Table of Contents
History of the Game Boy Micro
On September 13, 2005, a new console from Nintendo, the Game Boy Micro, was released in Japan. This is the most controversial console from Nintendo. It was not very convenient, it was very small, it had a lot of competitors, and all this led to its failure in sales (although 3 million sales would be a dream for some companies).
Development of the Console
The development of the console began around September 2004, and here's what Kenichi Sugino said: "The idea was this. Can we make this console smaller and lighter than the Game Boy Advance? While creating the Game Boy Advance, a more portable device than the Game Boy Advance SP, and with higher build quality, we wanted people who had stopped playing games or never played them to enjoy games again. Of course, we also targeted buyers who had already played on the GBA and SP. We wanted many people to think, 'This is the console I would like to buy,' so we paid attention to many aspects of the design."
Based on these words, it turns out that Nintendo 100% realized their idea. The console turned out to be really small, and the body is made of aluminum, which makes this console very pleasant to the touch.
Kenichi Sugino mentions this in passing, but from his words, it can be understood that the main idea of miniaturizing the console is not just about making it smaller for the sake of it, but about competing with mobile phones. At that time, there was a boom in various phones, and people were actively playing games on them (including Kenichi himself), and he was always concerned about how inconvenient it was. Therefore, Nintendo decided to re-release the popular Game Boy Advance console in such a small form factor that it could be played comfortably without the problems of phones of those years.
Satoru Iwata in his interview said that they experimented a lot with the design of the console. They placed the screen horizontally and vertically. They tried to figure out what screen size would be optimal. As a result, they had some prototypes (unfortunately, there are no photos of them). And in the end, they came to the design in which the Game Boy Micro exists to this day.
Due to such a small size, they had to sacrifice a lot. The charging slot was greatly reduced, and it was combined with the expansion port. Because of this, all the old cool accessories for the GBA no longer fit the Game Boy Micro. Accordingly, the charging also became different. In addition, they had to remove support for backward compatibility with Game Boy and Game Boy Color games.
However, this console had the best screen of all GBA consoles. It had as many as 5 backlight levels, which even the Nintendo DS didn't have. In turn, the idea of interchangeable panels originally appeared not for beauty, but to protect the screen. Since the console was no longer foldable, the screen was no longer protected, and Nintendo engineers decided to make a transparent plastic overlay for the screen so that if it got scratched, it could be replaced. However, they liked the idea so much that they started offering Kenichi their designs for the front panel. So, he told that one young employee, on his own initiative, made a "Hanafuda" design (a type of Japanese card deck) and brought it to him.
Game Boy Micro front panel – Hanafuda
And most importantly, they brought back the AUX port to this console. In the Game Boy Advance SP, they didn't have enough space, but in the Game Boy Micro, which is half the size, they did.
Release of the Console
This console was first shown on May 17, 2005, at the E3 2005 conference. It was presented by Reggie Fils-Aime. And you can watch the video of how it happened:
Interestingly, Reggie in his speech emphasizes that this is not a successor to the Game Boy Advance. They made a new design with an improved screen that fits in your pocket. This was done because there were many rumors about the Game Boy Advance 2.
In addition, photos from the booth have been preserved:
Game Boy Micro booth at E3.
I would like to separately note one photo:
As you can see, the consoles initially had a different series OXPA, not M##. And the model itself was called OXY-001, and there were no changes here. OXY comes from the word OXYGEN.
On May 18, 2005, Nintendo released a press release indicating the start date of sales in Japan (September 13, 2005) and the recommended price of 12,000 yen.
And so it happened, on September 13, 2005, the console appeared on the Japanese market, and on September 19, 2004, it was released in the American market.
In December 2005 (or possibly earlier), the Game Boy Micro could already be bought in Russia. For example, on the Ozon website, it was sold for 3,731 rubles.
Failure of the Game Boy Micro
Frankly speaking, this console turned out to be very strange, even from Nintendo's point of view. This device had a very ambiguous concept: "we will minimize the size and make it from the most beautiful materials so that it is bought as an elite device."
As further sales showed, this concept completely failed. If we talk about materials, the aluminum from which the body is made is really very pleasant to the touch, the design is stylish, but the size is both a plus and a huge minus of the console.
On the one hand, up to a certain point, minimalism was in trend, and all devices were shrinking, and all previous Nintendo consoles did not fit very comfortably in a pocket. On the other hand, it was at that time that another trend began - all devices began to increase in size. And the Game Boy Micro's screen was even smaller than a matchbox, and the overall size of the console was such that many people found it simply inconvenient to hold.
