gameboy Advance, outputs to HDMI. There are also tons of emulation solutions from your computer to your phone that are much cheaper. The hdmyboy will set you back €115 euros, or about $143 U.S. For that kind of money, you can get a Retron 5, and get better overall usage and value.
Criticisms aside, the campaign is still rather early, and it will be interesting to see if they reach their goal, or if they surpass it.