Page Boy: Nintendo's LOST Game Boy Add-on | Game History Secrets

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Today on Game History Secrets, Liam talks about his journey to find the lost Nintendo Game Boy add-on, the PageBoy. This peripheral has been lost for many years and never fully documented before, but through determination and some amazing luck, the PageBoy lives again thanks to Liam's work.
Liam Robertson is a video game researcher and archiver. In his spare time, Liam creates videos and articles for various outlets, and will also be contributing to the Did You Know Gaming channel.
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Special Thanks to Eddie Gill. Without him this video would not have been possible.
#PageBoy #GameBoy #Nintendo

[@LiamRproductions]

Happy holidays, everyone!

[@Myblaxitis]

Happy Holidays to you too. 😊

[@cpt_kick_a_hoe_549]

Merry Christmas

[@bobthedopeman7327]

Merry Christmas!

[@Zekro-Gfx]

Its crazy how ahead of its time this could've been! Coming back 10 year's later down the line is proof of that!

[@theendofit]

It absolutely would have been massive failure. Almost no one would have bought it. Still cool but nintendo absolutely made the right choice

[@mr.altoids6002]

6:02 haha, saw the domain was for sale and decided to snatch it. I was actually planning on creating a site that can page my actual beeper so this'll come in handy.

[@whoswho2267]

That's actually pretty neat

[@jimbob3332]

You still have a pager?

[@Whurlpuul]

Pager? I hardly know 'er!

[@mr.altoids6002]

I enjoy old electronics and radio that's why I have one.

[@hilldwler420]

@@mr.altoids6002got tons of good ol analog vacuum tubes and equip myself. I dig all things electronic. I’ll never get tired of seeing the power led light up.

[@Onyxvoid]

Fascinating stuff. The sheer ambition and passion they had for this project is quite impressive. Truly ahead of it's time.

[@Nordlicht05]

I remember back than everything the Gameboy wasn't made for was dope as hell.

[@aisadal2521]

Dang, your ability to find and unearth even more lost articles never ceases to amaze me! Just when I think I know all there is about a certain topic, you come along with a new discovery! I love how I'm always learning new things 🥰

[@LiamRproductions]

Thanks very much!

[@juicek566]

You should watch Lady Decade if you haven’t already, she has tons of interesting topics of lesser known gaming topics.

[@maimetechy]

What ever he uses to search for this stuff we need we could find almost anything then

[@LiamRproductions]

@@maimetechy I just talk to game developers. There’s no magic secret :)

[@clark778]

There's an alternate universe where this became a thing and we are all now still using a modern version of pageboy

[@therealevilmudbug]

I can imagine the wii being called the turnboy, a turn of the page on a page boy. Advanced hardware allows the turn boy to have a page boy built in. Then it's just a wii

[@smokeymcpot69]

And to think I have to deal with f#ck boys smdh

[@Sonictheoofhog4]

Page boy advance Nintendo 64 pager GameCube pager The Wii, Wii U, and Switch have all these features built in

[@ParanoidTofu]

Imagine an alternate history where this actually came out and flourished! That would have been nuts.

[@Myblaxitis]

Anything is possible. 😗👍

[@Stinkoman87]

Potentially, Nintnedo could have used the Pageboy DS as a launch point in to making their own smartphones.

[@johneygd]

Well if nintendo combines all elements from all their handhelds and addons(including planned addons) just together,they could indeed make their own smartphone,even if it never will hold any candle against apple & samsung but still it would be cool to see it happen.

[@girlsdrinkfeck]

typical nintendo same as apple ,they get ideas pitched to them, say " nah " and then steal the ideas and concepts anyway without paying for loyalties

[@superzigzagoon]

Likely it would have become obscure history. Every time you look at this sort of topic you'll find something surprising.

[@hooptyhoop7862]

This was ahead of its time. It would have been so revolutionary.

[@607]

Why do you think so? Sure, this would have been an impressive tool at the time, but I don't think it would have been adopted by a lot of people. I found out only recently that smartphones, which are now ubiquitous where I live (the Netherlands), have been around since the early 2000's, and they only really gained traction a few years after the 2007 release of the iPhone.

