Raspberry Pi Pico Enables Live Video Streaming to Nintendo Game Boy Color

A few days back, the YouTuber ChromaLock shared an intriguing project on his channel that truly captured the imagination of retro gaming fans. He introduced a modified Game Boy Color that can play videos, all thanks to a Raspberry Pi Pico and some clever software coding. This video playback isn’t just through any conventional means—it’s done using the console’s original link cable, giving a retro twist to modern technology.

In terms of visuals, simpler videos translate to smoother frames per second, delivering unexpectedly clear playback. It performs noticeably better than the traditional Game Boy Camera when using something as straightforward as a USB webcam. However, given the Game Boy Color’s limited color palette, which is only four colors, most videos look best in monochrome. This helps them run more smoothly on the limited 160 x 144-pixel display of the device.

ChromaLock’s final product is an app known as CGBLinkVideo, which you can find on GitHub. It’s built on some open-source foundations and designed specifically to stream video from a Raspberry Pi Pico to the Game Boy Color via the link cable. Video compression squashes the data down to about 1 Megabyte per second, which is then further compressed to fit the link cable’s 64 Kilobyte per second limit. As a result, this setup often leads to dropped or split frames, but nonetheless, it manages to deliver a functional playback experience.

The YouTube video by ChromaLock doesn’t just show off the end result; it dives into the nitty-gritty of developing this tool within the restrictive framework of the Game Boy Color. Videos in grayscale or monochrome can hit up to 60 frames per second, although adding color usually drops that rate down to around 12 FPS.

ChromaLock even tested streaming video games, but it was clear that playing original Game Boy titles via streaming fell short of the quality experienced when running the games natively. Modern, high-resolution games like Doom Eternal were practically illegible on the Game Boy Color’s ancient display technology.

What truly motivated ChromaLock, it seems, was the challenge of running the well-known Touhou Project music video “Bad Apple.” Since this video is already in monochrome, achieving 60 FPS playback on a Game Boy Color was surprisingly doable. However, the streaming method introduced noticeable dithering effects.

For those keen on retro tech or unique gaming feats, this project stands out as both an impressive technical exercise and a testament to pushing old hardware to its limits.