Though it wasn’t until the launch of the Nintendo Game Boy in the late 80′s that handheld gaming really became a mainstream concern, in truth the Japanese giants had already spent the 80′s honing their chops on the handheld scene they essentially created with the standalone, LCD based ‘Game and Watch’ systems.
Nintendo 3DS
Game & Watch
The game and watch systems were built to play one game that used limited but perfunctory graphics and simple controls, a ‘time killing’ device that was envisioned by Nintendo employee Gunpei Yokoi in 1979 when he was envisioning ways in which to keep himself occupied on the train. The games were essentially calculators that had been reprogrammed to display graphics instead of numbers but the simple designs belied some seriously addictive and unique experiences. The game and watch systems were also the first to use the ‘D-Pad’, a design which is still used by almost every modern games console more than 30 years later! Another revolutionary design feature that Nintendo themselves would come back to later in their handheld gaming journey was the dual screen game and watch systems such as the popular arcade port of ‘Donkey Kong’.
Game Boy
Of course by the late 80′s with the NES firmly established in millions of homes across the globe, the game and watch systems began to feel a little outdated so Yokoi and his team decided to tip the scales once again in April 1989 with the launch of the Game Boy, the first true handheld video game console. Though many industry insiders were wary of the low processing power of the machine and the relatively small screen, by bundling the maddeningly addictive Tetris with every machine the Game Boy’s success was almost guaranteed. Tetris is a game that genuinely needs no introduction and is perhaps the game that introduced most of my generation to the very concept of gaming, let alone handheld gaming. There was also the underrated ‘Super Mario Land’, which shifted millions of copies by virtue of the simple fact it was a Mario game, and Mario was (at that point) very much the sole figurehead of the entire industry. The Game Boy was so monumentally successful that it wasn’t discontinued until 2003 and though many companies would try to stand in its way, it ran largely unopposed for much of its lifespan. The Sega Game Gear (released in 1991) boasted colour graphics and significantly more processing power but the sheer cost of the console and the fact it drained batteries like a monster meant it never really took off (selling a paltry 11 million units in comparisons the Nintendo’s staggering 118 million). Atari also attempted to take a shot at the Game Boy with its ‘Lynx’ console, but much like the Game Gear it attempted to do too much too soon and was an overpriced beast.
Game Boy Colour
The Game Boy saw a second wind with the release of the Pokémon games in the mid 90′s, but by the late 80′s Nintendo decided to release the systems first proper revision (we won’t count the Game Boy ‘Pocket’). The Game Boy Colour (as the name suggests) was a more powerful machine that could process colours and was the first handheld console to implement ‘backwards compatibility’, which meant all original Game Boy games could be played on it. Although the ‘GBC’ wasn’t as revolutionary as its predecessor, it was just as successful and ran unopposed in all markets besides Japan, where the ‘Neo Geo Pocket’ and Bandai ‘Wonderswan’ were both mild successes.
Game Boy Advance
In moving from an 8-bit processor to a 32-bit processor, the Game Boy Advance was a significant advance in mobile gaming that allowed graphical fidelity on par with 16-bit home consoles such as the SNES and Mega Drive. Indeed, many of the first games released for the GBA were SNES ports that fared remarkably well on the handheld console. It was also the first handheld Nintendo console to adopt a ‘landscape’ other than ‘portrait’ build and was far more compact and comfortable to hold than any previous Game Boy.
Nintendo DS
Launched pretty much in tandem with the Sony PSP in 2004, the Nintendo DS was an instant success that went on to become the second bestselling games console of all time. It helped that (like the Game Boy before it) it launched with a Mario game (in this case a port of N64 classic ‘Mario 64′) but the real reason for its success is all down to the touch-pad, an ingenious idea that (as with the Wii) brought an immediacy to the system that made it popular with new and old gamers alike. The term ‘ingenuity’ was almost synonymous with Nintendo by this point and whilst the Wii U and its tablet like ‘game pad’ might have fallen short of expectations (thus far), their next portable console changed the rulebook yet again.
Nintendo 3DS
Though it was initially seen as little more than a DS ‘in 3D’, the 3DS has spent the 2 years since its launch building an extensive library of games that has only continued to flourish this year with the addition of new Pokémon and Zelda games. Although it struggled a little bit in its first year, a slight price drop and a more focused marketing campaign led to a dramatic sales boost that continues apace today across the world. The bespoke ‘stereoscopic’, ‘glasses free’ 3D effect came under minor scrutiny at first but in hindsight I can’t help but think that’s because people are almost programmed to be suspicious of anything ‘new’.
Where will Nintendo go with their next handheld gaming system? Honestly the only people who could tell you that would be Nintendo themselves but for the foreseeable future, there’s enough life left in the 3DS to suggest wonderful things to come. If you are stuck on the DS and want to upgrade to the 3DS in the meantime you could always sell your DS online.
As a freelance copywriter and dedicated Nintendo enthusiast, Charles Barley has thoroughly enjoyed his research into the company’s handheld history.