The Game Boy Camera was a pocket photo lab with its own sticker printer

Image: Game Boy Printer, 1998; Science Museum Group Collection (image © The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum). Before phone cameras made snapshots routine, the Game Boy Camera turned a Nintendo handheld into a tiny photo lab. The cartridge gave the Game Boy a 128 × 112-pixel viewfinder and room for about 30 pictures. Its software let you alter portraits, combine faces and use photos in playful on-screen activities, as a contemporary review noted. Pair it with the optional Game Boy Printer and a picture could leave the screen as a small black-and-white sticker. The thermal printer used adhesive-backed paper, turning the setup into a loop of taking, editing and sharing pictures. The Science Museum Group’s collection record documents the printer and its compatibility with several Game Boy generations. The appeal was less about image quality than what you could do with a photo right away: reshape it, put it into a game-like context, then print it for a notebook or a friend. Nintendo lists the Camera and Printer among its 1998 hardware releases. [Science Museum Group collection record](https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co8184142/nintendo-game-boy-printer-model-mgb-007) · [Los Angeles Times review from 1998](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-jun-08-fi-57792-story.html) · [Nintendo history](https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Hardware/Nintendo-History/Nintendo-History-625945.html) ~gaming ~Nintendo