You can now use the Game Boy Camera as a webcam for your PC — 26-year-old camera gets new life with the sleek GB Operator dock

GB Operator showing a Game Boy Cartridge with the Game Boy Camera in the foreground
(Image credit: Epilogue / X)

The Game Boy Camera, a 16-kilopixel (yes, you read that right — 16,000 pixels) digital camera cartridge that attaches to the Game Boy, now works with PCs via the GB Operator dock made by Epilogue. This sleek device connects to Windows, macOS, and Linux devices via USB-C and the Playback software, allowing you to play Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance titles from your existing cartridges.

This isn't the first time that someone attempted to turn the toy camera into a webcam for a modern PC, as Retro Game Couch built a system using the Game Boy Camera, the Super Game Boy adapter for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), an actual SNES, an AV to HDMI upscaler, and an HDMI capture card. While this system works to allow your PC to use the Game Boy Camera, it's quite a janky build with a lot of moving (and expensive) parts.

Game Boy Camera as Webcam in Zoom/Teams/Meet/Streams - YouTube Game Boy Camera as Webcam in Zoom/Teams/Meet/Streams - YouTube
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There's also the GB Interceptor, which is an adapter that you install on a Game Boy device which then accepts the Game Boy camera. While it lets you use your Game Boy Camera as a webcam, it still requires an actual Nintendo handheld console to use it, which could be hard to come by if you already don't own a functioning one.

On the other hand, the GB Operator acts like a small dock and is barely larger than the Game Boy cartridges it reads. This makes it much more convenient to use, and if you pair it with a Windows tablet like the Copilot+ Microsoft Surface Pro, you can take your lo-fi photography on the go. Unfortunately, Playback isn't supported yet on Android, iOS, or iPadOS, meaning you won't be able to use the GB Operator on your mobile devices.

Although the dock has been around since 2021, the Epilogue team took over three years to bring Game Boy Camera compatibility with the GB Operator. Nevertheless, it seems that this functionality has finally worked, with the team even posting a short video on X showing the grainy, low-res feed from the camera cartridge.

The Camera Viewer for the GB Operator seems to be still on its alpha build, and the app needs to be fine-tuned and configuration options enabled. Even so, it will excite the wider retro community, as we can finally find more use for the toy camera cartridge Nintendo made for the Game Boy handhelds and make it easier to share the images and memories we capture with it.

Jowi Morales
Contributing Writer

Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He’s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he’s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics.

  • Alvar "Miles" Udell
    16 kilopixels wasn't that bad considering the GB and GBC had a 160x144 (23 kilopixel) resolution, and the Game Boy Printer had the same resolution, and digital cameras of the age used 3.5 inch floppies as storage.
    Reply
  • USAFRet
    Alvar Miles Udell said:
    16 kilopixels wasn't that bad considering the GB and GBC had a 160x144 (23 kilopixel) resolution, and the Game Boy Printer had the same resolution, and digital cameras of the age used 3.5 inch floppies as storage.
    This was taken with a digital camera only 2 years newer.
    3 megapixel Olympus C-3000
    (pic taken in 2003, still one of my favorites)
    Reply
  • Alvar "Miles" Udell
    USAFRet said:
    This was taken with a digital camera only 2 years newer.
    3 megapixel Olympus C-3000
    (pic taken in 2003, still one of my favorites)

    Not bad for only 16x the price of the GB Camera.
    Reply
  • USAFRet
    Alvar Miles Udell said:
    Not bad for only 16x the price of the GB Camera.
    Well, yes.
    But then you also need all the other associated Gameboy stuff.

    That pic was just a demo of the state of digital in 2000.
    Reply