[@ktvx.94]

So the man basically came up with humanity's entire lifestyle 20 years later, including DLC for games

[@NueThunderKing]

Basically

[@incognitoman3656]

DLC was invented many years before and communication by text and photo and internet browsing on mobile devices was practically impossible. Doing this with a controller dpad and some other things would be so much easier for consumers..

[@BlueKnight85]

Eddie Gill and the Page Boy: "I CAN SEE THE FUTURE!" Honestly though, this would've been the craziest thing ever in the early 2000's.

[@retrospect]

This was incredibly well done, loving the GameBoy videos!!!

[@gc8972b]

video: a minute ago comment: seconds ago video length: 17min 🤔

[@rux_ton]

im surprised at how many things i DONT know about the gameboy. No idea how you unearth this stuff but man am i glad you guys do because we need this history to be preserved in some fashion. Thanks for always teaching us new things like this! This is so awesome!

[@LiamRproductions]

Thanks very much.

[@cecillewolters1995]

This is one of the most interesting videos I have seen in a big while, thank you very much! :)

[@LiamRproductions]

Thank you. I'm glad you thought so.

[@607]

I love how you _only_ mention Sega as competitor at the beginning. xD What a fascinating piece of history! Great video, too.

[@emthegem8141]

I love these lost tech videos!!!! I know the algorithm hasn't been to kind to this channel recently but your guys's stuff is still super top notch :)

[@ChrisyBearTV]

Might be working again because I was just recommended this!

[@fistofreak3511]

This is probably the dopest shit found from a prototype like this! So much can be traced back to this!

[@BobbyMiller64]

Fascinating video! I like these deep dives into topics I'm not familiar with.

[@connormclernon26]

I've always wondered what it would be like if Nintendo had invented the modern Smartphone instead of Apple, based on stuff like this.

[@Xenothekid7]

Well, the modern Desktop layout with folders and a mouse cursor was invented by Xerox of all groups. It was only for office use, but they didn't know what else to do with it. Eventually, they gave it to a guy called Steve Jobs.

[@yardh]

I remember owning epic win mobile , RIM and s60 smart phones (that had copy paste and multi tasking) way before Apple gave us the semi dumb fashion phone. 👍 apple gave a capacitive screen and more finger friendly OS but that was just merging tech and someone had to do it first. Lg had the first capacitive screen, and win mo had loads of skins that were finger friendly by design but no capacitive screen. Apple were riding on the ipod popularity and it really worked for them I think they did a good job but it was fashion. It wasn't a complete OS for a few generations. So I can't see it as the start of the modern smart phone, just a step 👍 Microsoft suffered from such bad management it was a joke. They wanted to keep zune, xbox and windows phones completely separate to make money. That's the real what if (I think) What if MS had given a xbox/zune phone and put all their resources into it. 4 years after Apple released iPhone Nintendo gave us the 3ds and it still had a resistive touch screen because capacitive screens are not accurate enough for pure gaming machines. But resistive is bad for finger friendly OS. I don't think Nintendo ever wanted to go outside of their gaming bubble enough and they didn't have anything like the tech Microsoft had. 👍 Sorry I went all into memories there 😅

[@GamerFromJump]

A phone that would play great games and you couldn’t break with a nuke.

[@connormclernon26]

@@yardh no, it helped to put into context why Nintendo didn’t do it and why Apple did it

[@ElVlogdeBob]

why? that's as stupid as wanting them to make PCs. Is not that they needed it. They are hardware-software company and they are doing very well that way. No need to so other stuff. Funny how the so-called "fans" want Nintendo to die doing stuff like this.

[@Igorcastrochucre]

I love learning about tech companies trying to achieve what we have now with the limited tech they had then.

[@origintrackz5235]

hell yeah! i think the limitations actually forced them to be more creative with there designs!

