Rumors swirl about a Game Boy Mini, but what would that actually be?

Back around the time Nintendo announced the Super NES Classic Edition, someone unearthed trademark and patent paperwork that hinted at the likelihood of a Nintendo 64 Classic Edition console for 2018. But Nintendo, ever slippery, hates to be predictable… which is probably why someone else uncovered documentation hinting at a Game Boy Classic Edition a few days ago.

Realistically, we'll probably see both, eventually. Nintendo seems pretty committed to the idea of standalone retro game consoles at this point. The Super NES mini has been fairly easy to acquire at retail, and they're putting the NES mini back into production next year. At some point in the future, I can envision walking into Target and finding an entire shelf of vintage replica Nintendo systems crammed with classic games.

Still, what would a Game Boy mini entail, precisely? As a portable system, it would by definition work a little differently than their existing retro consoles. Monochrome Game Boy graphics don't read well on a 60" television, but if the Game Boy mini were simply a handheld system, why not just play 3DS Virtual Console?

As America's foremost expert on Game Boy — er, well, as America's only person foolish enough to produce comprehensive retrospectives on unloved obscurities like Card Game and Wheel of Fortune, anyway — I've spent a lot of time thinking about how a Game Boy mini might work. My thoughts go something like this:

Ideally, I'd like to see a self-contained Game Boy replica, complete with a built-in screen. I wouldn't take the "mini" part too far, but a compact edition of the original grey brick Game Boy model (reduced in size about… 25%, say) would hit a nice delta between usable screen size and portability. The screen would ideally be a high-quality, high-density color LCD screen with a pixel resolution that scales up evenly from Game Boy's 160x144 screen. The display options should include an "authentic" monochrome mode with simulated ghosting and blur effects, like M2 provided with Game Gear Virtual Console on 3DS, but it should also include Super Game Boy and Game Boy Color palettes. Maybe even screen modes to simulate Game Boy Pocket and Game Boy Light, too.

My real dream would be for Game Boy mini to take a page from Switch and work as a portable device… but then also to hook up to a small HDMI-capable dock for television-based play. The hardware on future minis seems likely to use the same tech as the existing mini-consoles, which means the Game Boy mini would have the power to present TV-based play via Super Game Boy emulation. That means borders, animations, and cool bonus features on SGB-enhanced games like Pokémon Yellow and Space Invaders. 

This could also kill two birds with one stone. The original Game Boy is iconic, but how do you create a "mini" version of a small system that's thicker than a 3DS with the clamshell closed? Turn the back half of the Game Boy mini into the charging and HDMI cradle, so the portable unit is only half the width of the overall unit. It's slim, compact, and neatly replicates both the portable and Super Game Boy functions of the original platform. 

A quick mock-up. Left, the original chunky Game Boy hardware. Right, the dockable Game Boy Classic Edition, with a half-sized portable unit that can be seated on the back case of the system as a cradle equipped with a USB-C video connector/charging port.

Realistically, Nintendo could very likely bring a device like this in at a price similar to that of the Super NES classic. LCD screens are cheap now, and Nintendo's Virtual Console pricing for classic Game Boy games usually comes in at $2.99 per title — so if they stuck a few dozen games on the system, the value proposition the previous minis have offered versus Virtual Console pricing would leave enough wiggle room to accommodate a screen and a dock.

So let's say the Game Boy Classic Edition makes use of this best-case, pie-in-the-sky format. What about the games? Assume we'll see about as many games as on the NES Classic Edition (30). Based on the lineups of the previous mini systems, we can expect Nintendo to load it down heavily with first-party titles from familiar franchises. Third-party titles will presumably come from the small subset of developers who continue to support Virtual Console: Konami, Capcom, Namco, and Jaleco, with a special guest appearance by a Square Enix and subsidiary Taito. Based on those trends, we can come up with a pretty likely roster of titles for a Game Boy compilation.

A guess at Nintendo's likely Game Boy mini lineup:

OK, those are the games I suspect are most likely to show up on a Game Boy mini, given Nintendo's choices for Game Boy Virtual Console on 3DS and the partnerships they carried forward with the NES and Super NES minis. But personally, I'd only want to see about a third of those games. If I had my druthers, my picks would be pretty different:

Game Boy Mini 30-game (well, roughly 30) dream lineup: 

The potential wrinkle

It's possible Nintendo might choose to combine Game Boy and Game Boy Color on a single device. Let's hope they don't. I had a hard time paring my list down to 30 games. The original monochrome Game Boy library has plenty of gems and deserves to stand on its own. Let's hope Nintendo allows the Color model to do its own thing in its own time.