Sometimes it feels like electronics manufacturers these days are all totally obsessed with the miniaturisation of their products. We recently got the iPhone 6 Plus and the New Nintendo 3DS XL... erm, actually, it's probably best to stop there.
Let's be honest, the original Game Boy was always a reassuring brick in stature; not exactly pocket sized. But Hackaday user Raz took it upon himself to make the Game Boy even bigger. So big in fact now you might even need help to carry it around.
The Game Boy XXL project all started when Raz and the organiser of a Belgian Chiptune festival called Nintendoom were sitting in a car together. He remarked how cool it would be to have a giant functional Game Boy at Nintendoom; the rest is history.
Raz got to work with 10m² of 3mm MDF, some wood glue, paint, a Raspberry Pi and a 19" computer monitor which he disassembled and reused and various other components. The software is based on Retropie, and a 180w laser cutter was used to cut 2D parts which he designed in AutoDesk AutoCAD.
While the original Game Boy was plain white, Raz took the bold step of painting the Game Boy XXL purple so that it would look flashy. It looks like it went down a treat at Nintendoom, judging from the photo gallery.
What do you think of Raz's handiwork? What suggestions would you make for his next oversized retro project?
[source hackaday.io, via s1100.photobucket.com]
Comments (20)
How did he get the rounded corners with MDF? For something made of wood it is incredibly well made.
It should be noted that although it looks like the slimmer Pocket version, the dimensions were taken from the original handheld. He took to Kotaku's comments section to explain he just never had time to make the back piece.
The next? Well a GBA SP would be great, basically the same principle but with the buttons on a flat surface.
Wow, that is a great looking build, hats off to the guy.
How about a Game gear next?!
This is amazing! I love how he went to great lengths to actually make it function as well as just look like one o:
Hey... that gameboy is in colour... That is no true gameboy!!!!!
@tobbonni
Na it's got to be the Atari Lynx followed upped by the Microvision
Reminds me of the person-sized original Game Boy demo stations I played years ago, at Best Buy (most other stores just had small countertop displays).
I think they are called "Demo Boy"
Although it was a huge Game Boy was a large screen demo, it was actually controlled with a normal size Game Boy attached to it.
I'd love to have that in my home!
Ridley's Gameboy
"While the original Game Boy was plain white,"
No, it was light gray.
Screen is still way too small, why can't they make screens like the PSP?
@LemonSlice It's a little hard to tell, it's so light gray that depending on the lighting and cleanliness, it might look completely white. Not to mention that some might actually look yellowish now due to the ABS plastic.
It would have been more interesting if he'd used real Gameboy hardware, there are like a million emulated systems in all kind of crazy cases using that Raspberry Pi machine out there.
@Smooching Would imagine they used a large CNC router.
@Yai. Junk the gameboy was junk to began with it was liveing off the NESs name thats the only reason it sold a poor machine
@joemama93 Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.
Gameboy was black n white tiny screen junk Nintendos only good systems were Snes And Nes chill out trinn to teach u somethin good boy
I like everything about this except for the fact that it is not 100% accurate, as it runs on a Raspberry Pi for emulation of Roms instead of actual Game Boy components. Still, a very cool piece.
@SmoochyTea umm just sand it, due to its make-up it pretty much dissolves away.
@joemama93 Yes, a complete piece of junk. People bought it for the NES fame... and the battery efficiency... and the real portability... and the games... Yeah, a real junk that somehow is now in museums.
Not the first time I have read or seen this. However this one does not use an Macronome display like the otherones I have seen.
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