The little grey box – 35 years old this month – has kept you going, helped you through grief and long journeys, and been your companion through childhood
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Not to make anyone feel old, but the Game Boy turned 35 at the weekend.
That small grey box was millions of people’s first introduction to video games. It was shared among families, played with equal enthusiasm by girls, boys, men and women. When I asked people for their most cherished Game Boy memories last week, almost a hundred people got in touch to share their reminiscences of playing it on the commute to work, on long car journeys, on family holidays and under the covers after bedtime (with a torch for the screen, naturally). The Game Boy liberated games from the TV and brought them into those pockets of free time in everyday life. It felt more intimate, and despite its rubbish screen and rather rudimentary tech, it acted as a private portal to other worlds.
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