Because LEGO and Nintendo are a match made in heaven, LEGO will release a 2,807-piece Mighty Bowser build set this October for $270. It’s not the cheapest LEGO set, but it is probably the most likely to steal the princess and constantly move her to another castle.
LEGO Bowser stands approximately 12.5″ tall, and his head and neck can be moved via a button underneath his shell, which can also be pressed to launch a fireball from his mouth. His arms, fingers, legs, and tail are all poseable, and if I don’t get one for Christmas this year, I’m ostracizing my entire family.
In the video, they talk about how fun a build it is, which I believe. Especially with the internal mechanisms to move Bowser’s head and shoot the fireball. Will I be able to build it successfully? Absolutely not. Not that I’m going to open it on Christmas anyways… so-called family that loves me!
If there’s one thing Nintendo knows how to do, it’s sell products. Cold Stone Creamery teamed up with the video game giant to sell ice cream sundaes themed after some of their most popular games. I don’t know about you, but I’m already waiting outside my local Cold Stone waiting for them to open so I can try them all.
Varieties include the Mario Party Superstars-inspired Superstar Sprinkle Blast (cake batter ice cream, yellow cake, blue frosting, and rainbow sprinkles), Animal Crossing’s Island Getaway (chocolate ice cream, strawberries, banana and whipped topping), and Kirby’s Mighty Pink Puff (strawberry ice cream, strawberries, mini marshmallows, and caramel). Which sounds best to you? I’m going to mix them all together and create a Super Smash Bros. Ultimate sundae!
There’s also a Mario Kart Rainbow Road-inspired ice cream cake available, which I better get for my next birthday. OR ELSE. Or else I’ll be locking myself in my room and crying for the remainder of the day. You know, the usual.
I don’t think anybody’s ever held a Game Boy and gone “Maybe this would be better as a circular device”. Sure, it would look cool, but the potential pros are heavily outweighed by the potential cons. Nevertheless, here we are with Love Hultén’s latest custom build, a weirdly circular Nintendo Game Boy that also comes with a circular display to match its body. At best, it’s weirdly fun, at worst it’s a usability nightmare, but then again, Hultén isn’t planning on selling this piece. It’s purely a custom build to flex his DIY skills and probably rile the internet up a little.
From the looks of it, Hultén’s custom build was pretty much made from scratch and didn’t involve harming or hurting any existing Game Boys. Having extensively worked with circular displays (and even integrated a few into his custom-made synthesizers), Hultén managed to find a 5-inch IPS display he could spare for this build. The body looks like it was made from scratch, and the origin of those buttons could be anyone’s guess. Speaking of guessing, this custom Game Boy probably runs off an emulator fitted within its base. That also probably means all your games need to be sideloaded, and the circular Game Boy doesn’t have a slot at the back to input cartridges… although I wouldn’t put it past Hultén to actually make his own circular cartridges too!
The Nintendo Switch might be the company’s latest darling, but Nintendo has had consoles that become iconic in their own right during their lifetime. The Game Boy’s name is probably unchallenged, but the GameCube is definitely up there in the annals of gaming history. Remembered for being the first Nintendo console to use an optical disc instead of a cartridge, many GameCube fans have sought to revive the home console’s name today. One modder definitely succeeds in that goal by not only making the GameCube relevant but by also giving life to a popular fake version of the console that made rounds over the Internet more than a decade ago.
Designer: GingerOfOz
In 2005, right at the height of the GameCube’s popularity, a pair of renders sparked the interest of gamers and Nintendo fans. It was that of a portable version of the console that folded in a clamshell form, just like the Nintendo Game Boy Advance SP handheld that was launched around that time as well. In those days, Nintendo had no intentions of creating a portable version of a powerful home console, predating the creation of the Switch by more than ten years.
