Hey everyone, it's Colin. How's it goin'?
The Game Boy Micro is a seriously small handheld gaming console,
but how did Nintendo get all the parts to fit in such a tiny footprint?
Stick around and we'll tear one down to find out.
[♪ Music - Intro ♪]
The Micro was released in 2005.
That was two years after the Game Boy Advance SP, though it wasn't meant as a replacement.
In a few ways, it's unlike any of Nintendo's other handhelds.
This is obvious from the outside.
It's the smallest Game Boy and also the only one with a metal body.
But there are some major differences on the inside, too.
One of the first changes is the link port.
The Micro plays GBA games and can do multiplayer with GBA consoles,
but Nintendo changed its port to a smaller design.
This broke compatibility with GBA accessories,
though Nintendo did eventually release a converter cable.
The Micro's link port is also used for charging its internal battery,
whereas the GBA SP had a separate port for that.
The Micro also has a much more complicated build.
Previous Game Boys are known for being easy to work on, but the Micro can be a bit tricky to take apart.
I've done a video showing the detailed teardown process, so be sure to check that out if you're interested.
Once inside, we find a pretty interesting logic board arrangement.
There are three circuit boards: the main one, another one with the D-pad and additional components,
and a very small one for the illuminated Select and Start buttons.
The three are connected through permanent flat flex cables.
Not using detachable ones saves space that connectors would otherwise take up.
And even though they're multi-layer boards, they also take up less room by being incredibly thin.
As for chips, there are only three that are interesting.
The first is in one corner of the board labeled "CP6465."
It's unbranded, but some digging reveals that it's likely a voltage regulator.
Another chip is adjacent to the display ribbon connector, but it's a bit of a mystery.
It appears to be a custom part made by Mitsumi, but I wasn't able to find any information about it.
Traces from it lead to a number of passive components, along with the headphone jack and speaker.
The Game Boy Micro is unique in that it offers up and down buttons for volume,
instead of an analog dial or slider.
Furthermore, the screen's brightness is also adjusted using the volume controls while holding down the left shoulder button.
Considering where this chip is located and what it's connected to,
I suspect it's a controller for miscellaneous functions like these.
The last interesting chip is the CPU itself,
but it perhaps reveals quite a bit of the engineering history behind the console.
It's very much like that of the original Game Boy Advance and SP.
It's got a 32-bit, 16.8 megahertz die based on the ARM7 architecture for GBA games,
along with an 8-bit Z80-based die for original Game Boy and Game Boy Color titles.
But there are two key differences.
In the GBA and SP models, 256 kilobytes of work RAM is external to the processor in the form of a separate chip.
Also, the processor in those consoles uses what's known as a quad-flat pack design,
where legs stick out all four sides of the chip to solder to pads on the board.
Both of these would have taken up too much space on the Micro's logic board though.
So the RAM got built directly into the processor, saving a separate chip.
And to further shrink the amount of space needed,
the processor itself was redesigned into a different package known as ball grid array, or BGA.
Instead of legs sticking out the sides of the chip, the connections are all underneath, arranged in a grid.
The chip gets soldered to the board using hot air, and when the solder cools,
it solidifies into small balls, hence the name.
This is a package type that's still common in today's electronics,
and while it makes component-level repairs difficult, it does save significant space.
Now, you might be scratching your head a little bit.
The Micro is known to *not* be able to play original Game Boy games,
so why is that Z80 processor die in there?
Only Nintendo engineers would know for sure, but my guess is this:
At the time the processor was being designed for the Micro, the plan was that the console would be backwards compatible.
But later on, when the final dimensions of the logic board were known,
the engineers realized there just wouldn't be enough space for the additional components necessary to make it happen.
At that point, it was probably quicker and cheaper to simply continue on with the processor,
than to redesign it again.
The other part of the Game Boy Micro that speaks to its development is the LCD.
It has the same 240x160 pixel resolution as the GBA,
but it's backlit and only two inches in diagonal.
Like previous Game Boy displays, it's made by Sharp.
But previous Game Boy displays were also *custom-designed* by Sharp for Nintendo,
and didn't get used in any other products.
The screen in the Micro, though, is a standard part.
I've found references to it being used in digital cameras and camcorders.
This fact is quite intriguing.
It shows much much Nintendo *was* and *wasn't* willing to invest in the console.
I think the company realized from the start that it'd be a bit of a niche product.
The Micro ended up only selling 2.4 million units, far fewer than the 79 million of the Game Boy Advance models.
Production and R&D costs were probably much higher too, meaning smaller margins.
So the display being a standard unit from Sharp's catalog likely saved Nintendo a good amount of money.
It didn't have to design and make yet another custom part.
In fact, it's quite possible that the rest of the Micro was designed around the screen.
And what's more, I don't think it'd be too much of a stretch
to suspect that *had* Nintendo needed to make a custom LCD,
the resulting profit margins would've been too...
well...
*micro* for the console to ever make it to market.
These days, the Game Boy Micro is a bit of a collector's item.
It's unique and somewhat odd, at least for Nintendo.
But I see it as a parting gift from the company to fans of the GBA platform,
as it looked towards the future with the DS series.
It may not have been popular in its time, but the Micro is, in some ways, one of the best Game Boys ever made.
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