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Soon, Your Phone Will Be Able to Play Game Boy Cartridges

There are plenty of apps you can download to your phone that emulate the feel of nostalgic video games. But soon, consumers will be able to get their actual favorite old-school games in the pockets, directly from their original cartridges. Hyperkin has just released a developer kit for Smart Boy, a peripheral that allows an Android smartphone to play Game Boy and Game Boy Color games.

The design doesn’t look too far removed from the prototype conceptual design the company shared in early 2015: Put your phone into the top, and the bottom half of the screen is replaced by a Game Boy-like set of buttons. All together, it looks like an original Game Boy, but with the larger and more modern color screen provided by your phone.

In the hands-on video above, the device admittedly looks somewhat bulky, at least compared to modern phone attachments. Still, there’s an additional benefit to simply carrying an original Game Boy around with you instead. Since the Smart Boy would presumably use some sort of emulation software, this would likely include the benefits that software provides, like save states, increased emulation speed, and other modern enhancements that just weren’t possible on the original system.

Developers should expect to get their hands on the Smart Boy at some point in December, but hopefully they’re already brainstorming some genius ideas. Maybe they’ll find a way to make trading Pokémon and other types of game-to-game connectivity possible? Those with other ideas and the technical knowhow, feel free to cop a Smart Boy developer kit here.

Image: Hyperkin

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