Xbox Gamer’s Clever Mod Lets Real Game Boy Cartridges Work on Handheld

The handheld revolution has been exciting to see, as the Steam Deck kicked off a wave of technological advancements that allow us to play some pretty advanced games in the palms of our collective hands.

Nowadays, we have major hardware releases from brands including MSI, Lenovo, and ASUS, in conjunction with Xbox, as well as the Nintendo Switch, all of which have helped create a pretty healthy ecosystem in the world of portable play.

That said, none of this would have happened without the great trailblazers of a bygone era, including arguably the most famous of the bunch: the Nintendo Game Boy.

Though it’s obviously been a long time since that was a current console, the fascination with the games of that era hasn’t gone away, and people are constantly looking for new ways to play them.

Now, one particularly tech-savvy gamer has put together a package that combines the two, allowing you to play those ancient cartridge titles on your brand-new, shiny PC handheld.

Xbox Ally

Custom Xbox ROG Ally Holds Thrilling Game Boy Secret

As first reported by Pure Xbox, Reddit user alanpep shared the hardware modification they had made for the Xbox ROG Ally, which allows the console to play games from the original Game Boy generation via a cartridge adaptor on the back.

Thanks to the wonders of the 3D printer, the OP has also made a neat casing that allows the creation to fit seamlessly into the original design of the handheld without changing the profile too much. Couple all of that with a GB Operator and you're quickly onto a winner.

The comments were predictably complimentary about the ingenious creation, with one saying, "That’s extremely cool ngl. If someone did something like this for a retroid that’d be insane."

"I see someone with high standards, very good technical level, wants to preserve old games, a man of culture," another added.

One of the strangest anomalies with modern technology is how difficult it can be to get it to run older games, particularly as a PC player. You will often find that older games simply won’t run on modern devices, usually due to incompatibility with the operating system or the PC’s internal hardware not knowing what to do with the older file types.

As such, physical solutions like the one above are a great way of preserving an important piece of gaming history, and it should always be encouraged whenever we see it crop up.