GameBoy Cartridges On Your Phone? - Why It FAILED! 

So much information to try and cram into one reasonable length video. There’s loads of things I didn’t mention. The main thing is that it does play the games well, feels and looks great. The downsides are the software. The fact they didn’t make their own software which would have made this thing perfect is a big shame. However I’m sure they just didn’t want to face any legal problems with Nintendo. Let me know your thoughts! Hopefully you still enjoyed the video. :)

I love how pride filled and brave of a decision it was to randomly bring out that long boy Gameboy without warning.

This thing failed SO HARD that I ACTIVELY answer as many Amazon questions as possible, telling everyone how much this thing sucks and telling them to just drop their $50 on a real DMG-01.

it seems just fine, a great concept done just fine, i hope to see more stuff like this done in the future

I would not mind a longer video like this, love this type of content and more of it is all good with me.

You can play GameBoy games pretty easily on an iPhone without jailbreaking it or having an Apple Developer account. Search for AltStore and the Delta emulator. Works great!

It's either purist OG game boy for nostalgia and the physical art or emulators with roms on a phone for convenience. There is no in between. Nobody wants to also carry a frankenphone.

You don't need to be jailbroken to emulate games on an iPhone anymore. AltStore allows apps like Delta (gba emulator) to be installed via a third party cert.

This is such a cool looking device even with the flaws, I ended up buying an Odroid Go insted just because I am scared of someone snatching my phone while i play in the bus

I think if they just allow a temporary menu back into it and just kicked you back to the menu instead of doing the piracy notification all the time it would have been made better along side taking the time to get GBA games to work as well

When you pulled out the long gameboy I burst in laughter 😂😂 I didn't expect that

I just received a super rare Gameboy advance SP the one where staff member for Nintendo used to have a game boy advance SP in a holster were people could ask a member to try the Gameboy but the staff member used to still be attached to the game boy by a metal cable

Recently got one so I make use of LSDJ, music tracker software that does Gameboy chiptunes. It works with my S20 and other emulators. The only complaint I really have is no headphone jack or link cable, which is a shame.

Also that message is wrong as well. Copying your own games if perfectly legal it's just shareing or selling them that isn't.

I think that the need to remove the phone isn't that bad especially if you are mostly playing 1 game at a time.

I have one. Honestly, its not worth it for playing carts. BUT if you want to just play roms, you 100% can. And it is AMAZING for rom hacks and stuff. If u can get it for 20$... it may be worth it. If u already have a gb, its not so worth it.

You can backup your carts and saves by using the my files app with the game being left in. As soon as you remove the game it deletes the rom, but I just put my files app next to the Hyperkin companion app on the home screen and once the Hyperkin app had read the game I minimized it and used my files to move the smartboy.gb file and the .sav file to an SD card and rename it. I backed up all of my original pokemon Carts and saves using this thing.

I thought you were going to say when you mash the buttons it breaks your screen

I want one of these but with ABXY buttons and L and R buttons. Is there anything like that? Sometimes I prefer portrait mode instead of landscape

I bought one but I was disappointed when I couldn't save to the cartridge, just to the phone

Good idea. I'd rather just emulate all the old games on my PSP. Its a similar size as that additional case with buttons.

Can you use an everdive with it? If so, wouldn't that remove a lot of the problems it has?

Will it work with the gameboy camera? Or perhaps the Gameboy Test cartridge?

Well my reasons not to get this is 1. I have a custom clean IPS screen real gameboy color, and 2. I also have the emulator that simulates a real gameboy on my phone so... yep

It would be nice if Nintendo would come out with their own version of this that worked on more phones. I would pay a lot for such a device.

this whole thing could have been resolved if they bothered to make their own emulator app, there are plenty of open source gb emus to jam into your app but no they had to use a stupid play store emulator not designed for this and ruined it all

I played pokemon yellow fire red on gba emulator and now I am playing pokemon ultra moon and then i will play pokemon emerald and pokemon heart gold and every single pokemon game some people hate pokemon because they have never played or watched pokemon I love pokemon but I really want a nintendo switch

Cool concept but not ideal. I think Using a third party controller is a much better option. Affordable + less hassle

Eliot: "I don't think you can get Game Boy ROMs on your iPhone without jailbreaking it" Me: *laughs in Moto G Fast* 🤣

What's the GBC game at 9:45 ?

Is it that hard to instead of showing a piracy message to just close the MyOldBoy app?

