Nintendo's Game Boy, and it's semi-successor the Game Boy Color, released in a time when the internet was just starting to reach the masses and live-streaming was something only to be dreamed of by innovating minds. Years before the oldest smartphones hit the market and the idea of having endless information in the palm of one's hand, Nintendo came along with an unreleased accessory called the PageBoy. This single add-on would have changed the gaming landscape and allowed interent access that was unprecedented at the time.
Video game historian Liam Robertson details the PageBoy in his newest video, uncovering lost images and information of the unreleased Game Boy Color add-on. Originally, the PageBoy was planned to use radio transmission technology to allow its users to access the web, read gaming magazines, weather reports, sports stats, and even watch live television. It would even allow its users to message and contact others with a PageBoy as well, using the same kind of technology that pagers used, hence the PageBoy's name.
Nintendo was excited by the technology at the time as it would truly put it on the precipice of the tech world, essentially allowing its users access to the first smartphone without the whole actual phone aspect. In 1999, Nintendo worked with a newly created group entitled Wizard to help kickstart and manage the device, working to see if the Game Boy Color add-on could indeed be created and if it would be profitable for the gaming giant.
Ultimately, the PageBoy's reliance on radio transmission tech and its use of radio towers only really widely present in the United States killed any chance of the creation of the device. While Nintendo was extremly impressed by users' ability to send images using the Game Boy camera and the company's own ability to send live video to PageBoy owners, radio transmission was going to severely limit the add-on's appeal. Nintendo was adamant about the Game Boy's universal appeal and simplicity, and the PageBoy would ultimately work against that philosophy.
The Big N ended up scrapping the PageBoy's development in July 2002 after much deliberation. Of course the many aspects of the device went on to become extremely prevalent in modern society and in many of Nintendo's devices that followed. Its live video idea eventually developed into the Nintendo Directs that fans are still receiving today and the idea of sending messages and pictures to others would feature in the Nintendo DS's Pictochat function and Wii U's Miiverse. Still, it is mighty interesting that Nintendo was considering tech that is now taken for granted for the Game Boy Color back in 1999. It makes one wonder what other modern tech Nintendo has left on the cutting room floor in the past years.