Image via Complex Original
Chances are you or a friend had a Game Boy camera you messed around with, taking dumb pixelated black-and-white photos. You might have even had a printer so you could print them out and then find them between the couch cushions ten years later.
The Super Game Boy accessory was another common one—you plugged it into your Super Nintendo and played Game Boy games on the 15-inch "big screen" TV in your living room.
And everyone who owned a Game Boy needed some light and/or magnification accessories—not to mention whatever you used to carry your games around, extra battery packs—the works.
Bet you didn't have any of these oddball Game Boy accessories, though. They cover everything you could possibly want to do with the Nintendo handheld—from fishing to medical sedation. Click through for all the Game Boy accessories you wish you'd had as a kid (and some you might want even more today).
Game Boy Pocket Sonar
The Game Boy Pocket Sonar was a legitimate Game Boy accessory that you could actually use to find fish underwater. This was not a joke or an April Fools prank—it really worked.
Made by Bandai, the Pocket Sonar was only available in Japan, which was a shame, because it would have been perfect for all those fishing trips where you forgot your sonar but brought your Game Boy with you. It even had a fishing mini-game built in for when you inevitably got bored of actually fishing.
WorkBoy
In 1992 when the WorkBoy was released it probably sounded awesome. After all, who wouldn't want an accessory that turned your Game Boy into a "digital diary," address book, calendar, clock, and more?
It was like turning the system into a smartphone—only unlike smartphones, the WorkBoy adapter also let you plug in an actual keyboard. Now that's convenience.
four-player adapter
The Game Boy four-player adapter never saw wide adoption. If you're wondering why, try to recall just one Game Boy game that supported four-player multiplayer. (In fact, there are several, but mainly on Game Boy Advance).
For that matter multiplayer Game Boy games were not all that popular to begin with, besides Pokémon. If you had a two-player link cable you were probably set. Bummer, because the box made it look so exciting!
PediSedate
Just for good measure, here's the PediSedate.
It's unclear today why doctors ever might have needed help from Nintendo to administer sedatives to kids, but at least this Game Boy accessory's medical utility for pediatricians helps explain why it has "pedi" in the name.
The weirdest part? The PediSedate wasn't released in, like, 1995. It was unveiled long after that, in the 2000s, when the Game Boy Color was already discontinued. And what was even the point? Couldn't they just administer the funny gas like normal and stick a dang Nintendo DS in kids' hands instead? Maybe scratch the "you wish you'd had" off the title for this one.
Mobile Adapter GB
The Game Boy Mobile Adapter is another Japan-only Game Boy accessory, but it proved that even back in 2001 phone games were encroaching on legit handheld systems.
The Mobile Adapter let you plug a Game Boy Color or Game Boy Advance into certain mobile phones, letting them interact in different ways and in some cases even play online. Just imagine: Nintendo could have cornered the phone game market with this one before it even existed. If only.
GB KISS LINK
Game company Hudson had some big ideas for the Game Boy back in 1998, around the time it released a Game Boy version of the Windows strategy game Nectaris. The cartridge for the game had an infrared sensor built in. Communicating with the GB KISS LINK, this sensor could transfer data to and from a PC.
This data could include everything from game saves and custom maps to game content downloaded from some new-fangled thing called "the internet." This was an accessory released for the original Game Boy in the late '90s, almost a decade after the system's introduction—and it was way ahead of its time. Impressive, no?
Handy Boy
The Handy Boy was a combination Swiss army knife and Ferrari for your Game Boy. It basically did with one accessory what you'd have to buy three or four other things normally to accomplish: things like magnification, lighting, and speaker amplification (seriously, why?).
And it looked completely tricked out, if a little ridiculous. It even extended the d-pad into a pointless little joystick (seriously, why? It was still a d-pad underneath) and made the "A" and "B" buttons, um, thicker.
Game Boy Radio
Radios back in the day were like DVD players now. Every gadget in your house, from your fridge to your backpack, had one built in—and you almost never used any of them. Why should the Game Boy be exempt from this rule of 20th-century electronics?
There's not a whole lot of information about it online, but apparently the Game Boy Radio was made in China (no surprise there) and used the Game Boy only as a power supply. In fact there was such little interaction between the radio cartridge and the system that the Game Boy didn't even know it was there. Nothing appeared on the screen.
But at least you got to listen to crappy radio music through the Game Boy's awesome speakers. Pair this sucker with the Handy Boy and you might have been onto something. You could have even annoyed people on the bus by playing your music out loud years before it was cool.
Game Boy shoes
Apparently Japanese knick-knack and/or fashion designers at some point began embedding working Game Boy systems into platform shoes. They're accessories in more than one sense—for your Game Boy, and for your feet.
Thankfully you can pop the Game Boys out and actually use them—otherwise what a waste! It's definitely a testament to the system that you can theoretically stomp around on it all day and it will still work. Just don't wear them in the rain.
Singer Izek
Singer is a company that makes sewing machines, not video games or video game accessories. But the two industries did overlap at one point, and one point exactly: with the Singer Izek "Computerized Sewing Machine."
The idea was you plugged your Game Boy Color into the sewing machine and used the system to select stitching patterns using a special included cartridge. It's unclear who the target audience for this was. Guessing tailors with too many Game Boys lying around. Wonder why we haven't heard about it before now?