Back in 1989 Nintendo released the Game Boy. A portable game console with a 2.6 inch LCD screen, built in sound, headphone jack and a scroll wheel to adjust the contrast of the screen. Despite looking (and weighing!) like a brick, there were some pretty great games released for it...Tetris, Mario or Pokemon anyone?
Aside this, it managed to survive in the market far longer than the Sega Game Gear and the Atari Lynx...how?
Later in the same year, Atari released the Lynx. Known to be the first handheld games console with a colour screen! it didn't quite make as big an impact at the Gameboy...why?
Here's the big 3 reasons:
1. The Gameboy accepted 4 AA batteries and this would give you at minimum an average of 10-30 hours of play (later Nintendo released a seperate external battery pack that would charge over mains, but of course this was always sold seperately). The Atari Lynx on the other hand took 6 AA batteries...and would only last between 4-5 hours...gulp!
2. The Gameboy cost somewhere in the region of £55-£60 in the UK at the time of it's launch $89.99 if you're a US reader. Compare that with the Atari Lynx, which cost a whopping £110-£115 or $189.00 again if you're in the US...this seriously wasn't looking good.
3. Nintendo released the "Super Gameboy" which allowed for playing Gameboy games on your SNES! Atari, unfortunately didn't have any such adaptors for their home consoles.
OK so the Gameboy has pretty much killed off the Lynx.
However, in 1990 Sega unleash to the world...the Game Gear!
Boasting a full colour screen, built in sound, headphone jack and a backlight! (most handy for playing games after bed time) this still! did not manage to defeat Nintendo.
Again here are the big 3 reasons as to why:
1. The Game Gear was powered by 6 AA batteries, but again like the Lynx, you'd only get 4-5 hours worth at best! compare that against Nintendo's GameBoy which took 4 AA batteries, and in turn gave the player 10-30 hours of play, this was a big let down on Sega's half.
2. Price...whilst it was released for £99.99 or $149.99 and again featured a colour screen and backlight. It just wasn't enough to win over existing GameBoy owners or potential new customers.
3. The game library. It just wasn't as vast as what was available for the GameBoy.
Throughout the 90's, titles such as: Pokémon, Tetris, Super Mario Land, Donkey Kong, Zelda etc. were all being released for the GameBoy. For the Sega Game Gear however, it's biggest titles were the Sonic series. Whilst (from my point of view) it was brilliant to carry Sonic in your pocket as well as other favourites such as Streets of Rage 2, Columns, Shinobi etc. It just isn't enough and doesn't leave as much of a legacy behind as what Nintendo's GameBoy has.
At the time of it's release, Sega also created some (very) controversial adverts for the Game Gear.
Keeping in mind that the MegaDrive was advertised for the "more mature gamer", Sega decided to keep to the same approach, and make out that the GameBoy was just for youngsters.
Quite possibly the biggest mistake of Sega's advertising was that they tried so hard...really, really hard to make out that the Game Gear was far more popular and "cooler" to own.
Surprisingly however, this didn't negatively impact the sales of the Game Gear.
Overall, it seems that the Nintendo GameBoy continues to this day to leave a legacy...long live the GameBoy!
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