Happy Birthday Gameboy

[KTrain]

20 years ago today the second most popular gaming system ever was released.

Here's a cool Gameboy timeline to commemorate this day.

http://cache.gawker.com/assets/image...meline-HD2.jpg

[Russic]

I'm trying to figure out if I'm enough of a dork to mention that the ps2 sold more. Ah well, happy birthday gameboy!

I still remember battletoads on it ... for a game that was impossible to surpass level 3 it sure was kick-ass.

[KTrain]

Corrected

[Daradon]

#%^& I'm old!

I'm surprised that the PS2 has outsold it. I would have assumed that the age and staying power of the GB, coupled with the fact it's a smaller ticket item and had many incarnations would have made it sell way more.

Also, if a home system has sold that many, I would have thought the NES, SNES, or PS1 would have sold the most units.

When you say the PS2 sold more, is that taking into account just the original GB, or other variations of it too?

[WhiteTom]

I got my first Game Boy when I was sick in a hospital in Edmonton (Holy crap, was that 20 years ago?). That is what set me on the course of video games for life!

According to Wikipedia (THE most reliable source on the net) Game Boy sold 118.69 million units, including the Game Boy Color. I'm assuming that includes all of the iterations up to then as well, such as the Game Boy Pocket.

The PS2 sold 136 million as of December 2008. The price point issue is easier to swallow when you remember that the PS2 was one of the cheapest DVD players to come out when DVD caught on.

[Russic]

It would beat it if you counted the gameboy advance, but I would consider that more of a gameboy 2.

The ps2 was an absolute beast and is partly the reason why Sony took such crazy risks with the ps3 imo. Should be interesting to see how long it takes the wii to surpass it.

[Teh_Bandwagoner]

Originally Posted by Daradon

#%^& I'm old!

I'm surprised that the PS2 has outsold it. I would have assumed that the age and staying power of the GB, coupled with the fact it's a smaller ticket item and had many incarnations would have made it sell way more.

As it stands, the DS alone has the second most sales of any console, at over 100 million sales (if you include both the DS and DS Lite, and now the DSi), where as PS2 is number one at around 120 million. I'm not sure what the sales are of any system carrying the "Gameboy" label on it though.

Either way that timeline is pretty cool. It's pretty impressive to look at the speed at which the technology advanced over the last 20 years! My old school Gameboy is a tank though. It sits on my desk at home, and I'm fairly sure it still works!

Edit: Got it!

Gameboy + Gameboy color - 119M units
GBA + SP + Micro - 81M units
DS + DS Lite + DSi = 101M units

PS2 - 136M units