The Game Boy XL is a new take on Nintendo’s classic handheld that sees the original DMG blown up to monstrous new proportions. Homebrew console modder Arnov Sharma’s Game Boy XL is a 3D-printed recreation powered by a Raspberry Pi 5 with enough horsepower to run “any kind of game, from NES to PS2”. The creator humbly boasts with tongue firmly in cheek that the Game Boy XL can even run DOOM.
Sharma modeled the beefy device from scratch using Fusion360 before printing the shell with an Ender 3 printer. Audio comes via some custom PCBs incorporated into an audio board that Sharma recycled from a previous project.
The Game Boy XL uses a 7-inch LCD display for the screen, an in-built 12V battery, and features working face buttons and a D-pad, making it a truly portable games console, provided you’re strong enough to lug it around on your travels.
Thankfully Sharma also incorporated support for external controllers and even HDMI output to help weary players continue their adventures across the Game Boy’s extensive library of excellent titles. Sharma revealed how they produced the gargantuan Game Boy in a detailed post on Hackster. The post delves into each step of the creation process and even reveals some shortcomings of the device, such as how the screen is “really bad”, so bad in fact that Sharma cannot play games like Crash Bandicoot or Silent Hill on it.
At the opposite end of the size spectrum we’ve previously covered the unofficial Game Boy Mini, which also used a Raspberry Pi to deliver emulation, but on a considerably smaller scale.
Projects like these are becoming more common as people gain access to modeling software and 3D printers. Last week we covered the story of a 3D printed handheld N64 in our exclusive first look at Handheld Gameplayer’s latest device, another prime example of the ingenuity of the Retro Gaming community!
