The modders over at Kei Studio in Japan have figured out a way to cram the newly released, and hotly sought after, NES Classic inside a Game Boy shell. They even gave it a Famicom red-and-gold paint job and are calling it the Famicom Pocket.
In a video the studio uploaded, it shows how they were able to get the mod to work, down to every minor detail. Most interesting was the ability to hook up a second NES Classic Game Boy to allow for two-player gameplay on the go. All it took was a major battery upgrade.
The team also had to modify the Game Boy shell itself to get all the components to fit. Because the screen on the original Game Boy was so small, they had to use a Dremel to cut off some plastic to make room for the larger LCD screen. They also had to cut out the area where the D-pad and buttons go to make the area look like a tiny Famicom controller.
This is not the first mod by Kei Studio. In November, it was able to condense an entire PlayStation 2 into a handheld. And by handheld, it was more the size of a textbook — but still portable, nonetheless.
Because Kei Studio opts to use the original hardware, and not to emulate it on a Raspberry Pi for example, they have to work with the constraints and size of the original hardware. If Nintendo, and hopefully Sony, continue to make miniaturized versions of its classic systems, then it is likely that Kei Studio will try to cram it into a smaller shell.
