Nintendo sure does love teasing us with Game Boy things.
First, a collectible Lego Game Boy model last year that almost looked like a real Game Boy (but wasn’t). Now, for the 30th anniversary of Pokemon, Nintendo and the Pokemon Group are selling a collectible music player that looks like a tiny Game Boy and plays authentic original Pokemon Red/Blue songs on swappable cartridges, one per song.
The Game Boy Jukebox is being sold on the Pokemon Center site for a whopping $70. It’s so small, it uses button batteries.
This level of absurdity is standard issue for Nintendo: Just in the last 18 months, we’ve had Alarmo, a talking Super Mario flower and a Virtual Boy recreation. This new collectible is so tempting precisely because it looks like a little, even more pocketable Game Boy. Except it isn’t a Game Boy at all. It’s just a music player. Even the dot-matrix “screen” is fake — it’s just an overlay that the cartridges display when they’re slotted in.
The music this thing plays is Game Boy-accurate, down to the little boot-up ping. It just makes my skin itch for a new Game Boy (one that isn’t already made by several other companies).
But come on. Make a real Game Boy collectible with preloaded games. One that plays Pokemon Classic games and Tetris and more. You know you want to, Nintendo. It’s only a matter of time.
In the meantime, if you’re desperate for all 45 Pokemon Red and Blue songs on a little Game Boy music player, now’s your chance.
