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Nintendo patent imagines turning your phone into a GameBoy

What if Nintendo's GameBoy Classic is just a phone case and an app?

Gordon Gottsegen CNET contributor
Gordon Gottsegen is a tech writer who has experience working at publications like Wired. He loves testing out new gadgets and complaining about them. He is the ghost of all failed Kickstarters.
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Gordon Gottsegen
nintendo-patent-gameboy-phone-cover

This may look like a GameBoy, but it has a touchscreen device inside.

 Nintendo/United States Patent and Trademark Office

Nintendo has released a NES Classic and a SNES Classic, but will there ever be a GameBoy Classic?

Nintendo has apparently thought of one way to bring the GameBoy back. A recently published Nintendo patent shows a cover that turns a touchscreen device into a GameBoy.

Read: How the Nintendo Switch make you feel like a kid with a Game Boy again.

The patent was originally filed in March and published in late September, then spotted this week by Siliconera.

The GameBoy cover seems to attach like a folio-style phone case. Close the cover and you'll be able to see the screen through a square cutout. Underneath the cutout are buttons that interact with the touchscreen and act as controls.

nintendo-patent-gameboy-phone-cover-2

The folio opens to show the inside cover of the GameBoy case and the touchscreen device.

 Nintendo/United States Patent and Trademark Office

Paired with some sort of downloadable software, this patented cover could give you a GameBoy-like experience. Best of all, it could potentially work with hardware you already have (like a smartphone or touchscreen device).

Nintendo didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.