So much information to try and cram into one reasonable length video. There’s loads of things I didn’t mention. The main thing is that it does play the games well, feels and looks great. The downsides are the software. The fact they didn’t make their own software which would have made this thing perfect is a big shame. However I’m sure they just didn’t want to face any legal problems with Nintendo. Let me know your thoughts! Hopefully you still enjoyed the video. :)
I feel like the Homebrew Community could take a crack at this, to me it seems like it's a software issue and not a hardware issue. so if someone was able to write a new app it probably would make this device better.
I never bothered with the smartboy software, just downloaded my boy and configured it as a controller in settings. Ya you have to use roms instead of it physically ripping them each time you insert, but having the option to play advance and change games easier makes this a nice controller.
It's an ok idea, but... phones are naturally ok to play old Gameboy games. Emulator like the Pizzaboy makes any phone a Gameboy Color, which works great for games like Pokemon.
Phones are absolute shit to play old Gameboy games on when you can't stand on screen controls. I'm with TRF, I need that tactile sensation of touching controls.
I own this and what I use it for is dumping my roms and save files. If you've got a bluetooth mouse hooked up or tricky fingers, you can copy that rom file and it won't delete it. It's a great way to back up saves if you have one laying around
So, it can dump the save file? Maybe you can answer my question, can you write saves onto the cart using this? If so that would make this a good purchase for me cause I want to battle my friend in Virginia on Pokemon Crystal.
@@lunabeans9152 Sadly, the answer is no. You can take the files off, but the device has no way to write them back onto the cart. Great if you want to exclusively play on the phone, but a bummer if you want to play off the carts. Saving is pretty much a no go unless you are playing off of separately named files on your phone.
It should be possible for a third-party app to write save files using this. It has to write to "ROM" to change banks to copy the entire cartridge (so we know the hardware supports writing) and it's able to read saves (so we know it's capable of accessing the upper 32K), so it would only be a matter of software.
@@Siara87 Not all the time. Say for example, a mother is selling her son's old video games to clear up space in the house. Unless she is a gamer herself, it very unlikely she would buy new video games. Sure you can buy new games by selling old ones, but not everyone does that. Makes sense?
@@TechSpec814 yeah, I know what do you mean. I don't think pirating or emulating old games is a bad thing. I would even argue that after like 10-20 years games, music, movies etc. Should land in public domain.
out of print means literally nothing ...Most popular video games are works of corporate authorship and have copyrights that will expire 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever expires first.
@@squabbbb someone could integrate the function to an open source Gameboy emulator, but we need to know how the Smart Boy works first, and there seems to be little to no interest in reverse engineering it
@@squabbbb the thing does just dump the game to a normal rom file anyway, technically you could just pull that "smartboy.gb" file and load it into any emulator (or even pirate it without pulling the cartridge first, which makes the whole error message just stupid)
I bought this about a year ago and absolutely love it. I've tried to use my actual cartridges and like you it was just a pain it's much easier if you just use the emulator, map the controls and use ROMs
Funfact. The entire thing is just a ROM dumper. You'll be emulating whether you have the original cart plugged in or not. It's a mindbogglingly stupid product.
If you don't mind taking a bit of time to set it up, it's actually a pretty good device. Doesn't work great for playing off of the cartridges directly, but once you find the ways to work around that it's really nice. If you find it on sale, I'd say around $35 or less, it's worth it.
Totally bought one months ago, this thing is great if you don't use physical cartridges. It's a mess trying to use them with this but as a controller it works great
downloading them can be considered illegal. you're knowingly receiving stolen goods..in that sense you're saying. so...GENERALLY, yes, having roms can be considered illegal. but fuck it.
@@agonleed3841 I am aware downloading them is... However having them is not. I dump all my ROMs from my cartridges and disks and have not downloaded a ROM in many, many years. Uploading or sharing your dumped ROMs is also illegal and infringes on said companies copyright
@@WildFyr if it’s a newer game, yes it should be illegal but let’s be honest past video games should not be considered illegal in my personal opinionafter a certain time,Retro video games should be considered in the public domain. And let’s just say a certain company refuses to sell me a retro game and they’re not going to release it on a modern platform then in that case, piracy is OK. I don’t care what anyone says
the games look, play and listen great beacuse MyBoy is a great emulator on its own so what you are really getting is just a DRM'd ROM ripper, and i bet if you do some meddling around with a file explorer you could copy it elsewhere and just use MyBoy to play the ripped ROMs without the need to stick them
not to mention you can get around the lack of feel using other pieces of hardware dedicated to buttons for input, you can practically own the experience of playing the classic handhelds in your phones without giving in to this bs
I have had no problems with it and I love it and it works very well... It works better than I've ever expected it to.... They did a very good job with this information to get it for $15 is great
@@JonSnyderfudge I was just searching for fully modded Gameboys and saw that Retro Modding has a Build to Order option for fully kitted out Gameboys, Gameboy Colors, and GBAs. Not as sleek as Analogue, but it could work, I guess.
@Mantis Toboggan, M.D. If you’re unfamiliar with the reference, check out the Diablo 3 Mobile announcement. It should have been a desktop, Blizzard went for a mobile game. During the Q&A one of the hosts asks “Do you guys not have phones?” And gets booed.