Someone finally tired of looking at fakes and dreaming of what could have been and made an effort to actually make this GameBoy Advance a reality. Thanks to the tools and services available even to hobbyists these days, that’s no longer an impossibility. That said, it wasn’t simply a matter of gluing pieces together, as the modder discovered the hard way.
The 2005 images, although quite attractive, were nothing but a work of fiction that couldn’t even translate into reality. The size of the hardware needed to support a GameCube disc would have made the handheld too large. The buttons, which were naturally patterned after the GameCube’s controller, would have also made it impossible to close the console shut.
In the end, GingerOfOz had to take liberties in how he implemented the design while at least sticking true to the form of the fake render. He even had to use a Wii’s internals instead of a GameCube in order to save space and reduce the device’s power consumption. And, of course, there was no optical disc drive.
The end result, however, was still a masterwork, especially since it could actually play GameCube titles with the ease and portability of a chunky Game Boy Advance. There are some limitations, of course, not to mention potential legal pitfalls with this mod, but there is an undeniable sense of satisfaction in finally making a long-standing dream a reality.
The Switch might be Nintendo’s current darling, but it is hardly its most iconic gaming device. That distinction probably belongs to the Game Boy, the handheld gaming console that catapulted the company’s name into the nascent gaming scene, at a time when consoles were still hulking boxes that had to be kept at home. The Game Boy served as the inspiration for many new products, projects, and concepts, and this latest do-over turns the Game Boy into a robot that, in some alternate universe, could actually have been a working and usable gaming console.
The original Game Boy’s design is beautiful in its simplicity. With only a D-Pad and four buttons (counting Select and Start), Nintendo’s historic handheld was clean and distraction-free. Of course, the games from that age didn’t need the complex controls that even the simpler Nintendo Switch has today, but some gamers might have actually considered that to be a strength rather than a weakness.
That also meant that it was trivial to retrofit the Game Boy’s design, and it would still be recognizable as a Game Boy. Especially if you use the same button layout, same button designs, and same color motif as the original. Bonus points if you actually used some parts of the original Game Boy in a completely new design, one that has an uncanny resemblance to a certain Star Wars droid.
That’s exactly what this imaginative designer did with an unused Game Boy shell, prying it open and cutting it in half to reuse some of the parts. The D-Pad and action buttons are placed on the robot’s chest. According to the creator, those buttons are actually clickable, so they’d theoretically be usable if they were actually wired to some electronics. That’s sadly not the case, but the designer definitely aimed for authenticity and fidelity. He even created a custom Game Boy cartridge and packaging for Game Bot that looks and feels like the real deal.
Another interesting part of this robot’s design is the cartridge slot on its back, taken from the original Game Boy. It can hold a genuine game cartridge, and one can only imagine that the Game Bot could actually read the data off it. Maybe in the future, gaming consoles could actually be robots that can hook up to a TV when you want to play games and then follow you around as your faithful companion the rest of the day.
Designed to uplift the Nintendo Switch from merely a gaming device, the ‘Joy-Cam’ is a controller that snaps onto the side of the gaming console, giving it front and rear-facing cameras so you can capture photos/videos, play in immersive AR and MR, and even stream your reactions while you game. The Joy-Cam comes from the mind of UK-based designer, Liam de la Bedoyere, a tech enthusiast who believes the Nintendo Switch has much more potential than being simply a game console. Much like how the classic Game Boy came with its own add-on Game Boy Camera that could take rudimentary black-and-white low-res photos, the Joy-Cam gives the Switch photographic features, turning the console into a much more versatile multimedia device.
The Nintendo Joy-Cam has a large primary lens and a smaller front-facing lens built right into its design. Liam’s original idea was to give the Nintendo Switch DSLR-like capabilities with a large viewfinder, although it’s easy to also envision the Joy-Cam as a breakthrough augmented and mixed reality gaming device. The primary camera lets you see the world ahead of you on the Switch’s large OLED display, while also superimposing digital elements into the real world in what would truly be a Pokémon GO-rivaling experience. For Switch gamers who also like recording themselves while playing, the front-facing camera lets you stream your reactions too, providing a new easier way for Switch-gamers to stream to their audience. The Switch + Twitch combination feels so incredibly natural, doesn’t it??
