What was Nintendo's tiniest console? If you're thinking Game Boy Micro, you wouldn't be far off, but the actual answer is the Pokemon Mini, a Tamagotchi-sized device that the publisher built in collaboration with The Pokemon Company. This console is largely forgotten today, but it nonetheless still has a homebrew scene continuing to push the hardware's limits, and now somebody has gone and turned it into a Game Boy.
More precisely, a homebrew Game Boy emulator is now available for the Pokemon Mini, courtesy of developer zwenergy. "GB mini – Game Boy games on the Pokemon mini," zwenergy explains on Bluesky (via Time Extension), "The emulator is running on the PM2040 flash cart. As the PM has built-in rumble, GB rumble games (like Pokemon Pinball) use the PM's rumble. Save games supported as well. Next step audio emulation."
Take note of the bit about the flash cart, because as noted on the project's GitHub page, "the emulator actually does not on the Pokemon mini itself, but on the RP2040 microcontroller which is on the PM2040 flash cart."
GB mini - Game Boy games on the Pokemon mini. The emulator is running on the PM2040 flash cart. As the PM has built-in rumble, GB rumble games (like Pokemon Pinball) use the PM's rumble. Save games supported as well. Next step audio emulation.
— @zwenergy.bsky.social (@zwenergy.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2025-09-17T12:35:22.665Z
Even with that caveat in mind, the results are still impressive, with the video above showing OG Pokemon running in all its glory on a screen that absolutely should not be able to support it. Sure, the text is a little hard to read, but let's be real – if you're old enough to care about old hardware devices running original Game Boy games, you're probably going to need glasses to see this thing anyway.
If you're a sucker for tiny ways to play Game Boy games, the Pokemon Mini might even be a worthwhile companion piece to the Game Boy Micro, which played GBA titles but never offered backwards compatibility for the older generation of gaming handheld carts. Is getting a Pokemon Mini and loading it with Game Boy games wildly impractical? Yes. Does it still sound fun as hell? Also yes.
Why yes, we do have a list of the best Game Boy games of all time.
