Game Boy Evolution1

When it comes to Nintendo's next move in the portable gaming space — not that it's likely to be in a rush — we've seen a few dreamers with decent software come up with interesting ideas and flashy concept images. A notable recent example was the Nintendo smartphone, a potato so hot that we'll leave that one well enough alone.

In a step away from the phone angle, Kotaku reader Justin Quinn has produced a concept for the "Game Boy Evolution", as he's clearly had enough of this DS malarkey. Quinn is going for impressive specifications — a "5.3 inch 1080p screen, two cameras, 16GB of flash memory, 4G connectivity, a quad-core processor and 2GB RAM" — and a price of just $199, which is particularly ambitious now but not beyond the realm of possibility in a year or two. It wouldn't be a phone, but would serve as a tablet style device as well as a full on gaming system.

The fold-out physical controls do make this resemble a smartphone with a slightly flimsy controller accessory bolted on, yet could work in theory — plus there are two Circle Pads. A device like this would dump backward compatibility with DS and 3DS, of course, unless there was an optional cheap, low-resolution screen as an extra that would allow dual screen play on older games; clip-on accessories are becoming more common in the tablet space, in particular. It's not like the lack of 3D capabilities would matter, because we already have the 2DS.

It's all pure fantasy, but would you be excited by a system like this Game Boy Evolution?

Game Boy Evolution2
Game Boy Evolution3

[source kotaku.com]