The original Game Boy was a gray brick with a murky green screen and no backlight. By every spec sheet, it should have lost. Instead it conquered the world, and a puzzle game about falling blocks is a big reason why.
The odd choice
When the Game Boy launched in 1989, Nintendo chose to bundle it with Tetris instead of a Mario game, which was a surprising decision, like a fast-food chain launching with a tray of very good salads. Tetris, created by Alexey Pajitnov in the Soviet Union, wasn’t a Nintendo property, and securing the rights to it for handheld devices involved a famously complicated negotiation led by Henk Rogers.
Why it was perfect
Tetris suited the machine in a way few games could. It was simple to learn, impossible to master and perfectly suited to short sessions on a bus or in a waiting room. It also appealed to everyone: adults, kids, parents and people who never considered themselves gamers. A handheld that a ten-year-old and their parents could both enjoy had a far bigger audience than one aimed at kids alone, and parents were more than happy to borrow it for “a quick turn.”
Cheap and tough on purpose
The Game Boy’s designer, Gunpei Yokoi, followed a philosophy often summarized as lateral thinking with withered technology: using mature, inexpensive components in clever ways instead of chasing the cutting edge. The result was a handheld with long battery life, a low price and a durable shell. Competitors with color screens burned through batteries and cost far more, which is a gentle way of saying they were fancy and the Game Boy was reliable.
The legacy
The Game Boy line went on to sell tens of millions of units and introduced a generation to games like Pokémon. But it started with a block-stacking puzzle and a very clever decision about what would make a small gray machine irresistible. Sincerely: sometimes the right idea is the humble one.