Nintendo Fan Collects All 1,244 Game Boy Games In Two Years

Twitter user Shouta is now the proud owner of all 1,244 Game Boy titles. Congrats! Finishing the collection took less time than he thought it would thanks to Twitter’s help.

In the US, there were 1,046 games released for the Game Boy, but in Japan, there were 1,244 titles released in retail shops for the portable. (Note that these numbers are only games that were official releases and do not include unlicensed games or cancelled titles.)

Shouta began his collection in earnest in September 2019, and completed it in just two years, collecting all 1,244 Japanese Game Boy games.

“I’ve always liked the Game Boy, and I had a number of games I bought to play,” Shouta told Kotaku, “and along the way, that turned into deciding to complete the full set.”

As he collected, Shouta tweeted out his progression, with followers helping him track down missing games. “It there wasn’t Twitter, this would’ve taken five years.” All the games are playable, and Shouta made sure of that when acquiring them.

The collection is now housed in do-it-yourself display shelves.

Putting something together like this is not cheap, but Shouta isn’t exactly sure how much he’s poured into his collection. “I haven’t added up how much I spent, so I don’t know,” he said. The rarest title is Jaguar Sewing Machine Embroidery-Only Software: Mario Family, which was used with Jaguar’s JN-100 sewing machine by connecting the Nintendo portable. The sewing machine could then copy any of the 32 Nintendo themed patterns from the Game Boy Color game.

Copies of the cartridge alone fetch 50,000 yen ($454) in Japan, while those with the box and the instruction manual can reach 100,000 yen ($909).

Now that his Game Boy collection is done, it would seem that moving on to the Game Boy Advance would follow. “I also have a desire to collect GBA, but I think I’ll start with making my own storage shelves like I did for the Game Boy,” he told Kotaku. But elsewhere on Twitter, Shouta seemed keen to finish his Famicom collection.

“Currently, I have six hundred games, so inevitably Famicom is next!” Shouta better get to work on those shelves.

All photos and tweets used with permission.