It's hard to believe that a chunky grey brick is responsible for revolutionising handheld gaming, but without the Nintendo Game Boy, it would never have matured the way it did.
The Big N's debut portable console turns 25 years old today (April 21), and while it isn't remembered quite as fondly as the likes of the NES, the legacy it left behind continues to endure.
© Flickr/Thomas Ohlsson
Dreamed up by Gunpei Yokoi and his team at the tail end of the 1980s, the Game Boy came along at a time when Tiger Electronics held the monopoly on the handheld market, its innovation limited to LCD display technology.
Nintendo had previously dipped its toes into this pond with the Game & Watch systems - also designed by Gunpei and co - some years earlier, but the Game Boy was in a league of its own.
Gamers of the 1980s were accustomed to single-game handheld devices until Nintendo dared to shake things up with the launch of a pocket-sized console that combined elements of both the NES and the Game & Watch.
© Getty Images / SSPL
The Game Boy was powered by an 8-bit processor made by Sharp that clocked in at 4.19MHz, and 8KB of S-RAM. Although these are modest internals by today's standards, it was streets ahead of other portable gaming devices at the time.
Its 66mm screen was backed up by a 2-bit colour pallet capable of displaying just four shades, ranging from light to very dark olive green, but monochromatic visuals did not prevent the console from fulfilling its potential.
The Game Boy launched in 1989 bundled with puzzle classic Tetris, a title that took gaming addiction to pandemic levels now that it could be played on the move.
Other highlights of the system's launch lineup included block smasher Alleyway, a Tennistitle umpired by Mario, and flagship releaseSuper Mario Land.
Mario Land was an original side-scrolling adventure starring Nintendo's mascot that successfully recaptured the gameplay of 1985 NES smash Super Mario Bros.
Nintendo had proven that its handheld was capable of providing console-quality gameplay experiences, and as a result, developers flocked to the platform.
More than 800 games were released for the system during its 10-year life cycle, helping it amass sales exceeding 64 million units worldwide and claim the kind of market share that Nintendo can only dream of these days.
Although the Game Boy was a runaway success, it did not go unchallenged.
© Nintendo
© Nintendo
Nintendo's arch rival Sega released the Game Gear one year later, hoping to turn heads with the promise of colour visuals, a backlit display and TV-tuner functionality.
It may have been inferior on paper, but the Game Boy mopped the floor with the Game Gear, which was held back by poor battery life and a wafer-thin library of games.
Sega's debut handheld offering wasn't the only contender to the Game Boy's throne, but more powerful hardware specs were not enough to prevent the likes of the Atari Lynx and NEC's TurboExpress from ending up on the proverbial scrap heap beside the Game Gear.
There were many factors behind the Game Boy's success - durability, an affordable price tag, Nintendo's innovation and extensive developer support; but above all, it played host to some downright brilliant games.
One title that immediately springs to mind isThe Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, a superlative entry in one of gaming's most iconic series that made few concessions on the platform.
© Nintendo
© Nintendo
Condensing every inch of the Zelda formula into a pockatable package was one of the Big N's greatest achievements to date. Few games of such scope were released during the 8-bit era.
Technologically impressive yet ultimately short-lived, Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins will always be remembered as the game that introduced the world to Wario. The villain went on to star in his own hit series on Game Boy.
There was was no shortage of big-named third-party titles on Game Boy, with hit series including Street Fighter, Mega Man, FIFA Soccer and more receiving handheld ports, in addition to a bucketload of licensed games.
But it was always Nintendo's first-party releases that were demonstrative of the Game Boy at its best. Case in point is thePokemon series.
With the release of Pokemon Red and Blue in 1996, the Game Boy finally realised its potential.
Through inventive use of the system's link cable to facilitate content sharing, this dual release took the social and competitive aspects of gaming to lofty new heights, long before the concept of online play broke into the mainstream.
As any self-respecting gamer will surely be aware, Pokemon has gone on to become a multi-billion dollar franchise, but the core principles behind its modern incarnation remain unchanged since the days of Red andBlue.
Nintendo released a wide range of accessories for the Game Boy during its lifespan, including an AC adaptor, screen magnifier, and even a rudimentary digital camera and printer.
In 1994, the gaming giant rolled out the Super Game Boy, a plug-in cartridge for the SNES that allowed players to experience their handheld titles on a TV screen with a dash of colour added.
To this day, Nintendo has a penchant for remodelling its handheld systems, and this trend began with the original Game Boy.
The Game Boy Pocket hit the market in 1996, boasting a slimmer and lighter form factor, while the Japan-only Game Boy Light arrived two years later with a backlit screen in tow.
Nintendo blazed a trail with the original Game Boy, paving the way for its successors the Game Boy Colour, Game Boy Advance and the DS range to build on its legacy and cement the company's reputation as the foremost innovator in the handheld sector.
© Nintendo
Two and a half decades may have elapsed, but the Game Boy's legacy remains prominent in the current generation, with franchises such as Pokemon still toppling records and characters like Wario clinging onto popularity.
In an age of online gaming and 3D graphics, it's easy to forget where these beloved creations originated, but the Game Boy will always be remembered by the legions of fans whose childhoods it helped shape.
Do you have any fond memories of the Nintendo Game Boy? Post a comment below!