Little did you know that this whole video was made just so he could FLEX his "rare" minuet copy and make it look seamless/unintentional ;)

the way you have to disconnect the phone to play another game isnt all that bad i would definitley buy this but i dont have any gamebiy cartidges

I tried watching this video yesterday when RU-vid shut down and then I forgot about it till today

It's an ok idea, but... phones are naturally ok to play old Gameboy games. Emulator like the Pizzaboy makes any phone a Gameboy Color, which works great for games like Pokemon.

I never bothered with the smartboy software, just downloaded my boy and configured it as a controller in settings. Ya you have to use roms instead of it physically ripping them each time you insert, but having the option to play advance and change games easier makes this a nice controller.

This seems FAR more difficult than just buying an OG Gameboy for $20 US.

Have you looked up to see if there's any third party apps that let you play any ROM on the thing? Surely someone out there has made one!

I feel like the Homebrew Community could take a crack at this, to me it seems like it's a software issue and not a hardware issue. so if someone was able to write a new app it probably would make this device better.

Feels like this would put a lot of strain on your charging port

my analogue pocket can't come soon enough

I bought this about a year ago and absolutely love it. I've tried to use my actual cartridges and like you it was just a pain it's much easier if you just use the emulator, map the controls and use ROMs

I own this and what I use it for is dumping my roms and save files. If you've got a bluetooth mouse hooked up or tricky fingers, you can copy that rom file and it won't delete it. It's a great way to back up saves if you have one laying around

I like how he implicates that ROMs or having ROMs is illegal... It's very much not, the only illegal part is sharing your dumped ROMs.

Smartboy? More like Shartboy

These issues seem like they would be easy to fix by someone with the right know-how - ie not me.

They're saying this about games that have been out of print for 20+ years...

"Everyone has a phone right?" ... Nice.

I WAS LITERALLY GOING TO BUY THIS YESTERDAY

the games look, play and listen great beacuse MyBoy is a great emulator on its own so what you are really getting is just a DRM'd ROM ripper, and i bet if you do some meddling around with a file explorer you could copy it elsewhere and just use MyBoy to play the ripped ROMs without the need to stick them

You're probably better off waiting for the Analogue Pocket than getting one of these.

OMG I have one of those! I totally agree! Why don't you just use the cartridges on your Gameboy anyway!

This seems like it could have been such a novel concept. It's a shame it wasn't executed particularly well!

Man I've always been so interested in these things since they came out, always wondered if they were any use, kind of a pity it has so many downsides, guess we will have to keep using our ips modded gameboys, great video

It fail because you can used an emulator on your phone with hundres of games, instead of putting cartridges

Imagine, in version one they wanted you to smash your phone each time you change the cardridge! So this means real progress to them 😂

0:02 FBI OPEN UP!!!!!!

"ROMs..." **gets locked up and then has the video taken down**

ROMs: *exist* Prison: _Allow me to introduce myself._

Technically speaking, since you're dumping your own games for personal use, it's perfectly legal in the U.S.

If you’re concerned about downloading roms from elsewhere or whatever and have a computer, you can just dump the roms you have using a rom dumper and then just transfer the files onto your phone. That way the files will be both on your phone and on your PC in case files corrupt or your phone stops working

Wasn't it because it was basically just a front end to extract cartridges to your phone which are just Rom's

The Retrode 2 existing (and therefore the ability for anyone to dump their stuff easily) puts the attitude toward ROMs in this video in a pretty weird place. Just saying, this approach never really needed to be here even if you wanted to play your dumped carts onto your phone.

I've always thought this was pretty neat... great vid man 👍

Finally ill be able to take some high quality pictures with my gameboy camera!

9:43 - oh yes! Keitai denjuu telefang. Nice game!. Always wondered how good this thing would be. Interesting to see it working :)

Emulator apps: I'm abouta end this whole man's career...

"It looks lovely and feels lovely. (Pause) And then it all goes downhill." Yep. That got a good laugh from me. Nice job!

"Why it failed" 1.) Because they didn't make them compatible with more phone models. For example my phone (Which **is** an android) has it's charger plug slightly to the side so it just wouldn't fit. So yeah, I was bummed out it wouldn't work for my phone and I sure wasn't going to go buy a brand new one just for this when I have a working Gameboy already. 2.) It's not something that just plugs in and you play. A lot of people where hoping that it would just make your phone have an option pop up like when you plug it into your computer so you can switch it's mode over to the console, but finding out about all the extra downloads from reviews and stuff killed interest because at that point why not just download a free emulator and bootleg a ROM? 3.) Having to buy a product just to pay a seperate fee for the "full version". That's some EA levels of BS right there. Also something that could fix a lot of issues is and On/Off switch that resets everything automatically.

