You Could Take Photos With Your Game Boy…

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Back in 1998, Nintendo released an unusual set of products for the Game Boy: a printer and a camera. Turns out they're pretty cool, so let's check them out!
Recommended printer paper: amzn.to/43L6TdW
Chapters:
00:00 - Intro & Overview
02:19 - Unboxing
05:06 - Using the Camera
07:48 - Additional Camera Modes
13:54 - Viewing Photos
19:37 - Games & Extras
26:25 - Setting Up the Printer
28:42 - Printing a Photo
30:54 - Something Goes Wrong...
32:09 - Printing a Photo 2: Electric Boogaloo
33:05 - Printing with Pokémon Gold
35:19 - Outro
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Background Music:
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Some materials in this video are used under Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, which allows "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, commenting, news reporting, teaching, and research.
#MichaelMJD #GameBoy #Nintendo

[@IceBreak23]

"who are you running from?" will always be the best part from this camera toy, it's a classic

[@eugiblisscast]

Creepy but in line with the rest of the aesthetic 🤣

[@_cat_guy_]

sometimes it pops up with anoter message after who are you running from

[@SmeddyTooBestChannel]

@@_cat_guy_ don't be so silly!

[@_cat_guy_]

@@SmeddyTooBestChannel just now i took a picture of the eclipse with a gameboy camera

[@win_ini]

no it says "don't be so silly!" sometimes​@@_cat_guy_

[@benial]

The game boy camera software was developed by Creatures Inc, which was born out of Shigesato Itoi's company Ape Inc. They developed Mother and Earthbound, which is why the Shoot menu is stylised as an old school RPG and is why its filled with so many strange details and easter eggs. The whole printer/camera project was headed by Hirokazu Tanaka, who's worked as a composer since some of nintendo's earliest arcade games, and decided to reuse and rearrange a song from Mother as the Camera's true credits theme (not the one with the dancing guy)

[@Toonrick12]

TBH, I think Tanaka being the dancing guy makes more sense.

[@Yuuri066]

Ape being the devs makes so much of the bizarreness make so much more sense...

[@pr4420]

So that's why the credits theme is Twinkle Elementary...

[@stevef6392]

"So I've got Eddy over here..." I totally thought that was going to be a picture of a dog or cat!

[@burts06]

u new to channel

[@stevef6392]

@@burts06 no no - just didn't know the little...figurine (?) was called Eddy. :)

[@taylorwoolston8856]

You must be new to the channel.

[@fuseegelee]

Yeah you’re new to the channel.

[@packerfan10]

I found one of these on the playground in 5th grade in 1999 late in the school year (back when schools still got out in June). I plugged it in my Gameboy and took a picture of my ding a ling and put it back in the lost and found. If I would have got caught it would have been all bad.

[@GlitchyBastard]

LMAO you're a legend😂

[@petermmm42]

Underrated comment

[@tyttuut]

When did schools stop getting out in June?

[@packerfan10]

@@tyttuut In my area 2006 they started going to a college calendar. Start in late August and end in mid May.

[@rabiroden]

There's actually a fairly sizeable community around this thing. There are all kinds of mods you can do. There are 3D printable shells you can install it in, custom ROMs you can flash to it, hardware to dump the pictures to your computer or your phone. People have mounted giant professional level zoom lenses to this thing. There's just something about the Camera that attracts tinkerers, trying to get the most out of very little, and really it's been that way since it launched over 25 years ago.

[@Dee_Just_Dee]

Haha, it really has been that way since more than 25 years ago. I remember around 1998 or 1999 for giggles I plugged the Game Boy Camera into my Super Game Boy, plugged my SNES into my VHS VCR's composite video input, and plugged a stereo with a microphone into the VCR's audio inputs. Makeshift video camera!

[@BilisNegra]

For kids at least, this was a well rounded product. It's not just about the camera module. This device is a camera AND a cartridge with (again, for kids) fun software . If you could just shoot and view photos, users would get bored so quickly with that crappy -even for the time- quality, put the thing in a drawer and forget about it, but as it is, the software makes up for the camera limitations.

[@Akahigep]

Quality in this toy was kinda insane. Keep in mind when it launch, to have a camera this small and also doing things with those photos like "filters" was something unthinkable back then

[@dirt_lot_photography]

Almost thought we were gonna get a 5x5 pixel selfie of MJD 😂

[@tails2012tim]

😂

[@cashnelson2306]

It was my first ever experience with digital photography! I loved it so much. The fact it swiveled around blew my lil 8 year old mind

[@TweeterMan287]

I love my camera and printer! Still got them. I've always been paranoid about my save battery in my camera dying and losing all my pics from my childhood. I then discovered some homebrew on N64 that will read the SRAM contents of whatever GB cart you have in the N64 Transfer Pak, and copy it to a file on the SD card that's in your N64 flash cart that ran the homebrew. I then loaded that .sav file in an emulator, and individually screenshot all of the pics in my album. Pics backed up successfully ❤️

[@ColdWarAviator]

31:05 When people tell me that Amazon will be the only store one day, I take heart in the fact that there is value in being able to actually look at a product in brick and mortar stores and actually KNOW what you are getting.

