Wide GBA
Image: The Retro Future

When the Game Boy Advance came out in 2001, widescreen 16:9 TVs were still very new. Many of us still clung to our chunky television squares until the late 2000s, because change is scary and new electronics are expensive. So it wasn't really a surprise that the GBA's screen had a lovely, nearly-square 3:2 aspect ratio, following up the Game Boy and Game Boy Color's 10:9. Squares make us feel safe.

But this is 2021, and we like things W I D E now. So what better DIY project than bringing the GBA up to today's standards by making it BIG?

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The Retro Future took on this project a year after making the Long Boy, a Game Boy that's... very long, as well as the dual-screen SP, the left-handed Game Boy, and the Game Boy Advance SP. Now, he's setting his sights on a new dimension: width.

This fan-made wideboy involves cutting up a couple of boring, regular Games Boys Advances, gluing them together into a Frankenboy, filling in the gaps with Polyfilla, and spray-painting with primer. The innards were slightly more complex, involving lots of soldering, wire management, and testing, testing, testing.

Long And Wide
Image: The Retro Future

Finally, the Game Boy Advaaaaaaaaaaaaance gets that iconic blurple coating, and all of its insides hooked up to its outsides, and then... it's done! This hellish abomination is out there, somewhere, looking like a Nintendo Switch prototype gone horribly, horribly wrong. We love it.

And yes — it works. Well, except for the LED on the front which says whether or not it's turned on, but that's fine. We have to say, now that we've had the Switch for four years, we're down for w i d e consoles in future.

What should we (as a society) widen next? Let us know in the comments!

[source youtu.be]