When my husband saw our son playing with a BittBoy, his reaction was “Well I guess this is the start of the video games…” It was said with a bit of disdain, as if becoming a gamer was a bad turn in our son’s development.
My reaction was a little different. Imagine me saying the same thing, but with a bit of joy and nostalgia, “I guess this is the start of the video games!”
So what exactly is a BittBoy?
It’s a tiny video game system, perfectly kid sized, with 300 old-school games on it. That’s right, 300! With retro games like Hamburger and Contra and some slightly newer ones from the 90s like Mortal Kombat. It has a 2.2″ screen, audio and a USB rechargeable battery with three hours per charge. It even comes with cables to hook it up to the TV.
All my old favorites are on there. The controls are set up like an old Nintendo controller so it’s like little Gameboy, but it has games from all different systems on it. Just hearing the music on some of the games makes me smile!
Fun for kids and an old-school gamer
I grew up playing video games. I remember loving Pong when I was my son’s age. Yeah, I’m that old 😂. Then I graduated to Atari, Super Atari, Nintendo and so on. I spent countless hours saving princesses and taking out bad guys. So I thought the website intro for BittBoy was pretty funny. It’s something this Geek Mama runs into all the time- assumptions that Dad is the family geek. Well I can tell you, mom is the one reliving her retro gamer times in this house!
I know my husband is concerned about our son becoming a stereotypical “gamer” and being an introverted nerd stuck inside playing games. Well, that was me, but I don’t feel like I missed out on anything. I spent plenty of time playing outside! And using my imagination and playing with friends. But I was an only child so when I was at home, my game system gave me “someone” to play with. It kept me occupied and challenged. And when my grandma got into gaming too, we bonded over staying up late on summer nights, jousting on ostriches or running from flowers spitting fire.
So yes, Dear Husband, this IS the start of the video games and the creation of a little gamer. And I say, bring it on! I’m ready!
Thanks to BittBoy for sending us a free game system to try and in exchange for posting an honest review! If you’d like to try one yourself, visit www.BittBoy.com and use code bittboy for 20% off! (offer good for US customers only)
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Categories: Gaming
Geek Mamas 
For me there are two challenges to overcome (I am using most recent Bittboy with updated OS:
1. What games to include? I have a 5 yo girl and I’d love to create a list of games she would like. I rather not expose her to some of the shoot ’em up games 🙂
2. Configuration. This is not a “set it and forget it” handheld. Meaning, each emulator required different controls to enter, exit, and save games. It’s not like my 5 yo can press one button to exit back to a menu for each game emulator she uses. I really wish there was a way to map consistent button presses across emulators so that the experience would be the same.
Sigh.
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I was constantly having to find, set-up and start the games for my son, so there is a draw-back there. I wasn’t worried about any of the shoot-em-up stuff because well, he’s a boy and that’s all he wants to play, LOL. It was a great little intro system, but we have moved on to the Switch now and you just can’t go back once you make that move!
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