[@soma1990]

We could’ve all been holding Nintendo phones right now…

[@Rob-hb7wh]

I knew nothing about workboy or really anything about the og Gameboys add-ons (og gameboy was just before my time), but this story and was son interesting! The fact the workboy seems to work so well really makes me think it was an unbelievably missed opportunity

[@svenbtb]

This is really fascinating, I had never heard of this before! I can understand a few reasons why it didn't finalize, but it's really interesting to learn about stuff like this. Super ambitious

[@ty_sylicus]

Amazing. So far ahead of its time!

[@Dave01Rhodes]

Meanwhile in Japan Nintendo dabbled with Mobile GB which connected the GB’s link port to several Japan-only mobile phones. Only a handful of games supported it, the most prominent being Pokémon Crystal. It never made it outside of Japan. There was also a JP-only satellite gaming service for the Super Famicom. It’s a shame that they took chances on those, even with no roadmap to get them to other regions, but canned this because it wouldn’t work in Japan.

[@antoniocialfi77]

Really makes you think what online gaming would have looked like back then if it got out of japan

[@viper8908]

Nintendo had Satellaview and Sega had Sega Channel, but they only downloaded broadcast content/games and didn't allow for online gaming. Nintendo wanted to launch it in North America with help of Microsoft, but these plans didn't flourish. For online multiplayer gaming, there actually was a third-party service called XBAND.

[@viper8908]

Microsoft's Xbox would later become the first console with actual online gaming in mind. Funnily enough, the logo looks much like unrelated XBAND's.

[@origintrackz5235]

@@viper8908 Yup! the xband was ahead of its time with all the functions it had! the team who created it were super passionate and i don't use this term lightly, but i think it applies to them. they were basically geniuses!

[@MasterArchfiend]

Man, owning all of the GB add-ons would be so cool. There's just something so awesome about all of them and would be fun to imagine a world where they all caught on.

[@Jolis_Parsec]

I’m imagining someone going to great lengths to do just that only for it to have an effect similar to the Infinity Stones from the Marvel movies or the Shankara Stones from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and allow the one in possession of all GB relics to rewrite history as it pertains to the GB and its game library. 😆

[@tkayube]

So they weren't fine with releasing this only in North America, but they were perfectly okay with the GBC mobile adapter for Pokemon Crystal only being released in Japan.

[@Blood-PawWerewolf]

Mobile phone companies are different in Japan. Since Nintendo is a Japanese company, they had a much better chance of getting it approved than in the U.S.

[@zero9112]

My thoughts exactly. Nintendo will always be looking out for home

[@erickemiliogazconarevalo3989]

I think the Mobile adapter was considered for the Américas and Europe aswell, but they did not expect they could not be able to reach an agreement with overseas Carriers.

[@JoshuaJacobs83]

That’s what he said

[@chadmorris5154]

In 2003 I would have 100% wanted this.

[@thenickster015]

I would've LOVED to have one of these as a kid if it came out! Imagine Pokemon wonder trades in the early 2000s!

[@bobafett4265]

Man Great Job Liam I love your work of investigations and such, keep it up man.

[@lunatpr5594]

I'd love to seen a DYKG on the Klonoa series!

[@Katosepe]

I have huge doubts that the Game Boy Color could have handled live video in the late 90s. Wish they had actually built this out so we could see one way or another.

[@scragar]

If it's being streamed then the console is entirely limited to the speed it can push the data into RAM from the cart, the GBA had similar RAM speeds and was able to do video at a similar sort of resolution to the GBC and low framerate. So yeah, it'd be possible, but I doubt it'd be usable unless they could use clever tricks like reducing the real resolution(do it against a fixed colour background to reduce the amount needing to be updated each frame) or running a low framerate(doing the feeds as more like a slideshow with animatioms than a continuous live video).

[@LiamRproductions]

It wasn’t streaming live video. As I said in the video, it was using assets already on the device to convey new information.