If you’re concerned about downloading roms from elsewhere or whatever and have a computer, you can just dump the roms you have using a rom dumper and then just transfer the files onto your phone. That way the files will be both on your phone and on your PC in case files corrupt or your phone stops working
Man I've always been so interested in these things since they came out, always wondered if they were any use, kind of a pity it has so many downsides, guess we will have to keep using our ips modded gameboys, great video
Just buy a handheld emulator. I own all gameboys and games, but I use mostly handheld emulators for simplicity and better screen and speaker, and I don't really feel like making modifications on the originals.
(I know you are joking but) Funny thing is, i'm sure that wouldn't work either since it dumps the rom which means it doesn't connect back to the camera on the cartridge xD
I really love that he plays one of the most infamous bootlegs of the game boy color era at 9:43 when showing that "it can play game boy color games" xD - Pokemon Diamond (Keitai denjuu telefang Power version). I love this game!
The Retrode 2 existing (and therefore the ability for anyone to dump their stuff easily) puts the attitude toward ROMs in this video in a pretty weird place. Just saying, this approach never really needed to be here even if you wanted to play your dumped carts onto your phone.
I haven't seen the Retrode 2, but there's something to be said for a nice and simple solution; stick the cartridge in, and it just plays. ...That said, this SmartBoy thing looks so clunky that it doesn't really pass that test.
Fun fact: My Old Boy Supports Super Game Boy boarders and pallettes, Game Boy Camera, and if I remember correctly you can use the Game Boy Printer features in games which saves a png of what'd be printed to your photo gallery, also bluetooth in order to use link cable games
oh god, i've never thought that would happen sincerely this product never caught my attention that much, i really want to get an original gameboy and i love to play some gb games on my 3ds!
Not gonna lie, I've considered getting one of these. I would see them in my local GAME store all the time and was really tempted, but I wasn't sure if my Pixel 2 XL would fit in it properly. I'm glad I went for the alternative instead... revamping my existing DMG with an IPA screen. Beautiful!
I originally bought this for my Pixel 2XL, it does fit, but it doesn't hold too well. A lot of the time, it would activate the squeeze phone for assistant function which was annoying.
This thing failed SO HARD that I ACTIVELY answer as many Amazon questions as possible, telling everyone how much this thing sucks and telling them to just drop their $50 on a real DMG-01.
People say that because of court rulings about VHS tapes, but Software companies usually claim that new laws like DMCA stop you from even making personal backups of copy-protected software, so who the heck knows what the courts would do. I'm sure they wouldn't go after an individual, but I can understand why a company like Hyperkin would be nervous about facilitating it.
0:23 Funny thing is, that this was posted by them as Joke once... But people liked it so much, they made it. In the end, a usb otg adapter, cartridge usb dumper with software is just the same, even more versatile... (It is only dumping em after all...)
@@RATsnak3 They are, unless the maker of it allows copies to be made (which only Homebrew Developers do) you cannot make a copy or download them legally
It was funny how persistant that piracy warning was, but when you unplugged the phone, put another game, and plugged the phone back, you got the previous game without the warning. Quite the simple bypass
Interestingly, when the Smartboy first came out, they were specifically for iPhones. This USB-C version is the second revision. That said, I have one of these. It's a bit of a pain in the ass to use, but I absolutely love it all the same. My biggest issue is the obscured menus and such at the bottom. I didn't even realize it came with a USB-C extension cable, that's disappointing. And I've never had issue with that piracy screen, I can get it to go away just fine.
Wow. Just wow. You had me cracking up after ONE WORD. Keep grinding, my dude. I really appreciate the effort you have been going to with your channel. I am proud to be a fan.
This is such a cool looking device even with the flaws, I ended up buying an Odroid Go insted just because I am scared of someone snatching my phone while i play in the bus
in brazil we have a law that guarantees the right to have a backup copy of any digital file. An example, I have the original pokemon gold cartridge and so I can play any rom without worrying about piracy. but everyone knows that nobody cares about piracy in brazil
I was inspired to buy this to try it out just from the look of it, so I went and won it on eBay for 20 quid. And my god, this has become one of my favourite gadgets I own. The buttons control like a dream, and sure, I'm playing on myoldboy without using the cartridge port (may get a lot of 50-100 odd Gameboy games off sendico just for a laugh though) but I am getting so much enjoyment out of it. A lovely little device that deserves a chance if found for cheap and if ready to ignore the cartridge feature
Hey, I just remembered, some Android phones have an accessibility mode where you can do a wiggly gesture with your thumb and the screen shrinks down into one corner. I wonder if that would make this device less absurd.
I wanted to like this so much, but this thing was an April Fools joke turned real and it should’ve just stayed a joke. This is what happens when dumb customers demand things.
That's not necessarily a bad business idea. Pokémon GO, for example was initially a Google Maps April fools joke, but after high demand, they started development.
@@grasstails9737 I know and that’s why Nintendo doesn’t actually care that much if you download ROMs. They obviously don’t like it but the chances that either you would get caught or Nintendo would actually care if they caught you are both minimal.
Onscreen HW buttons - absolutely awesome idea, I was even thinking of creating my own DIY version of this, that will be much more portable. Back in day, there were even a kickstarter project called G-Pad, it was silicone buttons for emulators, but the project unfortunatelly failed, and the multiple G-Pad "prototipes" are nowhere to be found. Beacause of covid, I don't have access of HW that I need to build this gamepad, so I bought Flydigi Wee2T and call it a day. Now I can emulate basically every handheld till PS Vita and 3DS. Not that portable solution, that I was so keen on previously, but much more universal.
