This gadget lets you play Game Boy games on a laptop, if you have the cartridge

Wide compatibility with all Game Boy, Game Boy Color or Game Boy Advance cartridges. Supports accessories like Game Boy Camera. Register the Data Backup and Transfer Tool. Extensive list of filters, tweaks, tips and emulation tools to experiment with. Advantageous price.

Not as portable or practical as a real Game Boy. Does not universally remember certain preferences. No save state (yet).

The Game Boy portable console family was revolutionarymaking the game more accessible to millions of people around the world. Nintendo’s handhelds beat out technologically superior competition, like Sega’s Game Gear and Atari’s Lynx. They became the focus of founding moments of the medium, of what is undoubtedly still THE final version of Tetris at the birth of Pokémon. Yet since the iconic gray monolith was launched in 1989, it has now reached 40 years and playing these important classics becomes more and more difficult every year.

If you own a collection of original physical Game Boy cartridges in 2026, you basically have two options. The first is to hope your original console still works – a Game Boy Advance is best here, being a relatively fresh 25-year-old gamer with backwards compatibility for the original Game Boy and Game Boy Color cartridges. The other is to choose a third-party FPGA (Field-Programmable Gate Array) console, such as Analog pocketwhich also offers wide compatibility with all original carts. However, the former has fallen victim to the ravages of time, with fewer and fewer functional units available over the years, while the latter is a more expensive investment suitable for die-hard collectors.

Enter the third option: the epilogue GB operator, a way to play the original Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance cartridges, right on your computer, for a penny under $50.

Emulation Nation

The GB Operator is billed as “a cartridge slot for your computer” and rarely has a technology product been described in such detail. Unbox it and you’ll find an unassuming translucent cuboid, a circuit board in a plexiglass box, the slot itself being the only indication that anything interesting is going on here. It measures 1.3 × 1.2 × 3.5 inches and weighs a negligible 1.5 ounces. Installation is a breeze: simply plug it into your computer with the included USB-C cable, which also provides power, install the Reading software (available for PC, Mac and Linux), and… that’s it.

Insert a cart and Playback should automatically detect it, recognize the game and region it comes from, and display its cover art and a description. The software performs an authenticity check when you insert a cartridge, which Epilogue says is 97.8% accurate. Anyone familiar with the original Game Boy will remember the scourge of counterfeit carts, so for collectors, it’s nice to have that peace of mind. This is truly a gimmick focused on celebrating legitimate physical media of the time.

Games work by emulation. Epilogue Playback uses the popular mGBA emulator by default, although you can choose from several other cores (the engine that mimics the original console’s hardware) or you can use your own if you prefer. This is a wonderful touch for anyone deeply immersed in this side of the world. retro game scene. Regardless of which core you choose, Playback allows users to get into the nitty-gritty of game settings, fine-tuning performance down to fine details like frame skips and audio lags. For anyone getting started with emulation, everything is also explained in clear, jargon-free language.

Game Boy Imax

If you just want to play your old games, you don’t need to worry about all that – just press “Start” and travel back in time to enjoy the joy of vintage gaming.

The most striking difference when playing through GB Operator is the visuals. Whether in windowed or full-screen view, you get a huge improvement over the 160×144 pixel resolution of the Game Boy and Game Boy Color displays, and even the Advance’s luxurious 240×160 pixel resolution pales in comparison to modern monitors. Here you see every pixel programmed into the originals, enlarged to colossal size. Seeing what were once small games on such a scale can take some getting used to, but it’s a pleasure to appreciate all the detail and artistry contained within.

While the Game Boy Advance games essentially run as is, showcasing the richness of that 32-bit era in color, the emulator provides a treasure trove of visual filters to play with for the original Game Boy games. By default, Game Boy cartridges load in a more modern grayscale, but there are options to play them in the classic green and black look, replicate the monochrome screens of the Game Boy Pocket, or mimic the brightness of the Japan-only Game Boy Pocket. Game Boy Light. The various colors that the Game Boy Color would apply to the original Game Boy games are also present, as are the filters from the Super Game Boy (the adapter that made the Game Boy carts work on the Super Nintendo). Optionally, you can also display the frame rate: I got a reliable 60 frames per second on every cart I tested.

Running the carts through an emulator allows for some modern tweaks. Epilogue includes support for Retro achievements (note that a separate account login is required), allowing you to track achievements in these older games, and Playback can automatically display a list of cheats for each basket. Go ahead: Thirty years later, infinite lives aren’t hurting anyone.

