Nintendo first handheld game console

The Nintendo Game Boy was released in Both had superior color LCD displays but both also suffered from short battery life and limited game availability.

October 17, Updated On October 18, Since the dawn of gaming, the ability to play your favorite titles on the go has been a desirable option for both gamers and developers alike. Setting the standard with the original Game Boy more than 30 years ago, Nintendo has continued to improve upon its handheld offerings, developing technology and titles that have kept gamers across the globe coming back with each new iteration. Here, we take a look at the evolution of the consoles that have cemented Nintendo as the household name in portable gaming. Released in Japan on April 21, , the Game Boy was where it all began for Nintendo in terms of handheld gaming. Although not as advanced as similar consoles being released at the time, namely due to lacking a color screen, a lower price point and longer battery life saw the entire stock of , units sold within the first two weeks of release in Japan.

Nintendo first handheld game console

When video games first rose to popularity in the s, arcades were all the rage. Millions would visit the digital fun houses and pop quarters into big cabinet-sized machines to play titles like Pac-Man and Space Invaders, trying to outdo bad guys and get to the next stage. But when smaller handheld consoles made their appearance, a whole new market opened up. One of the first handheld games to garner attention was the basic Mattel title Football I. A few years later, though, companies began making even smaller gaming devices, with the first video game watches debuting in the early s. A company called Nelsonic Industries kicked things off with a rudimentary gaming watch called Space Attacker , which was similar to the popular Space Invaders arcade game. Casio also offered a similar gaming watch. It offered more intricate gameplay than anything that came before it and gave users the chance to play games similar to the larger and beloved NES console but in a portable, battery-operated manner. The Game Boy was so popular that the device sold over a million units in just a few weeks and the many iterations released since have sold some million units. The Atari Lynx handheld controller launched just two months after Game Boy. Atari had previously created a successful home console in the s known for titles like Pitfall , but this handheld system offered color gameplay right off the bat, and in a more advanced bit format, as opposed to the 8-bit Game Boy. In , the follow-up Lynx Model 2 was released.

It also features networking support with up to 17 other players, and advanced hardware that allows the zooming and scaling of sprites.

When it comes to portable consoles, none have come close to the same success that Nintendo has enjoyed. While they have made a few mistakes in the portable market over the years, they have also seen overwhelming success with some of their portables being some of the best-selling consoles of all time, home consoles included. The legacy of Nintendo's handheld consoles is quite extensive and shows just how much they prioritized gaming on the go. With the advent of the Switch and the popularity of mobile phones, many people feel that a strictly handheld console doesn't have a space in the market anymore. This is true to an extent, with many big-name players in the market focusing on home console offerings instead of making a handheld of their own.

The Game Boy is an 8-bit fourth generation handheld game console developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan on April 21, , in North America later the same year, and in Europe in late The console features a dot-matrix screen with adjustable contrast dial, eight game control buttons a directional pad , two game buttons, and "START" and "SELECT" , a single speaker with adjustable volume dial and, like its rivals, uses cartridges as physical media for games. The color scheme is made from two tones of grey with accents of black, blue, and dark magenta. All the corners of the portrait-oriented rectangular unit are softly rounded, except for the bottom right, which is curved. At launch, it was sold either as a standalone unit, or bundled with one of several games, among them Super Mario Land and Tetris. Several accessories were also developed, including a carrying pouch, a camera, and a printer. The Game Boy received mixed reviews from critics and was deemed technologically inferior to its later fourth-generation competitors Sega 's Game Gear , Atari 's Lynx , and NEC 's TurboExpress due to its monochrome graphics, along with a design that was perceived as bulky by some. In spite of its perceived disadvantages, it quickly outsold the competition, [16] selling one million units in the United States within a few weeks. It is one of the most recognizable devices from the s, becoming a cultural icon in the years following its release.

Nintendo first handheld game console

When it comes to portable consoles, none have come close to the same success that Nintendo has enjoyed. While they have made a few mistakes in the portable market over the years, they have also seen overwhelming success with some of their portables being some of the best-selling consoles of all time, home consoles included. The legacy of Nintendo's handheld consoles is quite extensive and shows just how much they prioritized gaming on the go. With the advent of the Switch and the popularity of mobile phones, many people feel that a strictly handheld console doesn't have a space in the market anymore.

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The Magic Box. It offered titles from its parent console, the Sega Genesis, which had achieved popularity thanks to its mascot, Sonic the Hedgehog. It also had an infrared communications port for wireless linking which did not appear in later versions of the Game Boy, such as the Game Boy Advance. By this time, the lack of significant development in Nintendo 's product line began allowing more advanced systems such as the Neo Geo Pocket Color and the WonderSwan Color to be developed. The GameCube is Nintendo's first game console to use optical discs rather than game cartridges. In other projects. It was followed up with the DS Lite which had a slimmer design and the DSi which had online capabilities. The NES was the first console for which the manufacturer openly courted third-party developers. The result was the Nintendo Game Boy. The Game. The Ultimate History of Video Games. September 1,

October 17, Updated On October 18, Since the dawn of gaming, the ability to play your favorite titles on the go has been a desirable option for both gamers and developers alike.

Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World. Main article: Game. BY Jake Uitti December 19, Archived from the original Reprint on November 5, Retrieved October 31, Retrieved July 7, This remains the smallest cartridge-based game console ever made. In , the Nintendo Switch Lite line was released, which is slimmer and lighter than the original, and lacks the docking and rumble abilities. It is the most advanced handheld of its time and can play all the TurboGrafx 's games which are on a small, credit-card sized media called HuCards. Initially, the Nintendo DS, released in , was not supposed to replace the Game Boy line and instead be a separate line of consoles as Nintendo was unsure of how successful the console would be.