[@GGigabiteM]

Amazon may have ended up in that position had brick and mortar stores not stepped up their game and started offering a larger variety of merchandise, and more convenient shopping options. That and internet sales tax became a thing, so Amazon couldn't pedal their wares for significantly cheaper. I remember the dark ages of places like Best Buy only selling brand name computers and massively overpriced accessories. Now they have merchandise that not even Amazon has available at reasonable prices. I've forgiven them for trying to charge me $30 for a simple USB-A cable 10+ years ago. Best Buy and Walmart have saved my ass numerous times when I needed some electronic item that I couldn't wait a week to get it from Amazon or some other online shop.

[@Markimark151]

I loved the Game Boy Camera, for a 12 year old that was introduced to this, a digital camera that used no film to take pictures, I took pictures of my friends and cousins who needed to see their pictures right away at birthday parties! I mostly sent pictures to a computer or VCR via Super Game Boy on SNES. I didn’t own a GB printer, but I printed photos through a B&W laser printer at my uncle’s house or school’s computer lab.

[@joonglegamer9898]

Had one when they were literally given away for 9 bucks each at the last of its lifeline. We were in Animation school, and these were quite useful as a quick low-res "Line tester", that's like taking a photo of each of your animation poses and drawings, and playing them back like a flip-book later to see flaws in your animation.

[@shirleydotxml]

YESSSS you showed the "who are you running from" easter egg! It's so goofy!

[@aheiiv]

24:57 I guess that's one way to put yourself into a game

[@Downlup]

How is it that in 6 minutes you watched 25 minutes of a video? How tf

[@soniccdx]

nostalgia time .. still have my n/a camera blue color, never did get the printer though .. pictures i took on it from around 2000/2001 are still in there ...

[@TheUltimateYouTuberyay]

33:10 It's not a MJD video unless something goes wrong.

[@Penultimate_]

5:08 it’s no secret that atomic purple looks great michael

[@Kitsudote]

22:41 I can tell you, that annoyed the sh*t out of some parents 🤣 but it really is a cool thing! Getting kids to unleash their creativity is really a beautiful and important thing! :)

[@RupeeClock]

The "Run" menu option is there because the screen is meant to recreate a JRPG action menu, hence why it includes stuff like "Magic"

[@SmeddyTooBestChannel]

sure it's more "toy" than "camera" but i absolutely adore the breadth of features and options they give you just to make stupid photos with

[@LatiLag]

Ah, what a software inside this little camera! Very funny but also.. a little disturbing! But It intrigue me more and more than modern but boring and minimal camera software of smartphones In 2000 Neil Young use a photograph taken by his daughter Amber with the Game Boy Camera for his album "Silver & Gold"

[@psychorabbitt]

I wanted a GameBoy so bad back in the early 90s. Aaaand instead I got an NES. Which was also fun and I actually still have it 30+ years later.

[@platinum_tulip]

so excited to see you cover the Game Boy Camera - i love this thing so much that i literally got some of my wedding photos taken with one.

[@css1323]

Still got my camera and printer, so many memories saved!

[@Koopai386]

Imagine the ads for these cameras be like. You check out the new gb camera!!! With ultra high resolution and with an included printer!!! Get it today and save your favorite moments in 128x112 pixels!

[@Yuri_the_Dragon]

the german gb camera ad is extremely unhinged

[@Koopai386]

@@Yuri_the_Dragon it's gotta be the german language and accent, but it is pretty unhinged

[@mayw6571]

Oh my childhood! The Camera was a classic, and I had a printer too! Stickers everywhere!

[@bkid8626]

I had the game boy camera and printer! It was so crazy to me that I was able to print out what was really a pretty terrible quality picture even for back then, but it was using a game boy! I think I've lost track of the printer, but my game boy camera is still knocking around in a drawer somewhere around the house.

[@Dee_Just_Dee]

Something that struck me as really unique about it (and it still does strike me) is how fast you can go from taking a picture to printing a hard copy. Polaroid photos took _minutes_ to develop, and portable photo printers for 1990s digicams were as much a luxury item as the digicams themselves if not even moreso.

[@Ara_x67]

Keep Going ❤👍🏻 Best Technical KZbinr

[@piercebros]

Great sponsorship drop, realy well done. Great menus

[@georgeboisvert8012]

I Really Love This Video About the Gameboy Camera & The Gameboy Pocket Printer this is so EPIC!

