controllercode

I know we all have fond memories of playing Game Boy growing up. I know I did. Tetris matches in the school yard; Super Mario Worlds keeping me occupied, much to my parents delight, while on a long car-ride. Machines that can entertain us have been around a long time. Electronic games, too. Portable games, pocket electronic toys, well, they’re a more recent development. But I sure am glad they’re here.

In this 2 part [part 2] series, I’d like to make a brief trip through the history of portable games. From the Game & Watch to the DS and PSP, we’ve lived with these so-called toys for quite awhile. For some, an entire lifetime …

Microvision and Pre-History

In 1979, Microvision, the first hand-held electronic gaming system was released by Milton-Bradley. In total, the machine would have a total of 13 cartridge-based games. While pre-dated by less sophisticated LED-based machines sold by Mattel, it was the beginning of what we might call an era. Only the year before had MB released the very popular and well-known Simon game. Parker Brothers also persisted in an irritating game system called Merlin that had been released in 1978. I hated that thing. I remember being 5 and trying to play one, several years beyond it’s release and wanting to throw it across the room. I’ll add I’m not prone to violence.

The Game & Watch

1980 saw the release of the first in the serious of now-famous Game & Watch games. While not cartridge-based, the first of the now famous machines was “Ball”, that would probably be called now a juggling simulator. In all there was something around 60 different G&W games released, including Mickey Mouse and Snoopy games, various Mario Brothers versions, Donkey Kong Jr., and Zelda.

I remember many frustrating afternoons spent trying to get past one more level of Spitball Sparky, a rather odd take on the breakout-style game. I mean, what’s more fun when you’re 7? King’s Quest was definitely beyond my cognitive powers at that time.

But, that’s the Game. Where’s the Watch? Well, of little matter to me at the time, every one of these games was also, yes, an alarm clock. Even back then, Nintendo was aiming at a bit more of a casual audience. Who would use a game as an alarm as well? Who knows, maybe businessmen?

The Game Boy Cometh

August, 1989.

Along came something to change it all: Game Boy. No longer were we stuck playing a single game like with Game & Watch, but any game that was on a cartridge. Portable, pea-soup green glory. Tetris matches at recess. It was something else. The sea of games exploded for the tiny console that fit in a (large) pocket.

I mean, what better game to launch a system with but Tetris? There’s no way it couldn’t have been a hit. But, hindsight is 20/20. We all know the amazing power of the tetrimino, now. And Super Mario Land and Castlevania. and so many others. I don’t want to list them all, but we all know the power that this little thing had.

Since it launched, almost 70 million of the little machines, in all it’s incarnations have been jumping off shelves to be filled with Pokémon carts.

The Competition – Lynx, TurboExpress, Game Gear, Nomad

The Atari Lynx was released the same year as the Game Boy. Unfortunately it was almost twice as expensive to buy and chewed through batteries. It was a monstrous console, by portable standards, requiring 6 AA batteries to power the color 3.5” screen. That’s bigger than each 3” DS screen, for reference, and almost an inch bigger than the Game Boy’s monochromatic 2.5”. Unfortunately, the cost of the machine and 4 hour battery-life didn’t help it at all. Even it’s re-release as the Lynx II, a smaller, more sturdy incarnation with a 6 hour battery life, in 1991 did little to save the portable from the discontinuation graveyard. I still have flashback memories of summer vacations spent trying to fight my way through Todd’s Adventures in Slime World.

1990 saw the release of both the NEC TurboExpress (PC Engine GT in Japan) and Sega Game Gear to compete with Nintendo’s now-dominating portable. TurboGrafx’s portable was a hefty portable that played the exact huCards that the stand-alone TV console did. An amazing deal, but like the Lynx, this power-house ate batteries for breakfast, draining a set of 6 AA in less than 3 hours. The high cost (launch price of $350) of the world’s first 16-bit portable made it unpalatable for most, though.

The Game Gear was basically a Sega Master System with a screen. Unlike the TurboExpress, though, it didn’t play the same carts as the home console, due to size differences. There was, however, an adapter, Master Gear, that would allow you to play the bigger cartridges.

Sega, in 1995, following in the home console successes it was having at the time, released another portable system to continue to try to dethrone the hugely popular Game Boy. This was the Sega Nomad. The machine was essentially a portable Genesis in that it used the same cartridges as the home console, but then lacked that machine’s ability to use the 32X or Sega-CD. But something about a 2 hour batter life proved to also be it’s undoing.

Seizure Machine – Virtual Boy

What is a portable games account without mention of the Virtual Boy. Oh, the poor red space-ship-shaped seizure-inducing Virtual Boy. It was one of Nintendo’s most spectacular failures in the market, only lasting a year (1995-1996), but what can we say? It did have the first true 3d graphics in any console. Truely it wasn’t actually very portable, requiring a table-top tripod mount to properly play, not to mention the player being totally blind to the outside world. A minor footnote in the ongoing saga of portable games, except that it was also the first place we had Mario Tennis.

Colour for all! Game Boy Pocket, Pokémon, GBC

Following the wonderful crash of the VB, in 1996 Nintendo re-released the Game Boy as the Game Boy Pocket. It was smaller, lighter, and used half as many batteries. The screen was crisper, and originally came in silver, but then quickly a plethora of colours were released. Pokémon for the portable came out in Japan this same year, and with it, history was made. Red and Blue are two of the best selling games of all time, eclipsed by Tetris itself, and likely the best selling games for any console that wasn’t bundled.

Then, 1998 saw the GBC, Game Boy Color. It was the first major overhaul of the portable since it’s release. Fine, the portable had evolved some, being smaller and lighter and in new colours, but this new version, well, as we know from the name had a colour screen! It was faster and slightly smaller and played all of the games released for the last incarnation as well.

I’m sure many of you owned a GBC. Me, I managed to skip this generation of hand-helds, but so, so many people were toting the Color variety, it’s hard to forget just how popular it always was. Going to the laundromat was never quite the same, I’m sure, and I always was curious what my neighbour’s son was playing on this purple GBC. Pokémon, no doubt.

The Rest of the Pack – Neo Geo Pocket, WonderSwan

SNK released Neo Geo Pocket in late 1998, quickly followed in early 1999 by Neo Geo Pocket Color. In North America and Europe, it was considered a commercial failure, however it was still quite popular, more popular than the Sega Game Gear released almost a decade earlier. However, in 2000, SNK was bought up and the NGPC line was withdrawn from the US and European markets. Too bad, too, it was a killer machine! 16-bit goodness and really beautiful ports of King of Fighters, SNK vs. Capcom: Match of the Millenium and SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters. And who can deny that playing Metal Slug on the subway wouldn’t be a bit of a guilty pleasure? If you search really hard, even today, you can still find a repackaged version including 6 games in some stores.

Around the same time Bandai released the Wonderswan (1999), the Wonderswan Color (2000), and the SwanCrystal (2002). Never actually available outside of Japan, they met with moderate success due to low prices and the fact that the original Famicom Final Fantasy games were ported to them. Unfortunately, shortly after the SwanCrystal release, Nintendo and Squaresoft hooked up again and this Japan-only beauty sank like a rock.

And so ends the first part of A Brief History of Portable Gaming. Join us tomorrow for the Game Boy Advance, DS, PSP and others.

Part 2, my friends, can be found here. Hope you’ve enjoyed it so far!