LEGO Game Boy Gets Modded to Play Real Cartridges Days After Launch

The LEGO Game Boy has only just hit store shelves, but the community wasted no time in taking the nostalgic set far beyond what LEGO officially intended. Retailing for $59.99 and comprised of 421 pieces, the kit faithfully recreates Nintendo’s legendary handheld console in brick form, complete with charming cartridges of classics like Super Mario Land and The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening.

Yet within days of launch, talented hardware tinkerer Natalie the Nerd managed to transform the toy into something much more ambitious – a fully functional Game Boy that can run original cartridges.

Natalie, known in retro-modding circles for her work on custom circuits and safer charging solutions, documented her process in detail. The project wasn’t about emulation or slipping a Raspberry Pi inside; instead, she engineered a custom Game Boy-compatible circuit board slim enough to fit inside LEGO’s space-conscious design. She wired the LEGO’s surprisingly pressable buttons to a button matrix, incorporated a USB-C charging port, and even devised a soft-latching power button using components from her own Safer Charger board. The LEGO cartridge slot itself is now capable of handling real Game Boy cartridges – a touch that bridges toy and tech in a way few mods ever manage.

While Natalie admitted she wasn’t sure how well the LEGO buttons would translate into functional inputs, they proved just tactile enough to integrate with 3D-printed connectors. The early prototype already plays genuine cartridges, though she noted the build still requires refinement before releasing full instructions to the public. Her modification showcases not only ingenuity but also the enduring appeal of Nintendo’s handheld, which continues to inspire fans more than three decades after its 1989 debut.

The official LEGO set itself deserves recognition too. Despite being the smallest of LEGO’s video game console recreations, it makes striking use of its limited piece count. Reviewers who built it praised its accuracy and clever construction techniques, noting that the final model captures the Game Boy’s look almost perfectly, just at a slightly reduced scale. At $60, it stands as one of the most affordable licensed retro sets LEGO has produced – and one that doubles as an open invitation for creative modders to push it further, as Natalie has already proven.

In a sense, this is exactly what fans always wanted from a LEGO Game Boy: not just a display piece, but a model that brings the old handheld back to life. Whether Nintendo’s famously vigilant legal team will appreciate the transformation is another story entirely, but for enthusiasts of both bricks and pixels, it’s hard not to marvel at the blend of nostalgia and innovation.