God this thing was outdated by the time it came out. So many better options out there for Gameboy now. Seemed like a good idea at the time, but honestly, I really wouldn’t want to lug around this peripheral and give up my phone when a backlit gameboy colour takes up about as much space in a bag, if only a little bit more. Great video, once again!
Great video Elliot! I didn't buy one of these. I do remember when they first came out with them, I was working at a small business video game store, and we stocked these. Not a lot mind you, but I think we had 3 or 4 in the store for sale. I'm pretty sure we never sold one. When it comes to me and Hyperkin, it's hit and miss. For instance, I LOVE my Retron 5! But I know not everyone feels the same way about it as I do. I've been told some of their other "clone" consoles are hit or miss too. Keep up the good work! Brendan
This honestly has so much potential though. Like, if they fix the software issues, it could be such a great idea. The only issue I could see is that, since it's USB-C at the center, only people with that type of port would be able to use it. My phone for example is Micro USB and it's to the right. If they redid it, made versions that support Micro USB (as well as any other charger types I don't know about), and let you adjust where the port is, this could be an amazing piece of technology.
I did find a way to emulate in iphone using eclipse, and it functions without any lag, it had fast forwarding, hood audio, butt all in all it works really well.
I have SO many questions: - So the feature must've eventually been tested. That means, are _all_ the pins actually wired up and accessible? - If so, could a phone running a mobile Linux use this in order to ACTUALLY play Gameboy Color and Advance games? I would love to try that. I just wishlisted one of those on eBay. - What are the maximum dimensions of a phone to fit in? How tick can it be at most, how wide? I am thinking of eventually getting a Razer Phone and throwing myself down the rabbit hole of implementing Linux on that (which is surprisingly possible but tidious...) This is a neat device and I love it - I want one, with a proper phone, but I want to see just how far I can take this. If it has all the wiring complete, it'd be just a mere case of reverse engeneering it on a PC by plugging it in using the lead cable and seing if one could read/write to the cartridge to actually do things with the save on the cartridge. I have been hanging around Inside Gadgets and BennVenn discord servers for a while and I would personally love this. So I might end up testing this. See, I thought they never made it. I am shocked to see that they *did* make it. xD Now I want to take it to the extreme.
Wait so it makes you restart the app to change games to "prevent piracy", but it'll just reopen the previous game with a different cartridge if you don't restart the app? Sounds like you might be able to copy games with that
Anti Piracy measures are a hundred times worse than piracy. Pirates will ALWAYS be able to get around these screens and the legitimate user has to deal with them... ...anti piracy measures are LITERALLY why I pirate. Why be forced to play a game with tons of restrictions after buying it when you can instead just download it and play it however you want?
cheers for the upload. i deemed this a failure at the first look because not everyone still has gameboy cartridges and i cant be assed to spend a fortune on collector hardware thats no longer produced for decades now and get more expensive each day. i hate how this software is yelling piracy for again, decades old games not even ninty cares about anymore.
Just a side note I use one of these pretty often I originally used its with a galaxy s8+ but have since upgraded to a samsung galaxy note 10+ 5g and it fits and works fine on that phone aswell
@@Puddspanker yes it fits fine it works good for running gba games aswell but you can't use actual carts for gba games I ripped my gba games to my phone with a ds lite and a r4 card
Hi Elliot, I agree with everything you said. Although I knew it sucked, I recently got this for about 15 quid brand new, just to collect honestly. Once you set it up you can get a casual play and actually enjoy it as long as you don't change cartridges but to be honest it is better to just add ROMs to your mobile and play without cartridge and without the hyperkin app. After trying it out for a couple of weeks I kinda like it now but obviously there is no point in playing on this when we have great mod screens and original Gameboys. Finally, I think it could be used to dump your cartridge save files and transfer them to an everdrive or something similar but I haven't researched more. Thanks for the content mate
Going to be honest, this is one of my favorite videos you've made so far. Perfect timing that it landed on my birthday (by obvious obvious coincidence)! Keep up the awesome content man, it's truly amazing.
"Why it failed" 1.) Because they didn't make them compatible with more phone models. For example my phone (Which **is** an android) has it's charger plug slightly to the side so it just wouldn't fit. So yeah, I was bummed out it wouldn't work for my phone and I sure wasn't going to go buy a brand new one just for this when I have a working Gameboy already. 2.) It's not something that just plugs in and you play. A lot of people where hoping that it would just make your phone have an option pop up like when you plug it into your computer so you can switch it's mode over to the console, but finding out about all the extra downloads from reviews and stuff killed interest because at that point why not just download a free emulator and bootleg a ROM? 3.) Having to buy a product just to pay a seperate fee for the "full version". That's some EA levels of BS right there. Also something that could fix a lot of issues is and On/Off switch that resets everything automatically.
So much information to try and cram into one reasonable length video. There’s loads of things I didn’t mention. The main thing is that it does play the games well, feels and looks great. The downsides are the software. The fact they didn’t make their own software which would have made this thing perfect is a big shame. However I’m sure they just didn’t want to face any legal problems with Nintendo. Let me know your thoughts! Hopefully you still enjoyed the video. :)
Hi Elliot I'm Eric My Game Boy Broke No Screen No Sound Can You Fix It?
