Hey, can we borrow that old Game Boy, please?

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Published: 12:00am, 3 Jul 2007

Long before iPods, Xboxes, PlayStations and otaku (the Japanese term for nerds obsessed with computers and games), there was the Nintendo Game Boy. Two local artists, music composer Samson Young and media manipulator Christopher Lau, are desperately trying to get their hands on these first-generation mobile consoles for a multidisciplinary project they are creating as part of the Bloomberg Emerging Artists Programme with the Youth Arts Foundation.

'We are planning to build a megafun and totally ridiculous video and sound installation with hundreds of original Nintendo Game Boys. We have been searching high and low for them, getting strange looks everywhere we went,' Young and Lau explained. 'These babies are quite hard to find these days, but they are worth next to nothing [currently going for anywhere between US$2 and $5 per console on eBay].'

Specifically, they're looking for black or white models of the original 1989 game set, but other colours are okay. But they can't promise the unit will be returned in its original form as they plan to tinker with the hardware. Imagine, close to 70 million of them were actually sold worldwide. If you have one, give them a call, unless you're still playing Tetris on it. 'We will gladly pick it up from your home anywhere in Hong Kong.' Overseas readers can reach them by e-mail, [email protected] or [email protected].