It’s 2009.

“2009? But I still write 2008 on everything.” True as that may be, the year still is what it is, which is the final year of one waaacky decade in gaming. We’ve seen a lot of stuff go down these past ten years as the games industry, community, and medium changed into something undeniably powerful and respectfully present in popular culture. For the rest of this year we’ll occasionally stop and take a look back at a game, event, or person - something that happened this past decade which we’d like to remember.

For this first post I’m gonna look back at my favoritest, least disappointing(in the long run) gaming device to be released in the 00s. It is the only gaming device that exists that has not broken my heart because it remembered to do one thing and it does that thing damn well.

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*Oh, sorry. I was just staring at my Gameboy Micro thinking that it’s too good for me. That hourglass shaped faceplate, those dozens of oblique, rounded edges that look like a simple hard rectangle at first glance…


Kreven’s Micro is straight, simple, and sleek. Kinda like Kreven…

No, okay, you know what? I’m not gonna subject you to my stupid technolust. I mean, it’s totally there, but we all read enough of that stupidity on other sites. Here’s deh facts: The GBM has a bright-ass screen that looks real sharp. It’s got a great shape that looks like it could’ve plausibly been released at any time within the past 30 years and have been the best looking device of that decade. It’s shiny and remotely customizable via faceplates. It’s so tiny it just barely stays within the realm of being reasonably sized. None of these things are individually fascinating, they’re all good but none of them great. As a whole, though, they make one flawless package.


Rumas thinks GBM + Play-Yan Micro makes for a pretty nifty media device

When the Micro was first pulled out of Reggie’s pocket at E3 2005 I was super excited. What would this pretty looking thing do? I imagined a Gameboy with extra features, maybe a little space to save some downloaded games or something. Oh ho, was I young and stupid. When Reggie stopped holding up the little device for the voyeuristic cameras of the gaming media and told us what it actually was(Gameboy Advance #3) I felt way disappointed. Sure it looked good, but what was the point? Looks can only go so far in convincing us to buy an outdated portable Super Nintendo. Especially when we were already on the cusp of the launch of the DS. Couple that in with the price of the thing ($99 I believe) and there was no way anyone besides the hardest of the core were gonna buy this thing. Too bad so sad, another missed opportunity by Nintendo.

Now, fast forward a couple of years. The Micro has been out in the wild for a while. Pictures of its sleekness in the real world goes to show that it’s design holds up even outside of a lightbox. The official price drops by ten bucks and the Micro also starts showing up on eBay. Nintendo released newer colors and faceplate designs such as the Famicom 20th Anniversary Micro and hot pink(never underestimate the power of pink). In my case, I inherited a silver GBM with an ammonite faceplate from my oldest brother. In any instance, the new Gameboy was slowly trickling its way into the hands of gamers and it seems that once we actually got our hands on one it didn’t feel like so much of a disappointment.


Mitch’s fly 20th Anniversary Famicom GBM with a copy of Mother 3.

The key to the awesomeness within the Micro is that it just. plays. games. None of us may have realized it at the time, but looking at it now it seems like it may be the very last gaming system that will ever do so. Everything released since the launch of the Micro, even handhelds, has been all about giving consumers more and more. More screen space, more features, more inputs, more applications than just games; the simple times for mainstream games has become the past as we’ve entered the era of “entertainment devices”. It turns out that the Micro may have come around at exactly the right time as it was the last possible opportunity for something so small and so simple to come into existence. There may have always been an upper limit on how large handheld game systems could be, but now as a result of input methods and multimedia features there is also a very clear lower limit on their size as well. Thus, the Micro may always be the outlying statistic, the runt which if for no other reason will be remembered for being just that.


My GBM. Or the Screen at least. It sure is bright.

So that’s it. That’s why I, and a good number of other people, totally dig the Gameboy Micro. It plays games. It makes it easy to take games with you wherever you go. It looks fantastic. That’s no so much of a disappointment after all.

Fun Fact: I took a tally of 4cr writers who own Micros. Among 12 of us there were 21 total GBMs! Obsessive, or impressive?


Seriously, can you see that? Our writer Andy has six Micros. Six! More like, sick.