Im just glad that its a video and i actually got a heart from a youtuber that i genuenly enjoy.
@@SuperMarioAPA3968 lmao
RetroArch is available on Android. Can't you just use the "controller" with that?
@@TooFurious4 The emulation is not really the problem here and I don't think RetroArch will recognize your inserted game through the device.
I love how pride filled and brave of a decision it was to randomly bring out that long boy Gameboy without warning.
and so briefly. comedic timing
xD
Lol
😂
Everybody loves when the TH-camr does it, But when my long boy's randomly brought out I'm "under arrest" and "not allowed 20 feet near schools"
I feel like the Homebrew Community could take a crack at this, to me it seems like it's a software issue and not a hardware issue. so if someone was able to write a new app it probably would make this device better.
I never bothered with the smartboy software, just downloaded my boy and configured it as a controller in settings. Ya you have to use roms instead of it physically ripping them each time you insert, but having the option to play advance and change games easier makes this a nice controller.
yea,emulators and roms for the gba and gb is much much easier then the damn thing in the video
The sad thing though, is that they stopped updating them, which sucks because I've really liked them.
So this works with other emulators? That’s a relief. Might pick one up
Having this and emulators defeats the purpose of this device,,it wants to utilize phone screen and use proper carts to stay legally clean,,,
@@Rando-vu6hl pizza boy and lemuroid or retroarch work
It's an ok idea, but... phones are naturally ok to play old Gameboy games.
Emulator like the Pizzaboy makes any phone a Gameboy Color, which works great for games like Pokemon.
hi there
this is a test.
i am the first commenter on this because i have no life.
this was made before any repliers came
Phones are absolute shit to play old Gameboy games on when you can't stand on screen controls. I'm with TRF, I need that tactile sensation of touching controls.
@@ProjectDv2 use Bluetooth controller
So many emulators exist on phones. Even citra runs smoothly
@@menantumakawak Ew, no.
I own this and what I use it for is dumping my roms and save files. If you've got a bluetooth mouse hooked up or tricky fingers, you can copy that rom file and it won't delete it. It's a great way to back up saves if you have one laying around
So, it can dump the save file? Maybe you can answer my question, can you write saves onto the cart using this? If so that would make this a good purchase for me cause I want to battle my friend in Virginia on Pokemon Crystal.
@@lunabeans9152 At work right now so I cannot test that, but if I recall, you cannot write the save back on the cart. I can test later though.
@@Stintendo Would love to know the answer too
@@lunabeans9152 Sadly, the answer is no. You can take the files off, but the device has no way to write them back onto the cart. Great if you want to exclusively play on the phone, but a bummer if you want to play off the carts. Saving is pretty much a no go unless you are playing off of separately named files on your phone.
It should be possible for a third-party app to write save files using this. It has to write to "ROM" to change banks to copy the entire cartridge (so we know the hardware supports writing) and it's able to read saves (so we know it's capable of accessing the upper 32K), so it would only be a matter of software.
Feels like this would put a lot of strain on your charging port
Oh fuck the charging port, it'll break your games if you play BG/GBC games on a GBA/GBASP
@@kat3lynhammer801 you mean if you try to open the original gameboy games on a gba emulator it will corrupt the cartridge permanently?
@@Minersteev not permanently, but it will baddly glitch it, and crash it A LOT. I even lost all my Pokemon Red save data
true. mine used up alot of battery power
@@esprithk i think it meant that it could phisically hurt the charger port, due to the spring loaded connector
They're saying this about games that have been out of print for 20+ years...
+ buying the games used doesn’t support the gaming industry in any way
@@SpaceHunter if a person that sold a used game will use that money to buy a new game than you kinda say its does it?
@@Siara87 Not all the time. Say for example, a mother is selling her son's old video games to clear up space in the house. Unless she is a gamer herself, it very unlikely she would buy new video games. Sure you can buy new games by selling old ones, but not everyone does that. Makes sense?
@@TechSpec814 yeah, I know what do you mean. I don't think pirating or emulating old games is a bad thing. I would even argue that after like 10-20 years games, music, movies etc. Should land in public domain.
out of print means literally nothing ...Most popular video games are works of corporate authorship and have copyrights that will expire 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever expires first.
This seems FAR more difficult than just buying an OG Gameboy for $20 US.
Links?
so true Ben, but I think practical is a word rarely used by Elliots subs. haha
over here you can buy a gba sp for 60
I didn't expect to see you here Ben, it's like Larry Bundy with how often I see you in the comments.
@@highpineapple if they were $20 I’d stock up just to resell them. It’s more like $40 each at least
Smartboy? More like Shartboy
im a shartboy
@@tifawockhardt I know you are
Have you looked up to see if there's any third party apps that let you play any ROM on the thing? Surely someone out there has made one!
I would assume you probably could just open some ROMs in My OldBoy like most people would use it for and just use this thing as a controller.
If you want to just use a library of roms you can set up the controller in MyOldBoy and it will work seamlessly. But that wasn’t the point of it.
