Goodbye Game Boy?

Game Daily reported that in an interview with senior vice president of marketing at Nintendo of America, George Harrison, he was quoted saying, “This year in our marketing you really won’t see much push against Game Boy itself, so it will kind of seek its own level. It’s hard to say in the future if we will ever bring back the Game Boy trademark.” Word amongst Nintendo fans is that the third pillar (Wii, DS, GB) of Nintendo may be done, but I beg to differ.

I not only believe that Nintendo will not try to promote the GB next year, but I think that’s a great move on their part. Judging by E3, the Wii will be promoted most heavily throughout the remainder of 2007, in order to drive holiday sales, and then throughout the early portion of 200, as well. How strongly Nintendo will back the DS is still unknown, but I figure that they’ll let it sell itself for a couple months, market it a bit around the holidays (maybe a couple nice 3rd party titles?) so PSP doesn’t outsell the DS during the holiday season, and then get some big games out in 2008.

So where does this leave the Game Boy? During 2007 and 2008, it doesn’t really fit into the formula for success at Nintendo. But, there is no way Nintendo could drop such a profitable name. As of 3 months ago, nearly 80 million GBAs had been sold worldwide… remember, that’s not including the original Game Boy or Game Boy Color, and the many variations on those 2 handhelds. So, maybe once the Wii has done a little more pummeling of its competition, and DS keeps up its sales, a new Game Boy might make its way out. Who knows… anything can happen.