The designers behind the new LEGO Game Boy have opened up about the collaboration with Nintendo, and what didn't make it into the build.
LEGO designers Carl Merriam and Simon Kent have offered insight into what went into the making of
As the latest 18+ LEGO Super Mario set, 72046 Game Boy is the most recent product from the LEGO Group's partnerships with Nintendo, which required discussion with the teams at the company to get the model just right.
“Nintendo was very involved,” shared Simon. “We have a team that works in Japan, they basically allow us to connect to different IP teams or hardware teams or even creative teams within Nintendo to get the right information to make the product as best as it can be. We also met with the hardware designer, who I think may have worked on the original or certainly was connected to the original.”
The confirmation that the partnership with Nintendo led to a meeting with a member of the team behind the original Game Boy helps to explain how 72046 Game Boy is so accurate compared to the real console. It also inherently increases the authenticity of the LEGO model, though it couldn't be comprehensively faithful to the Game Boy. This is despite the level of functionality featured within the new set.
“We don’t really have a lot of room [in the model] to do a lot of stuff, and we played around with all kinds of different functional ways to make you be able to do something with the games,” said Carl.
“It turned out that the one thing that we could achieve all over the entire thing was making all of the buttons have the same haptic feedback as the actual device, or as close as we can get in LEGO bricks.”
Those functional buttons have even helped one fan to turn the LEGO Game Boy into a functional console. The LEGO designers originally wanted to make 72046 Game Boy more accurate, initially considering more accessories that didn't make it into the final build.
“We wanted to sort of incorporate everything that was mobile about the Game Boy,” added Simon. “We had discussions on whether we should add any peripherals that can plug into it. Should it come with some headphones? Should it come with a little light? But, in the end, we wanted to keep it simple and focused very much on… taking fans' favourite games and playing them anywhere.”
72047 Game Boy makes up for the lack of LEGO peripherals by including two cartridge recreations for The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening and Super Mario Land, as well as three lenticular screens. The insight will at least provide the community with some inspiration for future LEGO Game Boy expansion builds.
LEGO 72046 Game Boy is available to buy right now for £54.99 in the UK, $59.99 in the US, and from €59.99 in Europe.
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