[@FatherMcKenzie66]

I bought one last month for 5€, a blue one, and it was full of dog and sea photos, so cool

[@youssifmansour]

Love your videos! Keep up the fantastic work! ♥

[@gl5301]

You battery mixing monster!

[@smugshrug]

i had both of these and got way more entertainment out of them that only a child could. such a novelty.

[@wolf1438]

That 6th battery: my disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined

[@AfterBurnerTeirusu]

The RUN joke is obviously a nod to JRPG battle screens. The entire menu is based on one.

[@Mr.Postal]

When I would be able to travel time i would go all the way back at the start of computers and enjoy that nostalgia.

[@G_Fantastic]

mjd trying not to show his face infront of the gameboy camera challenge

[@balocava]

This combo was my childhood! First digital camera in my whole household.

[@mecerman4665]

This guy always makes my day

[@yoinkylive]

gameboy camera photography is one of my favourite nieches actually!!! its so awesome!

[@soaktinbleech1106]

I had one of those as a kid

[@thepirategamerboy12]

So glad you show run, it's like a requirement with the Game Boy Camera.

[@_carg]

Yay another upload

[@sebastian_meier]

thanks! this brought back a lot of memories - now I gotta find that PocketCamera again and hope it still works

[@j.w.techchannel]

Awesome video! The Game Boy Camera looks pretty cool I think, it looks like it would have been a lot of fun to use as a kid. I like the printer too.

[@joshj88]

This was also the first place you saw Pokémon. One or two of the stamp albums is all Pokémon since it was also made by creatures inc

[@kFY514]

I never had a GameBoy as a kid, let alone the GameBoy Camera, but I can see myself spending hours and days playing with this software. The camera hardware is crude but they really outdid themselves to make this as fun as possible. And the whole aesthetic is just delightfully late-90s. Congratulations, you just made me regret not having that as a kid 😅

[@Project68K]

That sucks...

[@XzTS-Roostro]

Nintendo, GameFreak, and Creatures really said, "WHY ARE YOU RUNNING¿!"

[@dooji]

man gameboys, I miss the old pokemon games :< didn't know these things existed for the gameboy so TIL

[@jishan6992]

Those face imageries from that run option are literally nightmare fuel if i owned a gameboy camera as a kid and saw those images i would be traumatised

[@fmt1890]

i still have my game boy camera, with pictures I took on it. however whenever the 30 photos were taken and I tried to take more than I could, I saw these creepy people with that error music playing, it always freaked me out

[@Mellence]

This would have been the best episode for a face reveal, low quality enough that you still maintain much anonymity but we get the general idea! Love the video, the camera and printer are an amazing concept for the time on a handheld such as the Gameboy

[@AB-Prince]

did you know the gameboy color can show different palletes using the D-pad and A or B when using non-color cartriges.

[@tails2012tim]

I found that out with some Pokemon game by just messing around on startup

[@GreigaBeastDS]

Are the images stored on the cartridge as any sort of recognizable image format? Normally no one would access this, but I'm curious.

[@firstrobotlegacy1289]

I do remember looking at these

[@Jdeadevil]

Good lord, the nostalgia!

[@aurathedraak7909]

So, those faces are real people that made this device, aka "easter eggs" also if you put the camera on the Super Nintendo accessory it would work just like any game would.

[@RC-pj1pr]

I remember getting blisters on my fingers from that Run Run Run mini game

[@DaxtonAnderson]

If you rotate the gameboy camera lens, you'll notice it clicks at the 45 deg point, those are for the panorama mode!

[@pimeja7]

7:35 this beat is fire

[@danieln.285]

Oh yeah I think I played with my friend's GB and Camera when I was a kid, but never got to experience the printer. Now I've got two of them, one needs a new roll of thermo paper and the other one is still factory sealed in it's box. No way i'm taking that thing out lol.

[@steammachine3061]

My first experience with digital photography was in the mid 80s when my school has a fun day and there was a BBC micro computer set up with a camera to capture digital images. They were asking 50 pence per image which I couldn't afford but for reasons unknown to me (more likely because they wanted to capture my big hair on cam) I got an image taken for free. That would later adorn the wall of my classroom the full term (well i wasn't paying for it but it was already printed) which I managed to get at the end of term. Interestingly from recollection the image quality wasn't far removed from that of the Gameboy camera although it was printed out on a4 paper rather than the tiny strip of thermal that Gameboy later used

[@twithnell]

The way that box opened, it was a missed opportunity to brand it pocket monster camera.

[@Dee_Just_Dee]

About the print quality with the replacement paper: I think it might be possible to get a better-quality print with the absolute freshest batteries you can find. There's also a hidden menu to adjust exposure and choose a different frame when printing - it's accessible when you hit Select just before confirming the print. And something else that might be worth trying - maybe I should give it a whack - is to jerry-rig a DC power supply in the place of the batteries. And one final possibility is that the print quality is less than perfect because the calculator paper is slightly thinner than the original sticker paper, causing the print head to not make good contact. Finding a way to rig some kind of backing onto the paper or doubling it up ought to change that.

