FatPiBoy: Respin Game Boy With A Pop-Out Controller

Have you ever found yourself wishing you had a clone of the Game Boy, except it was actually twice as wide, and instead of holding it in your hands you pop a tiny separate controller out of the middle and play it that way? No? Well, neither have we. But that didn’t stop [Christian Reinbacher] from designing and building exactly that, and by the looks of the finished product, we have to say he might be onto something.

To be fair, the charmingly-named FatPiBoy is not really meant to be played like the GameBoy of yesteryear. It’s more like a game console with built in display; you prop the console up on something, and then remove the controller from the system and play that way.

The controller itself is a commercial product, the 8bitdo Zero, but [Christian] based the rest of the system on parts intended for the Adafruit PiGRRL. For the battery, [Christian] used a 4,500 mAh pack that was originally from his Nexus 7 tablet; a tip to keep in mind next time you’re looking for a big and cheap lithium-ion battery.

[Christian] notes that the case design isn’t perfect. There’s currently no external access to the Pi’s USB ports, and the recess for the 8bitdo Zero could be a few millimeters deeper. Still, we think he did an excellent job finishing the case and giving it a professional look; the case and controller look like nearly a perfect match.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a Raspberry Pi put on a GameBoy costume, but the FatPiBoy does bring something new to the table with its removable controller. Of course, if you think the controller [Christian] selected for this build is a bit too small, you can always substitute your own

5 thoughts on “FatPiBoy: Respin Game Boy With A Pop-Out Controller

    1. I’ve a 8bitdo FC30 from 2013 (yes way before it was cool and recognized by most) and it has no battery problems whatsoever, even after keeping it fully charged but not under use for long periods of time. I’m sure the battery it is not good as new but it still rocks and the controller had fw upgrades for years.

  1. Seems like a little kick stand or something would have been nice to build into the case. Unless I’m missing something, you have to find your own object to prop the system up “in the field” as it were.

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