Play also allows you to tailor performance and settings to suit the game, including completely remapping controls or boosting game speed. The only downside is that it seems to lack useful universal settings. For example, I couldn’t find a way to set my Xbox controller as the default input: playback randomly reverted to keyboard controls after switching carts.

Physical ephemera

When Epilogue says that the GB Operator is universally compatible, it means this. I’ve thrown more than a dozen carts at the device, testing the US, EU and Australian versions of the three main generations of Game Boy consoles, and it’s recognized and played on all of them.

Some took a little longer to launch, as Playback loads them into its emulator. Sonic Advance 3 This was the one that took the longest, about a minute (ironic, considering how fast its protagonist is), but I was able to load and play every title I tried. Any save data still on the carts also read without issue, allowing me to jump right back into an endgame boss battle in the brilliant but difficult Treasure. Astro Boy: Omega Factor. Unfortunately, my memory of the controls years after my last playthrough was not as well preserved.

The Operator even handles some of the curiosities that have graced the various Game Boys over the decades. Concrete example: my copy of Boktai 2: Django the solar boy, an experimental title of Death Stranding author Hideo Kojima who used a solar sensor built into the game cartridge to power the protagonist’s weapons. Released on the GBA in 2005, it challenged players to do the unthinkable: leave the house and soak up the sun. In 2026, you’ll be able to plug it into the GB Operator and have the Playback software act like it’s a fine day. Of course, this defeats the purpose, but it’s cool that even these niche titles are supported. Epilogue says it even supports accessories like the Game Boy Cameraallowing it to be used as a webcam, even if I don’t have one to test.

The only downside to relying on stock cartridges is the carts themselves. If they are not well maintained, they can be prone to reading errors. I picked up a used Game Boy Color copy of Disney’s Tarzan– it charged but kept cutting out, which I assume was due to the cartridge’s physical contacts eroding over time, meaning the GB operator couldn’t read the data reliably. A few others weren’t immediately recognized in the Playback software either, but the age-old ritual of blowing on them fixed the problem.

Preservation Society

Although GB Operator comfortably allows you to play your existing physical library through your computer, it is also useful for preservation purposes and creating new games. The Playback software allows you to save a game’s save data to your computer, which is really useful. Carts that stored progress locally (unlike old password systems) typically relied on a battery to do so, and once that died, so did your save files.

I discovered this for myself when loading my copy of Pokémon Gold-if I caught them all in 2001, I will never be able to confirm it, because the battery died at some point in the last quarter century (!). Starting it via GB Operator was like turning it on for the first time. However, if had still contained my surely finished Pokédex, I could have copied this data to the hard drive of my laptop, replaced the cartridge battery (a tedious processbut doable), then reload the save on it – it’s magic.

However, it should be noted that at present it all depends on the actual backup processes of the cartridge. Although “instant” virtual saves (capturing a game at a given point in time) are on Epilogue’s roadmap, the feature is not yet available. It will first be tested via the experimental “Nightly Builds” build of Playback (found at the bottom of the screen). downloads page) before being fully implemented.

You can also use the GB operator to dump all the main game data from a cart that you personally own, allowing you to create a legal copy for yours for archival purposes (don’t share, that’s where it becomes piracy). The process itself is quick, depending on the size of the game, but even the biggest games on the Game Boy Advance were 32 MB at most. Even if you save a game this way, GB Operator still needs the original cart to run anything: you can’t just load the saved ROM through the playback software.

Finally, if you’re an aspiring developer or enjoy retro-style indie games, it lets you transfer homebrew games created through GB Studio on a flash card and play them on a real Game Boy. This is another niche, but interesting, feature that allows today’s creators to build on the legacy of beloved handhelds.

Honestly, it’s hard to find much fault with the GB operator. Even pointing out that it lacks real portability (sure, it’s tiny, but having to connect it to a computer robs it of the grip-and-play appeal of the handheld consoles it pays homage to) feels like splitting hairs. Ultimately, it does everything it promises, all for under $50.

This is a wonderful piece of kit, whose overall performance and utility bodes very well for the upcoming Epilogue. SN Operatorwhich aims to do the same thing for the Super Nintendo as it did for the Game Boy family (and a mysterious “?? Operator” to follow). If you’re looking for a simple, low-budget way to revisit or revive your Game Boy collection, this is your best option.