GB Operator
Get your preorder in while you can!
Romanian company Parametric Semiconductors SRL is bringing an interesting device called the GB Operator to market. It lets you play real Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance cartridges on a computer.
The device is currently available for preorder at: www.epilogue.co
Update.
I took the time to look into what it actually is and how it will work.
The concept turned out to be very interesting, though not without controversy. The biggest downside, in my opinion, is that cartridge support is emulator-based rather than hardware-based. And that's pretty much where the downsides end.
Now for the advantages:
1. It's an attempt to create something a little like the Nintendo Switch experience: you play on your way to work, say, Pokémon on the console. You come home, plug the cartridge into this device, continue playing on your computer, then pull it out and take it with you again the next day. The developers themselves describe this use case on Instagram:
2. The ability to dump save files and write them back to the cartridge. Nothing unusual here — many devices can already do this.
3. The ability to save photos from the Game Boy Camera. Again, that's a fairly standard feature. For example, the device below can handle both points 2 and 3 (sold on AliExpress):
4. Probably the most interesting feature: the ability to write your own games to a cartridge. This is where the value of the device becomes a little less clear:
• According to the developer, they plan to start selling blank flash cartridges for the device later on.
• In other words, you won't be able to grab just any rewritable cartridge from AliExpress and write your own game to it.
• If their blank cartridges cost less than a typical 300-ruble cartridge from AliExpress, this could be a very cool device. If not, there are more interesting alternatives that can also rewrite AliExpress cartridges such as these (sold on AliExpress):
5. And the final feature is checking whether your cartridge is authentic. Not exactly the most useful feature on its own, but taken together, the whole package looks very interesting.