i've made some stuff by now and i'm wondering if focusing on "one gb chip" is preventing me from branching out into other areas and skills. also i don't really see a lot of gb stuff around anymore.

i feel like focusing on one chip tends to limit how you think about chiptune. you should probably expand onto other stuff such as fm, wavetables or samples and see what you like best. furnace, for instance, has a literal shitton of chips to try out

i would say that sega master system is probably the best chip for beginners (sneventracker/furnace, take your pick). theres not a lot going on with it and most of what you can do in that chip will then be translatable for other chips out there.
game boy, its a good chip but beginner wise it is not the best i would say. even the 2a03 is an easier pick.

I'd say you could maybe try LSDJ and see if you like it? As said big lumpy furnace is another option but you can easily experiment with a lot of chips with this tool, so you will probably benefit a lot from doing so (even if your main goal is to do Game Boy chiptune)

On my side, I started by focusing on the NES/2A03 by using FamiTracker. At some point I wanted to do sample based music so I started using Furnace. I found out I could apply a lot of stuff I learned with FamiTracker to Furnace so this was much easier to pick up Furnace compared to when I started with FamiTracker

Gonna buck the trend here and say sticking with one for a while is utterly fine and good. Lots of the good rich stuff in chptune starts happening when you get really familiar with your system and push it. I've heard such amazing tunes for so many devices that I think it honestly doesn't matter as much WHAT you choose; it's more important to stick around with it.

Gameboy sound is great with 2 pulse channels, a 2-in-1 sample channel and a pretty capable noise channel. Can be hard for beginners to make satisfying 4-channel tunes but it's not like a 3 or even 2 situation where you really need to have the tricks. And it can sound really, really good.

Only thing is that LSDJ is kind of idiosyncratic and can be weird for a beginner. There's a lot of scrubbing through screens and menu-diving, so things can feel hidden. When I started learning I was also tracking .xm's on pc in Milkytracker, where everything is laid out in front of you and you can really see how trackers work. You can also download loads of classic chiptunes from masters on the mod archive and see how all of their tricks work, which you can bring over to the gameboy. Classic 4-channel chiptune .mod's are a great complement to learning LSDJ, I think.

TL;DR, my advice? If you have a gameboy and like how GB sounds, get LSDJ and freaking go for it, and maybe choose a more conventional tracker (I suggest milky of course......) on pc, which will help make things more clear.

Oh another cool thing with Milky Tracker is that once you are used to it, you can also use it to do Game Boy chiptune using GBT Player!

Me personally, I got my start using Famitracker, so I'd recommend the NES/2A03 as a good starter chip. it's relatively simple to use with pretty basic channel macro settings and can still create some of the best sounds in the chiptune spectrum. I think the Gameboy is a great chip to start on, too, especially as an intro to wavetabling, but I wouldn't recommend using something advanced like LSDJ right off the bat as it has a lot of unique features and frankly runs best if you actually own a physical gameboy.

tldr: gameboy is a fine starting chip, as is the nes.

too many answers, and zero of the big question.

peregrinefool, what kind of chip do you like to listen to?

whichever chip you fancy is good for a beginner. big lumby suggested that you should expand to fm, wavetables and samples. we're all different but i think it's a bad idea for most people. it's simpler to focus on one thing and THEN expand, rather than exploring all routes at the same time. if you fancy the gb sounds, i'd say stick to it until you feel limited and then expand to whatever you think the gb lacks... otherwise exploring many things could just end up distracting you from actually learning.

as some might have noticed ;) in my experience, one chip is enough. you can spend your life making music with just one chip. 3 channels are sufficient to keep you busy forever as music itself is not something you can fully master. just enjoy yourself in this music making journey :)