[@generalkenobi6687]

Greetings, comrades! I am a russian 14 yr old, and I am currently on my way of achieving perfect fluency in English, and what I can say, that every single DYKG video is where new words for me are at their abundance peak! This really helps me learn something new every day and keep my studies ongoing even out of the confines of school! Thank you, DYKG, for your righteous campaign and effort put into every video! Also thanks for such thorough explanations of things!

[@KLUTCHdot58]

Greetings to you, comrade, from England. Specifically the People's Republic of Yorkshire. ✊

[@JaredConnell]

You've got a pretty good vocabulary there buddy, good job!

[@elfedorausado]

Commissar Kenobi! You are a bold one

[@generalkenobi6687]

@@elfedorausado Hello there

[@chicocalte]

This would have been insane if they made this for the game boy advance and released promoted it for pokemon specifically. An internal game gear for the trainer.

[@donteriofloyd3746]

If you're not aware, there was actually something exactly like what you're describing for the gameboy advance sp. It was sold as a promotional item for when Pokemon Fire Red and Leaf green dropped back in the early 2000'sp

[@colt5189]

If they were able to pull off a deal. Then that could have been something that carried over to where even today they could have been getting royalties or something even though there isn't a need for an attachment.

[@jhonsmithy2873]

smart phone before smart phones

[@Tzen03]

What a fascinating concept! Thanks for showcasing this, Liam!

[@nkhazov]

Omg I’m surprised about the page boy I’d love to personally own it things are improved like the Wii U 3ds switch. Best regards Nikita.K

[@hilldwler420]

Why was this not pursued? Was it the intro of smartphones the apple and initial android releases that put a halt to it? I mean there is so many applications. If you’re gonna be playing games on it , make it do everything else why not?

[@ezrawyvern6795]

Funny enough, I heard about this add-on on a radio show on a classic rock radio show recently.

[@lowtech42]

Slotting every single GameBoy accessory in at the same time like stones in the infinity gauntlet 🤣 But seriously, this was another fantastic deep dive into something that would've been lost to time. Just as good as the WorkBoy video and fascinating how ahead of it's time it was!

[@LiamRproductions]

Thank you. I’m glad you enjoyed it.

[@JackCats0]

YOU THIEF! YOU STOLE MY SPICE GIRLS CD.

[@Yo_DynamoJoe]

From then on, Page Boy replaces your name with THIEF in all messages

[@bobthedopeman7327]

You deserve all 2 million subscribers.

[@mwbgaming28]

I've always wondered if the Gameboy was capable of displaying video When I was 10 there was nothing I wanted more than to be able to watch TV on my Gameboy color

[@gee_fm]

this would’ve been so ahead of it’s time

[@branscombe_]

this is new for me!

[@PrezzySK]

Is the sales pitch document available somewhere ?

[@LiamRproductions]

I wasn’t permitted to release them publicly. Sorry.

[@genkaiba15]

This while video I could only think of one thing: GS Ball in America. Sad day.

[@mikecraftbro]

That’s level ups outro song

[@theonlybilge]

5:18 Howard Lincoln? *THE* Howard "Night Trap will never be on a Nintendo system" Lincoln?

[@LiamRproductions]

Yep

[@stabinghobo57]

Great video, merry Christmas!

[@danielg.w5733]

this was way ahead of it's time

[@tonypang83]

All those functions, and it would've only required two AA batteries? Not sure how long it'd last before running out... 🤔

[@mariokarter13]

Paging Dr. Mario

[@UndyingEnergy]

Had this released, it would have made ultimate Punching Weight material. I like to imagine that there is a Parallel Universe Derek out there somewhere, doing this thing the justice it so rightly deserves. Awesome coverage on a truly ambitious device. It's crazy the kinds of things we would never learn about if not for investigations like this.

[@Shinobi33]

Excellent video

[@branscombe_]

i’m 3 years too early for this

[@RetroPiero]

For shame it never got released. Over time, someone could have released a homebrew patch for full internet search and could have gain the title GAME MAN, based on search.

[@Fabstron]

I'm really enjoying these type of videos! Great work!

