Turn Your Game Boy Advance into the Console You’ve Always Wanted

Cross-platform video game development is common these days, and the majority of major triple-A games are released on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4. A decent percentage are even released on PC and the Nintendo Switch. But, that’s a relatively new development, and only a few generations ago cross-platform games were uncommon — particularly for handhelds. For that reason, there are dozens of fantastic Nintendo Game Boy Advance games that were never available on any other platform and that you couldn’t play on your TV. The GBA Consolizer is an FPGA-based mod kit that you can use to play those games on your TV, just like a console.

There are other ways to play Game Boy Advance games on your TV, such as with an emulator, but they leave a lot to be desired. The GBA Consolizer is specifically designed for a polished experience, and provides sophisticated upscaling for fantastic video quality. It can run at either a 60 Hz refresh with a slight overclock, or the native 59.7276 Hz for perfectly-timed gameplay. There are a variety of scaling and smoothing modes available, so you can choose to prioritize the settings that are important to you, with video scaling up to 720p. All of those modes run with a sub-frame lag time, so your gameplay will be exactly the same as you’re used to.

The GBA Consolizer works by replacing an original Game Boy Advance display with a custom board. That board processes the GBA’s video output, and the sends it to your TV through HDMI. You can use either an SNES controller or a Bluetooth controller to play games. Installing the kit isn’t for the faint of heart, and will require soldering and the removal of some original components. But, the instructions are clear and anyone a decent amount of electronics experience should be able to handle the job. The GBA Consolizer is out of stock now, but you can sign up for updates over on Game-Tech.