@@TheRetroFuture is there no emulator that can accept a ROM from a cartridge? Im sure someone must've done it
@@squabbbb someone could integrate the function to an open source Gameboy emulator, but we need to know how the Smart Boy works first, and there seems to be little to no interest in reverse engineering it
@@squabbbb the thing does just dump the game to a normal rom file anyway, technically you could just pull that "smartboy.gb" file and load it into any emulator (or even pirate it without pulling the cartridge first, which makes the whole error message just stupid)
I bought this about a year ago and absolutely love it. I've tried to use my actual cartridges and like you it was just a pain it's much easier if you just use the emulator, map the controls and use ROMs
Or have a gameboy
@@refriedboogie Oh yes, I love using 4 batteries for an old handheld that I could emulate easily
time to make competence to xbox players
Funfact. The entire thing is just a ROM dumper. You'll be emulating whether you have the original cart plugged in or not.
It's a mindbogglingly stupid product.
my analogue pocket can't come soon enough
yup
Lucky you got one. :(
Yes, I desperately want it to show up. A full year wait is too much. :( I want those adapters too!
Haha yeah. I’m excited!
Yeah, I managed to snag one too, can't wait!
I WAS LITERALLY GOING TO BUY THIS YESTERDAY
If you don't mind taking a bit of time to set it up, it's actually a pretty good device. Doesn't work great for playing off of the cartridges directly, but once you find the ways to work around that it's really nice. If you find it on sale, I'd say around $35 or less, it's worth it.
Totally bought one months ago, this thing is great if you don't use physical cartridges. It's a mess trying to use them with this but as a controller it works great
I wouldnt
Thats what I thought, with it working from USB and all.
@@billy-waynejeffcoat4828 w8 I can ignore the cartridge functionality and use it as a controller only ?
I like how he implicates that ROMs or having ROMs is illegal... It's very much not, the only illegal part is sharing your dumped ROMs.
downloading them can be considered illegal. you're knowingly receiving stolen goods..in that sense you're saying.
so...GENERALLY, yes, having roms can be considered illegal.
but fuck it.
@@agonleed3841 I am aware downloading them is... However having them is not. I dump all my ROMs from my cartridges and disks and have not downloaded a ROM in many, many years. Uploading or sharing your dumped ROMs is also illegal and infringes on said companies copyright
I’ve never heard or seen a news report about someone sharing roms and going to jail for it.
@@WildFyr if it’s a newer game, yes it should be illegal but let’s be honest past video games should not be considered illegal in my personal opinionafter a certain time,Retro video games should be considered in the public domain.
And let’s just say a certain company refuses to sell me a retro game and they’re not going to release it on a modern platform then in that case, piracy is OK. I don’t care what anyone says
@@gernonjones8871 "Nintendo want to access your location"
OMG I have one of those! I totally agree! Why don't you just use the cartridges on your Gameboy anyway!
Who the heck talks like thar
I have never herd someone use the word ‘totes’ in my entire life.
Bruh everyone on the replies judging the way you speak/type, but they can't even spell. Sorry for that.
@@just_lucyy much like "stoked" and the likes
Because not everyone has a gameboy
the games look, play and listen great beacuse MyBoy is a great emulator on its own
so what you are really getting is just a DRM'd ROM ripper, and i bet if you do some meddling around with a file explorer you could copy it elsewhere and just use MyBoy to play the ripped ROMs without the need to stick them
not to mention you can get around the lack of feel using other pieces of hardware dedicated to buttons for input, you can practically own the experience of playing the classic handhelds in your phones without giving in to this bs
These issues seem like they would be easy to fix by someone with the right know-how - ie not me.
This seems like it could have been such a novel concept. It's a shame it wasn't executed particularly well!
I have had no problems with it and I love it and it works very well... It works better than I've ever expected it to.... They did a very good job with this information to get it for $15 is great
You're probably better off waiting for the Analogue Pocket than getting one of these.
Yeah if I could buy one!
@@JonSnyderfudge
I was just searching for fully modded Gameboys and saw that Retro Modding has a Build to Order option for fully kitted out Gameboys, Gameboy Colors, and GBAs.
Not as sleek as Analogue, but it could work, I guess.
Duh
I just modded my GBA SP with an IPS screen.
My pants have those built in.
"Everyone has a phone right?" ... Nice.
* Off-Season April's Fools Intensifies *
@Mantis Toboggan, M.D. If you’re unfamiliar with the reference, check out the Diablo 3 Mobile announcement.
It should have been a desktop, Blizzard went for a mobile game. During the Q&A one of the hosts asks “Do you guys not have phones?” And gets booed.
Don't you guys have phones?
Lol I remembered that. No one wants to play a crappy mobile game.
You're wrong
Imagine, in version one they wanted you to smash your phone each time you change the cardridge! So this means real progress to them 😂
If you’re concerned about downloading roms from elsewhere or whatever and have a computer, you can just dump the roms you have using a rom dumper and then just transfer the files onto your phone.
That way the files will be both on your phone and on your PC in case files corrupt or your phone stops working
I like this little thing. You can use it for many different emulators, you use the buttons to reach the options under the screen.
Man I've always been so interested in these things since they came out, always wondered if they were any use, kind of a pity it has so many downsides, guess we will have to keep using our ips modded gameboys, great video
Consolizer or ips modded gameboy are the best options anyway.
Just buy a handheld emulator. I own all gameboys and games, but I use mostly handheld emulators for simplicity and better screen and speaker, and I don't really feel like making modifications on the originals.
9:43 - oh yes! Keitai denjuu telefang. Nice game!.
