The Verge has an article about a very unusual and rare Game Boy accessory.
But the link cable was just the beginning of the Game Boy’s wild, bizarre experimentation with the future. In the late ‘90s, Japanese game company Hudson Soft eventually came up with a more radical idea to bring wireless connectivity to the handheld. It would use infrared — built directly into game cartridges. That way, you could transfer data between two games, or even download data from the internet, directly onto the game. And for some inexplicable reason lost to time, I convinced my parents to buy the one and only Game Boy Color game sold in North America to feature this technology.
The system itself was called GB Kiss, named after the awkward physical dance two players would have to perform to bring the cartridges close enough to one another to initiate the infrared data transfer. For Hudson Soft, it was a remarkably ambitions idea, a leftover from its attempt nearly a decade prior to crack the home console market through its partnership with NEC Home Electronics on the TurboGrafX-16, a device that failed to gain traction but nonetheless spawned a dizzying number of wild accessories and mods.
Few things fascinate me more than rare, unique, and obscure console accessories and expansions from the ’80s and ’90s, so this is right up my alley. I had no idea this ever existed.
Thom, you should look for the GBA-game Boktai.
It uses a light-sensor to control the ingame world.
And it’s a fun game in itself 😉
https://nintendo.fandom.com/wiki/Monster_Maker:_Barcode_Saga
I really really wanted this to be made into an english version as a kid, but couldn’t find it
At the same time, infrared data transfer was a feature in mobile phones and PDAs like the Palm Pilot. It was only when Bluetooth came out that IR ports were phased out in new handhelds.
For obvious reasons, IR is a mess, low transfert bitrate (9600 bauds top) and low range. But sure there are so cheap to integrate.
Hm, and Game Boy Color (which launched around the time of this game) also has built-in infrared.
They were also used effectively as a way to cheat on tests, but it required line of site and a non observant teacher. My brother’s class got busted, because they were idiots. Two people coordinating an ir transfer isn’t hard to hide, but when 16 out of 30 are doing it, its pretty blatant.
PS. And IR remained in use for quite a few years after Bluetooth arrived – my 2005 Nokia 6020 still has it, as did Nokia 3110 Classic (from ~2007, which also had BT IIRC) of my father.
The Atari Lynx was also planned with IR linking (hence the docs talk about “RedEye”). But that has been dropped for ComLynx, a wired connection which worked pretty well.