But it was not only the size of the console that hindered its sales. The second problem was competition. When the Game Boy Advance came out, it had no competitors. When the Game Boy Advance SP came out, the competitor of this console was only the GBA, but in the SP version, they added a battery and a backlit screen, that is, the device was significantly improved. And when the Game Boy Micro came out, the whole world was discussing the confrontation between the PlayStation Portable and the Nintendo DS. Moreover, the Nintendo DS also had support for GBA games. And it was the existence of the Nintendo DS that became the key reason for the poor sales of the Game Boy Micro.
Here it is worth paying attention to the price of the device, at that time the Nintendo DS was sold for $130, and the Game Boy Micro cost $99. In turn, the Game Boy Advance SP cost $79. And if, when buying the GBA SP, the difference was $50, which is generally significant, then when buying the GBM, the difference was only $30, and here you could already think about buying a more expensive and new console.
From 2001 to 2010, about 80 million Game Boy Advance family consoles were sold. And by the time the Game Boy Micro was released, 67 million consoles had already been sold. That is, there were 13 million sales left for all remaining consoles. And here Nintendo did something else strange. If you compare the screens of the Game Boy Advance family consoles, you could see how they improved. The Game Boy Advance had no backlight at all (for which Nintendo was heavily criticized), the Game Boy Advance SP AGS-001 had a front light (better than nothing, but much worse than what came later), and the Game Boy Micro had a very cool backlight (with 5 brightness levels). But at the same time as the release of the Game Boy Micro, the Game Boy Advance SP AGS-101 (a version with the same cool backlight) went on sale, and it turns out that Nintendo itself killed the only pronounced bonus of the console, leaving the Game Boy Micro only its reduced size, which, as we wrote above, is both an advantage and a disadvantage of the console.
Despite all this, in fact, Nintendo did not have any marketing campaign for this console, they released a very strange advertisement, and that was it.
And when buyers came to the store, they faced an interesting and difficult choice between the Game Boy Advance SP AGS-101 and the Game Boy Micro.
In 2022, the former head of Nintendo of America, Reggie Fils-Aime, released a book: Disrupting the Game: From the Bronx to the Top of Nintendo. In it, he shared his memories of working at Nintendo and told something interesting about the Game Boy Micro.
Reggie believed that creating such a console was a mistake. He really didn't want to sell the Game Boy Micro in the US, but the Japanese office insisted on it. Here's what he said:
"The American division of Nintendo planned to close sales of Game Boy Advance consoles. Back in early 2005, a plan was drawn up to sell off the remaining consoles on Black Friday.
But soon I heard about the Game Boy Micro. The concept of this device immediately seemed unviable to me. This console was incredibly miniature, the buttons were so small that it was inconvenient for an adult to press them, and the screen was tiny. All this did not correspond to modern trends in the electronics market, where everything was moving towards increasing screen sizes.
But the development of the Game Boy Micro continued, and we were forced to launch the system."
Reggie believes that if his team and other Western offices had learned about the idea of creating the Game Boy Micro earlier, they could have convinced Nintendo not to release such a console or to release it only in certain markets.
Limited Editions
During the existence of the Game Boy Micro, several very cool limited editions and faceplates were released for it.
On December 4, 2004, the Famicom Limited Edition version went on sale. Dedicated to the twentieth anniversary of the Famicom console.
It is designed in the style of Famicom joysticks.
Interestingly, a faceplate with the design of the second Famicom joystick was separately released and distributed through the Nintendo Club. It was distributed with the console body, but it is not a console, but a dummy.
Then the same console was released, but with an image of Mario on the back.
In 2005, two versions of the console were released: Pokemon Edition and Final Fantasy Edition:
And in 2006, the Mother 3 version was released.
I would like to separately talk about the Game Boy Micro Toonami Limited Edition. Toonami is a TV program that aired on the cable channel Cartoon Network and showed various anime.
In 2006, they held a promotion where you had to enter your email address on the website, and the person became a participant in the draw for such a console. Only 50 such consoles were released, and unfortunately, they are no longer available for sale.
Epilogue
The Game Boy Micro essentially died in 2006. If initially the Game Boy Advance SP AGS-101 was only released in America, then after looking at the sales of the GBM, Nintendo began to release the GBA SP AGS-101 worldwide. And this happened in March 2006 precisely because of the weak sales of the GBM.
But in fact, the Game Boy Micro is a wonderful console, and many people like it. It is light (only 80 grams!) and extremely small. If you have never held it in your hands, you can't even imagine how small it is. And it is really worth buying, at least to try it yourself. Although if you have never had a Game Boy Advance console, then perhaps this is not the best option for your first purchase.
