Developer: Nintendo Release: 1989 Notable Games: Tetris, Pokemon Blue & Red, Super Mario Land Not even Nintendo could have anticipated the industry-changing impact that the Game Boy would have. The screen was blurry, tiny and, um, green, and it needed a grand total of four AA batteries to run off of. Despite this, and the fact that technologically superior devices like the Game Gear and Lynx existed, the Game Boy was by far and away the most popular hand held console of all time until the DS stole its crown. The Game Boy's genius was in its relative simplicity. There was a D-Pad and two buttons (along with the select/start), which meant that overly fiddly games just weren't an option for third-party developers. This meant that the games released for the Game Boy were often perfectly suited to portable play, with killer apps like Pokemon and Tetris ensuring that the Game Boy would go on to be remembered as the greatest handheld console ever.