Hyperkin do things quite well and quality products? Um, no 🤣

Nobody: Absolutely nobody: The Retro Future: "R̵̢̡͖̜͎̤̲̰̣͖͓͙͚͓̪̹̦̩̯͈̜̥̲̆͐̽͆̀̍͛̔́͊̎͐́̾͛̃͛͛̃͑̅̊̄̎̂̍͒̒̂̚̚̚̚͜͜͝͝͝ͅǪ̸̨̢̢̫͔̭̪̙͍͚̞͇̩͇͔̼̖̼̬̘̺̻̗͇̝̠͈͉̤͖̟̠͛̽̓̏̄̐́̔̎̔̽̽̋̉͂̽̈́͛̈́̊̕M̷̨̧̟͓̰̦̖̟͉̻̲̞͓̫̙̯͓̙̱̖̥͓̫̰̞̫̗̻̰͊̈͜͜Š̷̡̢̡̛̪̗͍̣͚̥͓̖̤̣̖̯̙̙̺͇̗̠͔̜̺͖͕̖̼̟̯̯̃̌̅͐̉̔̾̄̏̄͠͝"

oh god, i've never thought that would happen sincerely this product never caught my attention that much, i really want to get an original gameboy and i love to play some gb games on my 3ds!

I bought this years ago, played it once then forgot about it....

Such a fun idea. Looks really well made and I guess it shows there’s a huge demand for games like these on mobile devices.

I wanted to like this so much, but this thing was an April Fools joke turned real and it should’ve just stayed a joke. This is what happens when dumb customers demand things.

I like this little thing. You can use it for many different emulators, you use the buttons to reach the options under the screen.

"THE RETRO FMTURE", my favorite RU-vid.

I always wonder how this would work... thanks for showing 😅

To the 1% who sees this, I hope your doing well. You should be more confidant. You should smile more. Stay safe. Where a mask and wash yo hands!!!

It's kinda irritating that the screen is covered. And all the hiccups. Nah.

Wait so it makes you restart the app to change games to "prevent piracy", but it'll just reopen the previous game with a different cartridge if you don't restart the app? Sounds like you might be able to copy games with that

Why Just Why, Gameboy’s are easy To find!

doesn't look like a great problem to remove the phone close the app and change games to me.. I don't change games every 2 minutes...

That intro.. Literally hilarious! “Ro-“ RU-vid: No.

It was funny how persistant that piracy warning was, but when you unplugged the phone, put another game, and plugged the phone back, you got the previous game without the warning. Quite the simple bypass

Not gonna lie, I've considered getting one of these. I would see them in my local GAME store all the time and was really tempted, but I wasn't sure if my Pixel 2 XL would fit in it properly. I'm glad I went for the alternative instead... revamping my existing DMG with an IPA screen. Beautiful!

Anti Piracy measures are a hundred times worse than piracy. Pirates will ALWAYS be able to get around these screens and the legitimate user has to deal with them... ...anti piracy measures are LITERALLY why I pirate. Why be forced to play a game with tons of restrictions after buying it when you can instead just download it and play it however you want?

Roms: Exist Nintendo: And I Took that Personally

in brazil we have a law that guarantees the right to have a backup copy of any digital file. An example, I have the original pokemon gold cartridge and so I can play any rom without worrying about piracy. but everyone knows that nobody cares about piracy in brazil

these things only seem to be for android too!

piracy > """legitimacy"""

Hey, I just remembered, some Android phones have an accessibility mode where you can do a wiggly gesture with your thumb and the screen shrinks down into one corner. I wonder if that would make this device less absurd.

If only this would work as a total export for gb games imagine export your old pokemon for crystal to sword I know that crystal is on eshop but for me is not the same

"roms." Me: laughs in emulation and homebrew/modded consoles.

so pretty much its a grate product, but the only downside is you gotta take the phone out and close the app too change game, doesn't seem too bad tbh. like if you play a game for 30mins then have too take it out for 10 seconds wtf are u complaining about. and having 2 apps u can hide away on your phone also doesn't seem like a problem

IM FINALLY EARLYYY

This is really just a glorified rom dumper with a controller built in.

"pIrAcY iS mEaN!" It's not illegal to dump your own games and keep to yourself..

Who need that when u have E M U L A T O R S

cheers for the upload. i deemed this a failure at the first look because not everyone still has gameboy cartridges and i cant be assed to spend a fortune on collector hardware thats no longer produced for decades now and get more expensive each day. i hate how this software is yelling piracy for again, decades old games not even ninty cares about anymore.