is a senior editor and founding member of The Verge who covers gadgets, games, and toys. He spent 15 years editing the likes of CNET, Gizmodo, and Engadget.
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The race to make the Lego Game Boy play actual Game Boy games ended before it even began. The same day Lego officially launched the set, Natalie the Nerd revealed she’d already transformed it to play real Game Boy cartridges on real Game Boy chips.
Turns out she’s not stopping there! Natalie is now working on complete drop-in upgrade kits for the Lego Game Boy — no soldering required — and partnering with maker marketplace Crowd Supply to handle the logistics. She warns that this won’t be something you’ll want to play every day, but she’s still making it real.
She’s calling her kit the Build A Boy, and she says the completely pre-soldered version should truly be “drop in and play.” It’s her custom-designed board with everything you should need beyond the bricks, including:
an actual harvested Game Boy Pocket CPU
a 2.7-inch 320 x 320 display
working switches you can place behind your Lego buttons and D-pad for actual controls
a speaker and a volume wheel
a rechargeable battery
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