[@Astonkid08]

The early 90's really was a wild west of tech. Absolutely fantastic

[@origintrackz5235]

It truly was!! i think the innovation came from the limitations within the hardware they were working with. it forced them to be creative to figure out solutions etc. nowadays the tech we have is still truly amazing, but it still seem to me at least as if we lost some of that creativity idk...

[@thefirstguyjaek255]

YOU STOLE MY SPICE GIRLS CD

[@djdrastic1]

Hi algorithm brought me here.

[@pablofmc]

It's undeniable. Nintendo always thinks about the japanese market FIRST, it's their utmost priority, to the point where they'd rather have something come out in japan but not everywhere else

[@JoshuaJacobs83]

That’s how Japanese companies work. American companies would do the same if they were as prevalent or less focused solely on profits

[@wesnohathas1993]

I'm certain this whole idea would have come to fruition if Nintendo could make it work in Japan, even if it wouldn't be made available anywhere else in the world.

[@nicodalusong149]

Naturally. Home market first. It's just easier to manage and fix. It's also why the international versions of games used to not have the bugs the japanese versions had since they had time to find out if there were bugs and patched them or fixed them some other way before releasing them to the wider market. That's not true anymore since Nintendo's into worldwide simultaneous releases now for their bigger titles. That's why we get buggier games now.

[@kitestar]

Looks like the workboy wasn’t the only lost gameboy add-on

[@Chaos89P]

There's a radio tuner that I would've loved to get my hands on as a kid, but I don't even know if it exists.

[@troystrain2436]

I initially thought this was going to be something like the Shark MX or whatever that thing was called, but this is much cooler.

[@MaxH0ward]

6:55 that cant be eric claptons real phone number right?

[@Yo_DynamoJoe]

Call it and find out

[@singletona082]

Fifteen year old me would have found this to be pretty f'ing amazing. Combine that with a way to get data on/off the thing and 'oh look it's turned the gameboy into a PDA.'

[@bkslsh]

This would have been a game changer if it came out in the late 90s, but I'd wage it would have been astronomically expensive if it was able to deliver all those features. On top of that it would definitely require a monthly service fee - even Sega Channel was a paid service. Or it might have been a huge flop. One of those "You guys aren't ready for that yet, but your kids are gonna love it" situations. Who knows!

[@madwax4771]

That backlight tho :D

[@HunterKiotori]

Imagine the things that are ahead of our time now, that some executives are canceling because they won't sell.

[@JadedJester739]

Man I thought you said Mario whistled the World War 1 theme... I was like wtf is that...? and THEN I was like holy shit the Mario song came from a WW1 song? Then it finally clicked, but it took a min lol.

[@Alfonso162008]

Same! I heard "World War 1 theme" and I was like "hold up, wait a minute..." 😂 I still don't know what he actually said, tho, it really sounded like he said World War 1 theme 😆

[@JadedJester739]

@@Alfonso162008 he says world 1-1 theme. From Super Mario NES. See what we did there?

[@highwind4559]

In an alternate universe we have Page Boys in 2021, instead of smartphones!

[@Owl_of_Books]

I love the little mugshot in the Gameboy "You thief! You stole my Spice Girls CD! " 😂

[@EvergreenWolf]

This is cool but why does Mario sound like a veggietales reject character

[@arielglr7177]

Dang, they really cancelled it because it was USA exclusive, while they did Japanese exclusive stuff and didn't even consider other markets smh

[@fauzanramadhan9046]

It makes sense since Nintendo is Japan company, and they will always prioritize home first

[@arielglr7177]

@@fauzanramadhan9046 yeah, but what they said is that they wanted all the world to have the same experiences with handhelds and games, then made multiple add ons and even a game boy that never left japan (Gameboy Light)

[@fauzanramadhan9046]

@@arielglr7177 they tend to use Japan as test market for new the hardware. Gameboy light is a unique case, because if it's release in the US it will collide with Gameboy Color line up (at the were already out). For the development side it was a strange time for gameboy R&D team because gunpei yokoi has already leave nintendo and project atlantis (Gameboy Advance) were still on the long development. And because of higher up at Nintendo wants a next gen gameboy to compete against Neo Geo in Japan and at the time there are rumors for bandai new handheld. Then Nintendo was forces to relelase the gameboy color a few months after gameboy light (at the time Nintendo was planning GBA to be the next gameboy but they still need more time for development)

[@arielglr7177]

@@fauzanramadhan9046 then what about the DS Japanese exclusive stuff?

