There are a variety of ways that you can get footage from a Game Boy game up onto a big screen. An emulator can easily step in to do the job or a modern-day variant like the Analogue Pocket might be more up your street with its HDMI output. But what if you wanted to stream from an original Game Boy, and an unmodded one at that?
That is the question that was asked of Sebastian Staacks (@diconx), a tech wiz who was tasked with achieving this very feat for a Tetris tournament in which the competitors need to use their own, original consoles (muscle memory and all that). His solution? The GB Interceptor.
Staack’s device bypasses all of the problems that one would normally find with such a conundrum by taking the console’s game data and transferring it to another device via the Game Boy’s cartridge slot. The GB Interceptor works by simultaneously emulating the Game Boy’s and the CPU’s functions. All of the precise detail that went into the build can be found in Staack’s recent blog post, where the designer breaks down his building process and some of the issues with the design.
If technical terminology isn’t in your wheelhouse however (join the club), then the designer has also put together a video which shows the device in action and gives a brief rundown of how it came to be. Is it still an extremely complex process? Absolutely. But the visuals go a long way to showing how Staack broke down the problem and settled on his final product. We have attached the full video to the bottom of this article for you to check out.
The question is, how can we get our hands on one of these devices ourselves? Unfortunately, Staack does not build the product for retail, although he has put together a step-by-step guild on exactly how you can build one for yourself. In the tutorial video, the designer breaks down all of the parts and materials that you will need to order before showing you the exact process of the build – hey, a little DIY never hurt anyone!
While it might take a little effort, we have to admit that the GB Interceptor looks pretty darn neat. Now to get Pokémon Red and Blue on the TV…
What do you make of this device? Stream your thoughts in the comments below!