Nintendo might bring back the Game Boy in the form of a phone case

Now that Nintendo has brought few of the nostalgia-inducing consoles, everyone's waiting for something like the Game Boy and other handhelds. Well, the company might have an idea. According to a recent patent published by the USPTO, the company might be planning a folio case that would turn your smartphone into a functioning Game Boy replica.

The case will have all the buttons that translate presses into touchscreen input. It will look familiar to devices like Hyperkin's Smart Boy, only here users wouldn't need to plug in cartridges to play officially sanctioned game copies. This is just an application and not a granted patent, so there's a possibility that the product may never make it to reality.

The company actually filed for the patent in Japan in march 2017, so even if the company plans on making such a case, it might take time. There are also many technological challenges to overcome. What remains to be seen is whether Nintendo will launch a variety of cases to support these popular titles.
This could definitely address the demand for a Game Boy revival without having to produce a different product altogether.

Previously the company also filed for an application that showed a few situations where the touchscreen would appear as the Switch without the Joy-Cons. Here we see a few multi-screen orientations that include groups of three or four screens with unified displays. Nintendo also hints at multiple options for pairing separate displays.

One screen would have players line up two panels and swipe on their screens in a single, smooth line, which would then define the paired systems' specific orientation. The patent also doesn't explain how these systems will be attached to each other, either magnetically or with a Joy-Con slot, and whether swiping across two screens will disturb the physical orientation or not.

The drawings primarily show fingers being used to control the games, but if you see the patent's language includes mention of a possible camera and a microphone addition for input, alongside "an external operation apparatus."