[@rustytoyota]

Nice

[@evanhanley6437]

This is a really awesome product Nintendo endorsed. It should have become popular. Fair play to the creators.

[@thysonsacclaim]

@ 0:05 I love how the tops of the platforms look like DIPs.

[@saraflinn5705]

Sorry but the beginning of the video shows Mario land but grand dad color palette.

[@user-ls8pd1pz3h]

Imagine pairing that up with the gameboy camera and making a smartphone

[@TheAbsoluteJay]

Great research, super interesting video.

[@fiskburk2908]

And when you think the most obscure thing has appeared, nope another one more obscure shows up

[@TheCreepypro]

why are these game boy add-ons so interesting?

[@TheCasualSubculturist]

funny, i saw one guy made gameboy cartidge that allow to connect to modern internet via wifi

[@HotPikachuSex69]

You guys should get Hard4Games on one of your future episodes since they covered this already, and it was really in depth and detail. I’d love to see you guys do a collab over this product.

[@LiamRproductions]

Hard4Games has never covered the Page Boy before. This is a world exclusive.

[@HotPikachuSex69]

@@LiamRproductions they did the one for the work boy. They even had a working prototype unless I’m mixing them up with SSFF or Game Sack. I fall asleep to that stuff.

[@LiamRproductions]

@@HotPikachuSex69 No, you’re confusing them… with me. I am the only person with the WorkBoy prototype as seen in this video lol.

[@HotPikachuSex69]

@@LiamRproductions well, I’m assuming I’ve fallen asleep to your videos and woken up to that one haha.

[@SpookyButtz]

It would be cool to see the page boy being used in an analog horror series.

[@bland9876]

This would have literally turned it into a cellphone.

[@lynntaylor9681]

It's too bad it didn't come out at the time. With all the Japanese games that are region locked, it would have been nice to have a US region locked game add-on.

[@CommandLineVulpine]

Didn't you guys already do a video on this?

[@TheBlargMarg]

A man a head of the time, he seemed like the one to attempt to modernized wireless communication before it was relatively available.

[@johnanimespacemarine3041]

Just imagine an alternate universe where this actually came out and took off, Nintendo would have been considered to be the origin and creator of social media instead of the cell phone industry.

[@vadermasktruth]

Someone else did a video on this a year or two ago, and he had a working keyboard prototype from the inventor.

[@LiamRproductions]

It wasn't someone else. I am the same guy who did that video. You can see the same prototype in this video, before I transition into talking about this other, separate project :)

[@MrTubeStuck]

Thank you Liam for your unceasing research into really fascinating gaming history

[@LiamRproductions]

Thank you :)

[@Dremag_Gaming]

Even if it somehow did get approved. How long would've it lasted? Plus to think that feature ideas would be like these are something as well.

[@VictorHernandez-nj2lo]

Did you know Marvel vs Capcom

[@nidorinojohans]

The Link's Awakening music adds up to the dream-like nostalgia and cuteness of this sadly unmaterializable project. Cheers for the mind inventing it.

[@TheDeadUnlucky]

The only thing that might have held this product back was price but if they managed to figure that out we might have seen later gameboys have this integrated into the hardware. So cool seeing old companies explore what was possible with any bit of hardware they could get their hands on. Now the only question is can a modders and hardware enthusiast recreate something like this.

[@mattwo7]

And to think, we could have gotten internet-based wireless trades and battles in Pokemon Crystal like Japan.

[@chompythebeast]

*YOU THIEF! YOU STOLE MY SPICE GIRLS CD* Yep, that's all pretty 90's

[@hubzcaps]

Dat backlight doh

[@mxjuno1998]

what a creepy opening