Building the Landscape Game Boy That Never Was
Modder extraordinaire Obirux used their impressive skills to reimagine an original Game Boy (DMG-001) as a landscape handheld.
More than any other device in history, the original Nintendo Game Boy was responsible for kick starting the handheld video game console market. It wasn't the first handheld, but its overwhelming popularity paved the way for future development. That development would eventually lead towards landscape-orientation handhelds. That orientation tends to be more comfortable in the hands and better suits the widescreens that we know today. Modder extraordinaire Obirux used their impressive skills to reimagine an original Game Boy (DMG-001) as a modern landscape handheld.
You would be forgiven for assuming that this is a real production device. It looks incredible and faithfully mimics the aesthetics of the original Game Boy. But while it does use some original hardware, the case design is a custom job. Obirux says that they sacrificed two original shells to build this GBA-inspired handheld, but it isn't clear exactly how they went about performing the case mod. It looks injection-molded and not like two cases patched together. It is possible that Obirux 3D-printed the case, but they do not say so.
The internal hardware is a combination of an original DMG-001 PCB and modern upgrade boards. For example, it uses popular IPS LCD and LiPo battery mods. Those are "quality of life" mods that improve the experience, but which don't affect the Game Boy's functionality. This landscape Game Boy can still accept standard game cartridges and play them as usual. Obirux doesn't have any plans to sell kits for this mod, but we're going to issue a public plea that they provide detailed instructions so that we can build our own landscape Game Boys.