Always wondered how good this thing would be. Interesting to see it working :)
Thanks! I forgot how the game was called! Played it like 16 years ago on an emulator and was looking to play it again 👍👍
"It looks lovely and feels lovely. (Pause) And then it all goes downhill." Yep. That got a good laugh from me. Nice job!
That piracy notice is just an insult to injury, it can only show up for a user that actually has the cartridge.
I've always thought this was pretty neat... great vid man 👍
"ROMs..." **gets locked up and then has the video taken down**
Yes, that was indeed the joke in the video
Wasn't it because it was basically just a front end to extract cartridges to your phone which are just Rom's
Which you could do already or play your own extrated Switch stuff/bought homebrew roms/etc., yes.
Not even extract roms, it takes them from their servers as far as I know. The cartridge is used only to validate you have the game.
@@jg97873 That just makes it shady as opposed to weird, when you think about it.
@@jg97873 It copies the ROM from the cartridge itself. It's also really easy to make a backup so you don't have to do it every time.
@@Projectwolfie21 That would be illegal tho
Finally ill be able to take some high quality pictures with my gameboy camera!
(I know you are joking but) Funny thing is, i'm sure that wouldn't work either since it dumps the rom which means it doesn't connect back to the camera on the cartridge xD
I just laughed so hard it made me FART !!
0:02 FBI OPEN UP!!!!!!
I really love that he plays one of the most infamous bootlegs of the game boy color era at 9:43 when showing that "it can play game boy color games" xD - Pokemon Diamond (Keitai denjuu telefang Power version). I love this game!
"THE RETRO FMTURE", my favorite TH-cam.
Such a fun idea. Looks really well made and I guess it shows there’s a huge demand for games like these on mobile devices.
The Retrode 2 existing (and therefore the ability for anyone to dump their stuff easily) puts the attitude toward ROMs in this video in a pretty weird place. Just saying, this approach never really needed to be here even if you wanted to play your dumped carts onto your phone.
I haven't seen the Retrode 2, but there's something to be said for a nice and simple solution; stick the cartridge in, and it just plays.
...That said, this SmartBoy thing looks so clunky that it doesn't really pass that test.
Fun fact: My Old Boy Supports Super Game Boy boarders and pallettes, Game Boy Camera, and if I remember correctly you can use the Game Boy Printer features in games which saves a png of what'd be printed to your photo gallery, also bluetooth in order to use link cable games
oh god, i've never thought that would happen
sincerely this product never caught my attention that much, i really want to get an original gameboy and i love to play some gb games on my 3ds!
How do you play them on 3ds?
@@Ella-sl7wt virtual console!
Nobody:
Absolutely nobody:
The Retro Future:
"R̵̢̡͖̜͎̤̲̰̣͖͓͙͚͓̪̹̦̩̯͈̜̥̲̆͐̽͆̀̍͛̔́͊̎͐́̾͛̃͛͛̃͑̅̊̄̎̂̍͒̒̂̚̚̚̚͜͜͝͝͝ͅǪ̸̨̢̢̫͔̭̪̙͍͚̞͇̩͇͔̼̖̼̬̘̺̻̗͇̝̠͈͉̤͖̟̠͛̽̓̏̄̐́̔̎̔̽̽̋̉͂̽̈́͛̈́̊̕M̷̨̧̟͓̰̦̖̟͉̻̲̞͓̫̙̯͓̙̱̖̥͓̫̰̞̫̗̻̰͊̈͜͜Š̷̡̢̡̛̪̗͍̣͚̥͓̖̤̣̖̯̙̙̺͇̗̠͔̜̺͖͕̖̼̟̯̯̃̌̅͐̉̔̾̄̏̄͠͝"
Shut up with your shitty Nobody: meme
Not gonna lie, I've considered getting one of these. I would see them in my local GAME store all the time and was really tempted, but I wasn't sure if my Pixel 2 XL would fit in it properly.
I'm glad I went for the alternative instead... revamping my existing DMG with an IPA screen. Beautiful!
I originally bought this for my Pixel 2XL, it does fit, but it doesn't hold too well. A lot of the time, it would activate the squeeze phone for assistant function which was annoying.
it seems just fine, a great concept done just fine, i hope to see more stuff like this done in the future
This thing failed SO HARD that I ACTIVELY answer as many Amazon questions as possible, telling everyone how much this thing sucks and telling them to just drop their $50 on a real DMG-01.
50$ won't get you a backlight gbc with a good sound
It's also a controller to play gba or snes / nes in your phone
Nice! It's good to see Telefang popping up! There's a fan translation of that game in the works, it's about a third of the way finished.
Technically speaking, since you're dumping your own games for personal use, it's perfectly legal in the U.S.
People say that because of court rulings about VHS tapes, but Software companies usually claim that new laws like DMCA stop you from even making personal backups of copy-protected software, so who the heck knows what the courts would do.
I'm sure they wouldn't go after an individual, but I can understand why a company like Hyperkin would be nervous about facilitating it.
also it's like abandonware, since those games aren't being sold anymore to begin with
I don't have the link anymore but someone once linked Nintendo's legal page and it is actually illegal to use ROMs, even if you have the game.
@@Omabatfartsbruh Abandonware doesn't actually have any sort of legal meaning. I wish it did.
And some still are being sold on virtual console
0:23 Funny thing is, that this was posted by them as Joke once...
But people liked it so much, they made it.