Getting, however, to the Joy-Cam’s original purpose, it really turns the Nintendo Switch into a powerful camera, adding a fresh contender into the smartphone camera race. This time, however, modularity is the name of the game, as Nintendo can simply release newer, better camera controllers, allowing people to upgrade their lenses and sensors without necessarily buying a new device each time.
The Nintendo Joy-Cam’s hardware feels like an upgrade when compared to a smartphone camera too. Of course, it houses a MUCH bigger primary lens, as sleekness isn’t really a concern for gamers as much as it is for smartphone users. The Joy-Cam also comes with a selection-pad and a shutter button located right under your thumb, and an Autofocus/Manual toggle switch on the top, allowing you to either switch on the camera’s autofocusing abilities or rely on manually turning the focus ring on the lens to click incredible DoF shots with real bokeh. Lastly, a flash located right under the primary lens lets you shoot in low-light too, giving you all the features you need to go from gaming to photography. Could Nintendo inadvertently build the natural successor to the Phonebloks and Google/Motorola’s failed Project Ara experiment? Well, Liam de la Bedoyere shows exactly how to go about it!
There are hardcore gamers and there are casual gamers. It doesn’t matter which group you belong to but I’m certain if you are, you will love this Nintendo FP Coffee Machine.
For people who grew up playing Super Mario, you won’t have a problem identifying the inspiration. No, this coffee machine won’t churn out Super Mushrooms or Fire Flowers. It can make your favorite cuppa joe and top it off with latte art of your favorite Nintendo game character. Mario? Pikachu? Name it. The Nintendo FP can print it.
Turkish industrial designer Sergen Çağlayan has a knack for turning ordinary devices into something fun. We’re guessing he grew up playing Nintendo games on his NES or maybe his Nintendo Switch. He used this passion to create something coffee lovers will be interested in. And sure, if this concept becomes a reality, we know stocks will quickly disappear off the shelves as fast as Pickachu’s Volt Tackle.
The Nintendo FP isn’t your usual coffee machine. It doesn’t brew coffee grounds as it only accepts coffee capsules or pods. This one takes after the aesthetics of the Nintendo Switch. The signature red and blue colors were used. The play screen and buttons are reminiscent of those on the Nintendo Game Boy Advanced SP from the early 2000s.
The “FP” in the name means Froth & Play. You can’t exactly play any game but the froth printer lets you play the latte art game. With milk foam or coffee drop, you can have an image of your favorite game character on your coffee.
The Nintendo FP Coffee Machine is easy to use. Pour water on the plastic tank. Add milk on the separate milk tank if you like for froth. Lift the small LCD screen up to power on the machine and start heating. Insert your choice of coffee pod for the day on the capsule slide. Choose the image you want on your coffee. Wait for the 3D-like printer to do its job.
Once done, you can start enjoying your coffee with Yoshi smiling back at you. It’s that convenient and fun. Warning: the screen may show you you’ve been having too much coffee for the week.
The concept capsule coffee machine looks more like a toy than a kitchen appliance. The choice of blue, red, gray, and white makes the device fun to look at and hold especially with its soft-touch rubbery feel.
Die-hard Nintendo fans will find joy in this thing even if some may not be coffee drinkers. We’re imagining you can get your young children prepare the coffee for you with the Nintendo Froth & Play. Just don’t let them play with it too much. And don’t let them drink the coffee.
Although it’s unlikely the company will ever go down this route, this concept smartphone is easily every Nintendo fan’s dream.