[@ImpiantoFacile]

I was hoping for a face reveal given the topic of the video. Oh well…

[@chrism869]

He will probably do it at some point or when he's ready

[@TheRaveCrocker]

There was also a cameraphone attachment called the campho

[@yuseiyamoto]

even when an battery in an game is empty, you get an bit of time after the save actually gets lost after turning the consoleo of

[@RosieBee463]

Man, I forgot how weird gameboy camera was!

[@BananasGoMooDev]

I loved the gameboy camera! i still have mine lol. I never had the printer though.

[@nR-kv7xo]

Very interesting. I thought it was just a camera, makes total sense it came with games, price was half of the console itself, otherwise kids would take 2 photos and get bored. Nice in-depth review

[@universalperson]

The Game Boy camera actually has some different album B pictures and some stickers in the Japanese release and in the Zelda version. Weird stuff!

[@lonergothonline]

now you can make a wall featuring pokedex printouts, to go along with your floppy disk wall.

[@Zanpaa]

I think your save file gets kept for a few seconds even when the save battery is dead, so if you just turned the game boy off and on again that would explain why it still showed. The battery in gen 2 games dies pretty quickly since it's used for the real time clock.

[@yt_consistency]

yea i think most games are like that, taking out the cartdrige and plugging it in again and then turning it on is a better test in my experience

[@yt_consistency]

that also explains why my gen 1 battery is still working somehow

[@tails2012tim]

Omg a mjd Gameboy video

[@MegaManNeo]

I loved my GameBoy Camera, still have mine too. Sadly the save battery died just mere days before my cartridge dumper was in the mail, so I lost all the actually really good quality (considering the camera's specs) photos I have taken since I was like 10 years old :,(

[@richieh92]

I've still got the game boy camera and printer! I don't think you can get the label paper any more though!

[@gengar-1997]

About the "who are you running from?" thing, there's a small chance to display a second error screen that says "don't be so silly!". also do what you want

[@CaelThunderwing]

i learned the hard way, DO NOT use these on a Retron5, it'll over-volt it destroying the cart, but intrestingly enough w/ a special Build of mGBA for the 3DS you can use the native cameras on the 3DS as the Gameboy Camera (but requires a Legally obtained dump of the cart. )

[@jorijoestar4998]

I love buyee. It's how I get most of my Miku stuff

[@JSTREAMGAMER-bp6bu]

the who are you running from is very creepy more creepier with the photo

[@ShayBlez]

TIL, a purple GBCam exists, coool. I had a blue one growing up.

[@hag2615]

Fun fact: In Japanese version, when you select run, it says "What are you running for?", instead of "Who are you running from?". Also there's another text straight up saying "You fool" to your face. Edit: Also also the guy dancing in the credit is Kentaro Nishimura, one of the composers of Gameboy Camera. This is confirmed in the official guidebook.

[@butterccm]

That Pokémon thing is so cool

[@g.u.959]

25:02 I believe that guy dancing is supposed to be Satoru Iwata? Correct me if I’m wrong, of course!

[@itsnot1c]

This guy will find anything to make content with

[@GeomancerHT]

Yes.

[@pcc404]

i found a gameboy bag. a BAG. at a thrift store (it had puches for cartridges Etc.)

[@artej11]

Perfect camera to hunt for big foot

[@hueluca]

The German ad to this was literally killing me 😂

[@thatoneglitchpokemon]

Well, I am a Game Boy geek, so i already knew this. I own 2 Game Boys cause I like them so much!

[@lejacobofficial]

Next: "I made a video with a gameboy!"

[@marzenarzasa5740]

You should check out project 2000, its a windows 10 version made to look like windows 2000 and its really convincing

[@Dee_Just_Dee]

I miss my Game Boy Camera. I mean, I still have one sitting around (the printer too) but my first one got stolen. I never did quite get all of the trophy images unlocked on the second one. Ah, it's just as well - I bet the SRAM is just about flat after ~25 years. Maybe sometime I'll swap the battery and pop the camera into my Game Boy Advance SP or Super Game Boy and see how far I can go.

[@SeaJay_Oceans]

Ya usually want to discard the outer layer of thermal paper, the first few inches of paper. :-) Amazing it works with little AA batteries.

[@AttosLins]

I found my old GB camera a few days ago. Anyone got any idea how to save the pictures in it into my pc?

[@TravisTravis222]

Who are you running from is actually a credits scene

[@DarthCrust66]

Dam! We almost saw MJD’s face

[@Garberekk]

your the best vintage tech youtuber :D