In the end, a usb otg adapter, cartridge usb dumper with software is just the same, even more versatile...
(It is only dumping em after all...)
ROMs: *exist*
Prison: _Allow me to introduce myself._
They can't send you away if you never got caught!
ROMs aren't illegal. Not in the US anyways.
ROMs aren't illegal, just the way people choose to obtain them often is.
ROMs aren't illegal in most places. It's how you acquire them that is the thing.
@@RATsnak3 They are, unless the maker of it allows copies to be made (which only Homebrew Developers do) you cannot make a copy or download them legally
It was funny how persistant that piracy warning was, but when you unplugged the phone, put another game, and plugged the phone back, you got the previous game without the warning.
Quite the simple bypass
I bought this years ago, played it once then forgot about it....
This video is worth watching! More of this, please!
It fail because you can used an emulator on your phone with hundres of games, instead of putting cartridges
Interestingly, when the Smartboy first came out, they were specifically for iPhones. This USB-C version is the second revision.
That said, I have one of these. It's a bit of a pain in the ass to use, but I absolutely love it all the same. My biggest issue is the obscured menus and such at the bottom. I didn't even realize it came with a USB-C extension cable, that's disappointing. And I've never had issue with that piracy screen, I can get it to go away just fine.
Emulator apps: I'm abouta end this whole man's career...
Wow. Just wow. You had me cracking up after ONE WORD. Keep grinding, my dude. I really appreciate the effort you have been going to with your channel. I am proud to be a fan.
That intro.. Literally hilarious!
“Ro-“
TH-cam: No.
This is such a cool looking device even with the flaws, I ended up buying an Odroid Go insted just because I am scared of someone snatching my phone while i play in the bus
Why Just Why, Gameboy’s are easy To find!
Original Gameboys are slowly degrading over time due to the components used.
in brazil we have a law that guarantees the right to have a backup copy of any digital file.
An example, I have the original pokemon gold cartridge and so I can play any rom without worrying about piracy.
but everyone knows that nobody cares about piracy in brazil
It's kinda irritating that the screen is covered. And all the hiccups. Nah.
I always wonder how this would work... thanks for showing 😅
Hyperkin do things quite well and quality products?
Um, no 🤣
I was inspired to buy this to try it out just from the look of it, so I went and won it on eBay for 20 quid. And my god, this has become one of my favourite gadgets I own. The buttons control like a dream, and sure, I'm playing on myoldboy without using the cartridge port (may get a lot of 50-100 odd Gameboy games off sendico just for a laugh though) but I am getting so much enjoyment out of it. A lovely little device that deserves a chance if found for cheap and if ready to ignore the cartridge feature
Hey, I just remembered, some Android phones have an accessibility mode where you can do a wiggly gesture with your thumb and the screen shrinks down into one corner.
I wonder if that would make this device less absurd.
That little intro was 10/10 insta sub
I wanted to like this so much, but this thing was an April Fools joke turned real and it should’ve just stayed a joke. This is what happens when dumb customers demand things.
That's not necessarily a bad business idea. Pokémon GO, for example was initially a Google Maps April fools joke, but after high demand, they started development.
@@ungratefulmango Isn't pokemon go just a reskin of a game niantic made previously?
I would not mind a longer video like this, love this type of content and more of it is all good with me.
To the 1% who sees this, I hope your doing well. You should be more confidant. You should smile more. Stay safe. Where a mask and wash yo hands!!!
>smile more
>wear a mask
I smell a contradiction.
@@fishactivation5087 OK THAT IS SO FUNNY 😂
I was told to think of things I am thankful for and I thought, "retro future"
these things only seem to be for android too!
Lmao that intro. Keep it up I love your videos 💞
Roms: Exist
Nintendo: And I Took that Personally
Nintendo doesn’t dislike ROMs. ROMs are just their games. They don’t like people downloading ROMs from the internet.
but roms are literally the games so they existed since...1983
@@grasstails9737 I know and that’s why Nintendo doesn’t actually care that much if you download ROMs. They obviously don’t like it but the chances that either you would get caught or Nintendo would actually care if they caught you are both minimal.
Onscreen HW buttons - absolutely awesome idea, I was even thinking of creating my own DIY version of this, that will be much more portable. Back in day, there were even a kickstarter project called G-Pad, it was silicone buttons for emulators, but the project unfortunatelly failed, and the multiple G-Pad "prototipes" are nowhere to be found. Beacause of covid, I don't have access of HW that I need to build this gamepad, so I bought Flydigi Wee2T and call it a day. Now I can emulate basically every handheld till PS Vita and 3DS. Not that portable solution, that I was so keen on previously, but much more universal.
I think this actualy has proper hardware buttons.
piracy > """legitimacy"""
REREZ already made a review of this a few years ago but its cool seeing another review of it being done this year
"roms."
Me: laughs in emulation and homebrew/modded consoles.
Illegal im phoning the popo
I don't often like youtube videos. but literally lmfao I had to. the title, and the first 3 seconds of the video, pure genius.
IM FINALLY EARLYYY
When you pulled out the long gameboy I burst in laughter 😂😂 I didn't expect that
"Pulling it out, is something you do *quite frequently.*
God this thing was outdated by the time it came out. So many better options out there for Gameboy now. Seemed like a good idea at the time, but honestly, I really wouldn’t want to lug around this peripheral and give up my phone when a backlit gameboy colour takes up about as much space in a bag, if only a little bit more. Great video, once again!
