Bra­ce your­sel­ves, nerds. Game Boy might be back for good. Well, not actual­ly Game Boy. Some­thing incre­di­bly simi­lar thou­gh: Hyper­link just unco­ve­red the pro­to­ty­pe of the Ultra GB, an upda­ted ver­sion of the clas­sic han­d­held console.

This isn’t the fir­st time the gaming hard­ware deve­lo­p­ment com­pa­ny stret­ched a hand towards the always-nostal­gic GB fan­ba­se. Last Augu­st, the com­pa­ny intro­du­ced the Smart­boy Deve­lo­p­ment Kit, a devi­ce that atta­ches to Android smart­pho­nes, tur­ning the pho­ne into a con­so­le com­pa­ti­ble with Game Boy and Game Boy Color cartridges.

Now they’ve done it again, only bet­ter. At the 2018 Con­su­mer Elec­tro­nics Show (CES), which took pla­ce in Las Vegas from the 8th to the 12th of Janua­ry, Hyper­link shared the Nin­ten­do-inspi­red con­so­le, which plays the ori­gi­nal Game Boy car­trid­ges. The desi­gn is simi­lar to the Game Boy Poc­ket ones’: such fea­tu­res as the but­ton lay­out, the volu­me con­trol and the power switch didn’t chan­ge. Only the alu­mi­nium struc­tu­re and the front-lit screen have chan­ged to keep up with the times, along with the ste­reo audio. The­re are a few dis­si­mi­la­ri­ties bet­ween the pro­to­ty­pe and the final pro­duct, thou­gh: the power con­nec­tor, which will beco­me a USB‑C port, and the display screen’s blue tint, to be alte­red with an RGB colour wheel.

There still is no release date, but Hyperlink stated its intention to release it late this summer, or at least within 2018. The price to jump back in time? Likely to be under $100.

Is the­re any­thing that’s just not per­fect, not ULTRA? Well, just one thing. The­re is no car­trid­ge inclu­ded.

Actual­ly, no new car­trid­ge is sup­po­sed to be sold at all. This pro­duct is spe­ci­fi­cal­ly desi­gned to make the for­mer Poké­mon kids hap­py once again. Well, and to make col­lec­tors richer, but that’s ano­ther story.

Is this ano­ther move towards the “sequel trend”, desti­ned to never pro­vi­de new gene­ra­tions with the instru­men­ts to appre­cia­te the past, but always to seam­les­sly repli­ca­te it? And – If so – can the adult, and adult-er, gene­ra­tions bla­me them for not appre­cia­ting their roo­ts, and, more often than not, enjoy­ing “gar­ba­ge” games, movies and books?

The Ultra GB is not here to answer the­se que­stions. It’s here to make the 90s kids’ eyes spar­kle. Tho­se eyes could be yours, if you only make sure you have the old car­trid­ges at your fin­ger­tips by the time it comes out.

Giu­lia Giaume

Inna­mo­ra­ta del­la cul­tu­ra in ogni sua for­ma, lascia­te­mi in ludo­te­ca con un barat­to­lo di Nutel­la e sono a posto.