The Game Boy Color was published in 1998, a few years before the very first smartphones. Back then, the internet was still fairly new, and the idea of carrying a single device that could email people, search the web, send photos, and stream live video was pure science fiction. But if a Game Boy Color accessory called PageBoy, had seen the light of day, it would have been possible to do all this together with Mario via a single add-on.
Game Boy Color could become a smartphone thanks to PageBoy
The Page Boy was discovered by the videogame historian, researcher and journalist Liam Robertson. In a video released today, Roberston revealed a lot of details and images of the device in question for the first time.
This strange device was designed to use radio transmission technology and thus allow Game Boy Color owners to search for information and read news, game magazines, weather reports, sports scores, and even watch live television.
This technology, then widely used in the production of pagers, would also have made it possible to contact and send messages to other owners of PageBoy. According to the people involved in the project, after a meeting with Nintendo of America in 1999, the company was already excited about the potential of the PageBoy and for the next three years Nintendo worked with Wizard, a group created to help create the device and understand. if this add-on could actually have been successful.
However, the device based its operation on a radio network that existed only in selected parts of the world, such as the United States, severely limiting Nintendo’s potential customers. This is why the project was canceled in July 2002, almost twenty years ago.