Great video Elliot! I didn't buy one of these. I do remember when they first came out with them, I was working at a small business video game store, and we stocked these. Not a lot mind you, but I think we had 3 or 4 in the store for sale. I'm pretty sure we never sold one. When it comes to me and Hyperkin, it's hit and miss. For instance, I LOVE my Retron 5! But I know not everyone feels the same way about it as I do. I've been told some of their other "clone" consoles are hit or miss too. Keep up the good work!
Brendan
Love the video! Keep up the great videos!
Elliot: I'm not gonna get into how to set it up
Begins to get into it
This honestly has so much potential though. Like, if they fix the software issues, it could be such a great idea. The only issue I could see is that, since it's USB-C at the center, only people with that type of port would be able to use it. My phone for example is Micro USB and it's to the right. If they redid it, made versions that support Micro USB (as well as any other charger types I don't know about), and let you adjust where the port is, this could be an amazing piece of technology.
I did find a way to emulate in iphone using eclipse, and it functions without any lag, it had fast forwarding, hood audio, butt all in all it works really well.
I have SO many questions:
- So the feature must've eventually been tested. That means, are _all_ the pins actually wired up and accessible?
- If so, could a phone running a mobile Linux use this in order to ACTUALLY play Gameboy Color and Advance games? I would love to try that. I just wishlisted one of those on eBay.
- What are the maximum dimensions of a phone to fit in? How tick can it be at most, how wide? I am thinking of eventually getting a Razer Phone and throwing myself down the rabbit hole of implementing Linux on that (which is surprisingly possible but tidious...)
This is a neat device and I love it - I want one, with a proper phone, but I want to see just how far I can take this. If it has all the wiring complete, it'd be just a mere case of reverse engeneering it on a PC by plugging it in using the lead cable and seing if one could read/write to the cartridge to actually do things with the save on the cartridge. I have been hanging around Inside Gadgets and BennVenn discord servers for a while and I would personally love this. So I might end up testing this.
See, I thought they never made it. I am shocked to see that they *did* make it. xD Now I want to take it to the extreme.
Wait so it makes you restart the app to change games to "prevent piracy", but it'll just reopen the previous game with a different cartridge if you don't restart the app?
Sounds like you might be able to copy games with that
this would be really cool if it was just a controller. i can emulate gameboy on my phone but touch controls are annoying
they do make controllers for phones right?
Anti Piracy measures are a hundred times worse than piracy. Pirates will ALWAYS be able to get around these screens and the legitimate user has to deal with them...
...anti piracy measures are LITERALLY why I pirate. Why be forced to play a game with tons of restrictions after buying it when you can instead just download it and play it however you want?
cheers for the upload. i deemed this a failure at the first look because not everyone still has gameboy cartridges and i cant be assed to spend a fortune on collector hardware thats no longer produced for decades now and get more expensive each day. i hate how this software is yelling piracy for again, decades old games not even ninty cares about anymore.
Just a side note I use one of these pretty often I originally used its with a galaxy s8+ but have since upgraded to a samsung galaxy note 10+ 5g and it fits and works fine on that phone aswell
That's what phone I have. Was wondering if it fit.
@@Puddspanker yes it fits fine it works good for running gba games aswell but you can't use actual carts for gba games I ripped my gba games to my phone with a ds lite and a r4 card
If it had a link cable slot then I would buy this instantly
Hi Elliot, I agree with everything you said. Although I knew it sucked, I recently got this for about 15 quid brand new, just to collect honestly. Once you set it up you can get a casual play and actually enjoy it as long as you don't change cartridges but to be honest it is better to just add ROMs to your mobile and play without cartridge and without the hyperkin app. After trying it out for a couple of weeks I kinda like it now but obviously there is no point in playing on this when we have great mod screens and original Gameboys. Finally, I think it could be used to dump your cartridge save files and transfer them to an everdrive or something similar but I haven't researched more.
Thanks for the content mate
doesn't look like a great problem to remove the phone close the app and change games to me.. I don't change games every 2 minutes...
10:43 that's only to use the apps own save function, you can use the in game saves as many times as you want
I like how you don't do click-bait
Going to be honest, this is one of my favorite videos you've made so far. Perfect timing that it landed on my birthday (by obvious obvious coincidence)! Keep up the awesome content man, it's truly amazing.
Thank you so much! Happy birthday!
"Why it failed"
1.) Because they didn't make them compatible with more phone models. For example my phone (Which **is** an android) has it's charger plug slightly to the side so it just wouldn't fit. So yeah, I was bummed out it wouldn't work for my phone and I sure wasn't going to go buy a brand new one just for this when I have a working Gameboy already.
2.) It's not something that just plugs in and you play. A lot of people where hoping that it would just make your phone have an option pop up like when you plug it into your computer so you can switch it's mode over to the console, but finding out about all the extra downloads from reviews and stuff killed interest because at that point why not just download a free emulator and bootleg a ROM?
3.) Having to buy a product just to pay a seperate fee for the "full version". That's some EA levels of BS right there.
Also something that could fix a lot of issues is and On/Off switch that resets everything automatically.
8:47 am i the only one whos really glad hes actually pretty good at tetris. if he wasnt it wouldve just seemed off
I died when he pulled out the Alolan Gameboy 😂