Nostalgic gamers may soon be able to play their beloved Game Boy games in their mobile devices as a patent filed by Nintendo was recently published, hinting that the Japanese company has plans of bringing the games through a software emulator. 

According to the patent, which was originally filed in June 2014, Game Boy games such as Tetris, Mario, and other games from the '80s and '90s will head to mobile devices and in-flight entertainment systems used in airlines. To make this possible, a piece of emulator software is needed.  Emulation, or the process that copies the functions of the original hardware so the games would work using more modern technology, will allow Nintendo to bring titles from Game Boy, Game Boy Advance and Game Boy Color to computers, smartphones, and tablets. 

This is not the first time that Nintendo will revive its old games to modern devices. Nintendo offers older-generation game titles for download to Wii and Wii U. The upcoming Nintendo emulator app will most likely come to iOS and Android operating systems.  

There are a lot of third-party Nintendo game emulator apps for PC and Android OS, and these have been proven to be quite popular. However, it is rare to find compatible emulator apps in Apple's iOS due to copyright infringement issues. Thus, an official emulator app from Nintendo will avoid any conflict in intellectual property rights. 

There is no clear date yet as to when this emulator app from Nintendo will come into fruition and when it will arrive to smartphones and tablets. There are reports saying that the patent is just an update of an older Game Boy emulator, but it will secure the option for the company if it decides to make it.