The Game Boy was designed by the Nintendo Research & Development 1 team, led by Gunpei Yokoi and Satoru Okada.

Its two-toned gray design included black, blue, and dark magenta accents, with softly rounded corners and a distinctive curved bottom-right edge.

Some employees even gave the project the derogatory nickname "DameGame" (dame (だめ) meaning "hopeless" in Japanese).

[17] However, due to resource constraints amid the ongoing development of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, the Game Boy team chose a less powerful CPU from the Sharp Corporation.

[18] The team considered buying displays from the Citizen Watch Company which was already using LCD screens to build portable TVs.

[11] As a result of this philosophy, to keep costs low and extend battery life, the Game Boy was designed without a backlight and used a simple grayscale screen, despite potential concerns about visibility and the lack of color.

[20] The approach was ultimately vindicated as rival units with full-color, backlit screens were panned for their dismal battery life, making the Game Boy more appealing to consumers.

[18][21] Despite concerns within the team that the feature would be too difficult to use and thus a waste of resources, Okada pushed forward and developed the Game Link Cable technology himself.

The device incorporated a key design element developed by Yokoi and his team at R&D1 for its Game & Watch predecessor: the directional control pad, often referred to as the "D-pad."

Yamauchi estimated that the console would achieve sales exceeding 25 million units in its initial three years, a claim that was regarded as bold at the time.

Despite its simple graphics and lack of a well-known brand, Tetris's suitability for a handheld platform convinced Nintendo president Minoru Arakawa to port and bundle it with the Game Boy.

The Game Boy uses a custom system on a chip (SoC), to house most of the components, named the DMG-CPU by Nintendo and the LR35902 by its manufacturer, the Sharp Corporation.

[24] The DMG-CPU also incorporates the Picture Processing Unit, essentially a basic GPU, that renders visuals using an 8 KB bank of Video RAM located on the motherboard.

[24] The Game Boy features a D-pad (directional pad), four buttons labeled 'A', 'B', 'SELECT', 'START', and a sliding power switch with a cartridge lock to prevent accidental removal.

[35] For extended use, an optional AC adapter or rechargeable battery pack can be connected via a coaxial power connector on the left side.

For sound, the Game Boy has a single monaural speaker and a 3.5 mm stereo headphone jack.

[47] Additionally, the film compensation layer produced a true black-and-white display, rather than the green hues of the original Game Boy.

[49] Internally, the Game Boy Pocket had a new SoC, the Nintendo CPU MGB, an improved version of the DMG-CPU.

A major change was that the device's 8 KB of Video RAM was moved from the motherboard to the SoC for faster access.

[24][50] The Game Boy Pocket was released in Japan on July 20, 1996, and in North America on September 2, 1996, for US$69.99 (equivalent to $136 in 2023).

[47][52] However, other reviewers were dismissive of the device, with the Los Angeles Times saying Nintendo was "repacking the same old black-and-white stuff and selling it as new.

A revision in early 1997 added a power LED, different case colors (red, green, yellow, black, gold metal, clear, and blue) and dropped the price to US$54.95 (equivalent to $104 in 2023).

[67] When the console was introduced in North America, two more launch titles were added: Tetris and Tennis (another NES game port), while Yakuman was never released outside of Japan.

[73] At a March 14, 1994, press conference in San Francisco, Nintendo vice president of marketing Peter Main answered queries about when Nintendo was coming out with a color handheld system by stating that sales of the Game Boy were strong enough that it had decided to hold off on developing a successor handheld for the near future.