For several years now, Nintendo and The LEGO Group have collaborated to make numerous new LEGO sets based on their world popular properties, such as Super Mario and The Legend of Zelda, as well as upcoming 2026 LEGO sets based on Pokemon. Nintendo and The LEGO Group additionally partnered to make LEGO sets based on some of Nintendo’s most iconic video game consoles, such as 2020's LEGO Nintendo Entertainment System. At San Diego Comic Con, the two companies revealed more details and a release date for their latest collaborative LEGO set, which is the LEGO Game Boy based on Nintendo’s celebrated 1989 handheld console. However, this set features an immersion-breaking flaw by not featuring an important game cartridge for the Game Boy: Tetris.
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Tetris’ Critical Relationship With Nintendo’s Game Boy
In the 1980s, Nintendo was dominating the home console market thanks to the monumental success of the NES and profitable acclaim for the Game & Watch series of handhelds. By 1987, the legendary Gunpei Yokoi and Nintendo’s Research & Development 1 Department began working on the successor to Game & Watch, which eventually became Nintendo’s Game Boy.
Meanwhile, an unassuming computer puzzle game began making waves in the Russian Soviet Union and nearby nations called Tetris. Originally created by Russian computer engineer Alexey Pajitnov in 1985 for the Elektronika 60 computer, Tetris was a reinvention of pentomino puzzle blocks with the goal of sorting the blocks into unified rows. Despite Tetris’ Soviet Union popularity, it initially struggled to expand into other markets due to the nation’s harsh restrictions on trading.
Eventually, the Soviet Union authorized Tetris to be published and sold in foreign markets, with Tetris first debuting in the United Kingdom and United States markets in 1988 and selling over one million units. Later on, game entrepreneur Henk Rogers of Bullet-Proof Software acquired the handheld rights to Tetris from the Soviet Union software licensing organization Elektronorgtechnica.
In December 1988, Nintendo of America president Minoru Arakawa invited Rogers to visit its Redmond, Washington headquarters to view the prototype Game Boy and discuss potential games the handheld could be packaged with. Nintendo intended to launch the Game Boy in American markets with Super Mario Land due to the success of Mario titles on the NES.
Tetris’ Pivotal Launch on Nintendo’s Game Boy
Rogers instead suggested that the Game Boy be packaged with Tetris, saying, “If you include Mario, the Game Boy will be for little boys. But if you include Tetris, the Game Boy will be for everybody.” After acquiring the handheld rights to Tetris, Rogers licensed Tetris’ handheld rights to Nintendo, allowing them to quickly develop their own version of Tetris for the Game Boy’s American launch in 1989. This decision to package the Game Boy with Tetris turned out to be a pivotal choice, as Tetris topped sales charts in Japan and American markets throughout 1989, selling 2.5 million copies by 1990. By 1997, Tetris on the Game Boy sold nearly 30 million copies, ensuring both it and the Game Boy’s worldwide success.
Tetris was additionally released for the NES roughly five months after its launch on the Game Boy in November 1989 to similar acclaim, selling 1.5 million copies by 1990.
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The Absence of Tetris with LEGO’s Game Boy
Tetris helped sell the Game Boy to not just kids but adults as well, ensuring the Game Boy had a successful launch. Without Tetris, the Game Boy might have sold fewer units worldwide, potentially curbing Nintendo’s future handheld endeavors. Until Pokemon Red, Blue, and Green debuted on the Game Boy in 1998 and 1999, Tetris was the Game Boy’s universal killer app due to its easy-to-understand gameplay, addictive nature, and being the first Game Boy title to feature multiplayer through the Game Link Cable. Since 1989, Game Boy’s Tetris was remade into Tetris DX for 1998’s Game Boy Color and was ported to both the Nintendo 3DS and the Nintendo Switch’s digital stores. Even Tetris’ iconic Game Boy music can be heard in other Nintendo titles such as Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
With a storied and long-celebrated legacy on Nintendo platforms, especially the Game Boy, it’s rather bizarre that Nintendo and The LEGO Group didn’t feature a recreation of the Tetris cartridge with the LEGO Game Boy set. Instead, the LEGO Game Boy set features LEGO recreations of the Super Mario Land and The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening cartridges as well as swappable screens featuring gameplay stills of both aforementioned games. Both Super Mario Land and Link’s Awakening are popular games, but it’s odd that the set doesn’t feature a Tetris cartridge. LEGO and Nintendo even recreated the Game Boy’s original trailer for the set despite the Game Boy’s original trailer featuring the Tetris cartridge and gameplay.
The Potential Cause for Tetris’ Absence in the LEGO Game Boy Set
All of Nintendo’s current or previously released LEGO sets feature characters and elements from only four franchises: Super Mario, Luigi’s Mansion, The Legend of Zelda, and Animal Crossing. To this precedent, Nintendo and LEGO may have chosen to feature Super Mario Land and Link’s Awakening in the LEGO Game Boy set to better match their prior Nintendo-themed sets. However, LEGO has previously made sets for older games similar to Tetris, such as the LEGO Atari 2600 and the LEGO PAC-MAN Arcade, so having the Game Boy set feature Tetris wouldn’t be out of place. Alternatively, Tetris’ absence in the LEGO Game Boy set could be due to licensing issues, as The Tetris Company, Inc. Currently owns all rights to Tetris worldwide.
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