Did you know you could play Game Boy games on the PlayStation?

GameBoy games on the PS1? This was possible with a non-unofficial gadget. (Image: murniati – adobe.stock.com)

Sony’s PlayStation, now called PS1, debuted 30 years ago, and as a child of the 1990s you typically fell into one of two groups: Nintendo kids or PlayStation kids (and those whose parents were generous enough to buy them both). .

But did you know that you could also play GameBoy games on the PS1 with a special gadget? Just like the Super GameBoy for the Super Nintendo.

Innovation PlayStation Super GB Booster

Back then you could just buy it in stores: the Super GB Booster. (Image: Console Variations)

The add-on was manufactured – or at least distributed – by Innovation Technologies, a third-party manufacturer whose origin can no longer be identified today. Console Variations estimates that between 5,000 and 10,000 Super GB boosters were produced.

You connect the gadget via the parallel port on the back of the PS1. This also means: The adapter does not work with newer versions such as the PSOne.

Here you can see the three variations of the PS1 and the gadget is only compatible with two of them. (Image: Evan-Amos/Wikipedia)

Similar to the Super GameBoy, you insert a GameBoy game into the slot of the Super GB Booster, start the console and voilà: you play GameBoy on the PlayStation.

There are even more similarities to the Super GameBoy from Nintendo.

• You can use a higher-level menu to adjust the colors of the otherwise black and white GameBoy games as you wish.
• The frames around the game are also variable in three versions. Surprisingly, the Super GB Booster even supports the special frames of some GameBoy games that are only available on the Super GameBoy.

But there is even more to the Super GB Booster: Cheats. Similar to the Game Genie for the NES, the gadget contained cheats for all sorts of games. With the so-called “Trainer” option you could even search for corresponding codes on the system.

You can even manipulate the games themselves using a handful of options.

• Zoom
• Color mode on/off
• Video sync for supposedly smoother emulation
• Frame ship

In fact, the Super GB Booster even comes with its own game when no cartridge is inserted.

If you want to see the gadget in action, watch this video from Gaming Historian, we have already set the corresponding time stamp.

Link to YouTube content

The question still remains: was it actually legal? Well, it wasn’t illegal, because after all these third-party devices were sold in normal stores. Even today there are still all sorts of official controllers, gadgets and accessories for consoles – but they do not emulate games.

However, the Super GB Booster was not licensed. Since Sony and Nintendo probably wouldn’t be happy about playing their own titles on each other’s platforms, unlicensed gadgets of this kind operate in a gray area. Did you notice how the packaging only says “GB” and not “GameBoy”?

Many gamers today know the story of how the PlayStation came about: Sony and Nintendo actually wanted to work together to bring a CD add-on for the Super Nintendo onto the market. However, Nintendo turned down the deal with Sony in favor of Philips – and Sony simply built its own console. The rest is video game history.