See ‘Grand Theft Auto 5’ playing on a Nintendo Game Boy

A keen coder and hardware tinkerer has managed to get Grand Theft Auto 5 running on an original Nintendo Game Boy.

First spotted by PCGamer, Sebastian Staacks has created a WiFi Game Boy cartridge leading to him being able to stream the latest games on the system. Staacks created the WiFi Game Boy cartridge last month, as he explained on his extensive blog. From there, he “taught it to stream video and play games – in full resolution”. Impressively, games run at 20 fps on an unmodified and original Game Boy.

The full breakdown on how Staacks achieved it is a bit complicated and unlikely to be replicated by many. However it’s impressive stuff.

A video by Staacks demonstrates just how well Grand Theft Auto 5 runs on the system.

Predictably, it does not look great thanks to the dated screen the Game Boy offers. But, it still works. Somehow.

Staacks transferred his WiFi cartridge to the Analogue Pocket and it almost looks better on there. As his Twitter account shows, a timing issue means that there are some horizontal glitches that affect how good it looks.

Elsewhere, a follower of Staacks followed his instructions and made their own WiFi cart. In a predictable but cool move, Jesse Doherty used his WiFi cart to play Doom on his Game Boy.

Staacks explains that it’s far from a finished product. “The interface and image are almost unusable this way,” he notes, but it’s still clever stuff.

In other gaming news, an extensive Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem gameplay trailer has been released. The full game launches on January 25 for PC.