Toronto Games Week 2025

Portable Preservation

For our third year of Toronto Games Week, the Broken Games Collective focused on portable and handheld systems. Our event, Portable Preservation, took place at the Royal Ontario Museum in the Earth Rangers Studio on June 17, 2025.

In the centre of the room, we built an exhibit of handheld video game consoles (and some interesting peripherals) as a timeline, from the Nintendo Game & Watch up to the final model of the 3DS family. Each display case had an info sheet with basic facts about each artifact.

It was heartwarming to hear the many comments from visitors who recognized an old favourite, including parents introducing the original Game Boy to their kids, or lamenting that a plaything from their youth should appear in a museum! 😅

Around the edges of the room, we set up our interactive displays. More than 700 visitors got to play, sew, photograph, and cheer each other on with a variety of systems and accessories. For the Broken Games Collective, giving people a chance to get hands-on with interesting video game artifacts is a big part of what preservation means to us.

Visitors at the display cases

Now you’re playing with… PlayStation?

An undercurrent of the event was the astonishing number of ways to play Game Boy games. In one bizarre comparison, we set up Tetris for the Game Boy on a Super Famicom with the Super Game Boy 2, side by side with an original PlayStation using a Super GB Booster. (Game Boy cartridges plug into the Super GB Booster, which plugs into the parallel port on early models of the PlayStation.)

Both setups let you play Game Boy games on a TV. But while the official Super Game Boy 2 is accurate to the original, the unofficial Super GB Booster produces unpredictable (though interesting!) glitches during gameplay.

Tetris on the Super Famicom and the PlayStation

Not exactly handheld

We also brought the Vectrex and the Nintendo Virtual Boy to share our love for self-contained tabletop systems. They won’t fit in your pocket, but they’re meant to be carried around and set up anywhere convenient.

The Vectrex has a built-in vector display that draws perfect lines from point to point on screen (rather than the rows of horizontal lines on a traditional CRT television), giving it a unique look with jaw-dropping scaling effects for the era. It’s impossible to fully replicate on modern displays, but a Vectrex Mini was announced in August 2025 that will attempt to simulate the experience using an AMOLED display.

Rarely mentioned by Nintendo since it was discontinued in 1996, the Virtual Boy is a 3D gaming headset with a distinctive red display and a handful of fun games. In one of the most surprising video game announcements ever, Nintendo revealed in September 2025 that the Virtual Boy would be revived for the Switch and Switch 2, with a custom stand that recreates the look and feel of the original system.

The Vectrex and the Virtual Boy

Sewing

Attendees got to try their hand at the Jaguar JN-100, also known as the Game Boy Sewing Machine. Instead of inventing a whole new digital interface, it connects to an existing, familiar device for its screen and controls: the Game Boy. In much the same way that smartphones now control devices around the home, the Game Boy is used to choose stitches, and more!

The Game Boy Sewing Machine

Game Boy selfies

One of the most popular stations was the area for taking photos with Game Boy Cameras. Released in 1998, the Game Boy Camera was the first digital camera for many people. Thanks to aftermarket sticker paper that’s still being made today (the original supplies have all long since expired), visitors could also print out their selfies and take them home.

Taking a Game Boy Camera selfie

The big screen

Inspired by the groups of people who gathered to play Hotel Mario together at last year’s event, we used the room’s largest screen to show Donkey Kong ‘94, using an Analogue Super Nt and Super Game Boy 2. The fan favourite turned out to be a little harder to rally around than the comparatively simple Hotel Mario, but there were still plenty of cheers as folks worked their way through its many levels.

Donkey Kong ‘94 on the big screen

The full list

For reference, these are all of the systems, accessories, and games that we brought to the event.

Interactive displays:

• GCE Vectrex (Mine Storm)
• Nintendo Virtual Boy (Galactic Pinball)
• Sony PlayStation (Super GB Booster and Tetris)
• Nintendo Super Famicom (Super Game Boy 2 and Tetris)
• Analogue Super Nt (Super Game Boy 2 and Donkey Kong ‘94)
• Analogue Pocket (Game Boy Sewing Machine and Singer Sewing Machine Operation Software)
• FunnyPlaying FPGBC (Game Boy Cameras and Game Boy Printers)

Handhelds:

• Game & Watch Donkey Kong Jr.
• Game Boy, Game Boy Pocket, Game Boy Light and Game Boy Color
• Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Advance SP (AGS-001 and AGS-101) and Game Boy Micro
• Super Game Boy, Super Game Boy 2 and Game Boy Player
• Sega Game Gear
• Atari Lynx (Model I and Model II)
• Neo Geo Pocket Color
• Bandai WonderSwan
• Nintendo DS, DS Lite, DSi and DSi XL
• Nintendo 3DS, 3DS XL/LL, New 3DS, New 3DS XL/LL, 2DS and New 2DS XL
• Sony PlayStation Portable, PSP Go and PS Vita

Peripherals:

• Nintendo e-Reader
• Pocket Monsters Stadium with Game Boy Transfer Pak
• Game Boy Pocket Sonar
• Mobile Golf with Mobile Adapter GB
• Game Boy Sewing Machine
• Game Boy Camera and Game Boy Printer