Although it is hardly Nintendo’s first handheld gaming device, the Nintendo Switch not only sparked the imagination but also drove sales sky-high when it launched back in 2017. Since then, the gaming giant has continued to milk that cow for all it’s worth, ignoring clamor for a long-overdue Switch Pro upgrade. Some Nintendo fans, however, actually wished that the company went smaller rather than bigger, bringing its iconic characters and titles to phones. Nintendo has sadly withdrawn from mobile games, but one fan tried to envision the best combination of Nintendo’s spirit and mobile technology.
In terms of technical capabilities, Nintendo definitely has what it takes to make a Nintendo Phone. The Switch, after all, is pretty much a tablet with custom software and a very successful gimmick in the form of the Joy-cons. Nintendo could have also easily partnered with some smartphone maker for a “Nintendo Edition” phone, but that will probably pale in comparison to one that bears Nintendo’s iconic design language.
It’s easy enough to actually mistake this Nintendo Phone concept as a toy, especially with its use of soft pastel colors and round buttons. That’s precisely the point, though, because this is a handheld gaming device first and foremost, a phone only second. It might look out of place in a boardroom meeting unless you’re the type who will flaunt their inner gamer in any setting.
Those colorful rear plates are also the perfect palette for branding, like the special edition consoles that Nintendo and its competitors would occasionally put out. There’s also an opportunity for slapping on skins, of course, and you won’t be as hesitant to put a Pokemon-themed skin on this as you would a regular phone. There’s also plenty of room for accessories, including game controllers, given how more open phone designs are compared to something like the Switch.
The rather sad reality is that this concept will remain just that, a concept that will tickle Nintendo fans’ fancy and make them yearn for better days. Nintendo hasn’t had much success with mobile games for phones, and it might not have the capability to run an Android spin of its own. For now, Nintendo fans can take comfort in knowing that their community has no shortage of creative people who can share their dreams of things Nintendo could do but never did.
Keeping your drink cold: it’s a necessity. Unless you’re drinking coffee or hot chocolate, then it’s the exact opposite of what I said. Besides, there’s already a coffee mug warp pipe for your hot beverage needs. But this is about beverages of the canned variety. And what better way to sip an insulated cold one and pledge your allegiance to old-school gaming than with this Super Mario Bros.-inspired warp pipe can koozie? Luigi would be so proud.
Made by Toynk and available on Amazon (affiliate link), the officially-licensed koozie looks just like an 8-bit warp pipe from the original Super Mario Bros. game for the NES. It will undoubtedly keep my Monster Energy nice and cold while I spent countless, infuriating hours trying to set a new speedrun record for the game, smashing controller after controller and unsettling the neighbors with my screaming.
I can never think of Super Mario Bros. and not think about how when I was a kid I’d convince my brother that the pits on the water levels were actually warp zones, so he’d swim down them and die and it would be my turn again. He still doesn’t trust me to this day.
Recently, I wrote about the Thumby, a teensy Game Boy-inspired gaming system that you basically need to be Ant-Man to play. If you like the idea of a miniature Game Boy, but your thumbs aren’t small enough to play that thing, you might want to consider the ZMKC Pocket Game Console Artisan Keycap instead.
These unique keycaps have an awesome retro look that apes the Nintendo Game Boy but stretched into the shape of a truncated pyramid, also known as a frustum. Yep, we all learned a new word today. If you’re typing on a mechanical keyboard, you have a whole bunch of frustums sitting there right in front of you. But I digress. These awesome artisan keycaps come not only in a retro beige color but in bold egg yolk yellow, a muted black, and several other hues in case you don’t care for the classic Game Boy color scheme.
Another neat thing about this keycap is its see-through window, which lets a keyboard backlight shine through like the old Game Boy Light screen.
The keycap is available for pre-order for $35 over on Drop, which means it’s actually more expensive than the playable Thumby game system. But I wouldn’t try gluing one of those onto your existing keyboard. It’ll start playing every time you type, plus you’ll probably get Krazy Glue stuck to your fingers when you’re doing it. Just think, for $35 each, you could replace all 85 of the 1U keys on a standard 104-key keyboard with these things for just about $3000!
