Handheld game console

A handheld game console is a lightweight, portable electronic machine for playing video games. Unlike video game consoles, the controls, screen and speakers are all part of a single unit. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, several companies – including Coleco and Milton-Bradley – made lightweight table-top or handheld electronic game devices. Today, these machines aren't considered strictly consoles, since they often would only play a single game. The first true handheld game console with interchangeable cartridges was the Milton Bradley Microvision in 1979. Nintendo has dominated the handheld market since the release of the Game Boy in 1989, and is often credited as popularizing the handheld console concept.

History

Origins

The first handheld game console to use interchangeable game cartridges was the Microvision, designed by Smith Engineering, and distributed and sold by Milton-Bradley in 1979. A small screen, a small selection of games (only thirteen) led to its demise only two years later. Today, working Microvisions are quite rare. The keypad could be easily damaged and the LCD technology of the late 1970s was poor, leading to liquid crystal leaking and darkening. In 1984, Japanese company Epoch released their Game Pocket Computer. Despite decent reviews, the system failed.

Early 1990s

The early 1990s was the re-launch of the handheld game console pillar of the video game market after the demise of the Microvision. As backlit LCD game consoles with color graphics consume a lot of power, they weren't battery friendly like the non-backlit original Game Boy with monochrome graphics which allowed more battery life. During this timeframe, rechargeable battery technology was not yet mature thereby rendering the advanced game consoles of the time such as the Game Gear and Atari Lynx marketing flops in the handheld video game market.

Even though third-party rechargeable batteries were available for the battery-hostile alternatives to the Game Boy, they had to be discharged before being recharged since they were in Nickel cadmium format. NiMH batteries which don't require discharging before recharging wouldn't be released until the late 90's when Game Gear, Atari Lynx, and the original Game Boy would then be discontinued.

Now since game systems of today have rechargeable Li-Ion batteries with proprietary shapes such as the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP, handheld video game consoles of today are doing better than the ones from the past. Unlike the aforementioned current-generation consoles, the GP2X uses rechargeable alkaline batteries.

Nintendo Game Boy

The original Game Boy's design set the standard for handheld gaming consoles.

It wasn't until five years later that Nintendo released the Game Boy. The design team headed by Gumpei Yokoi had also been responsible for the Game & Watch system, as well as the Nintendo Entertainment System games Metroid and Kid Icarus. The Game Boy came under scrutiny by some industry critics, saying that the monochrome screen was too small, and the processing power was inadequate. The design team had felt that low initial cost and battery economy were more important concerns, and when compared to the Microvision, the Game Boy was a huge leap forward.

Yokoi recognized that the Game Boy needed a killer app – at least one game that would define the console, and persuade customers to buy it. In June 1988, Minoru Arakawa, CEO of Nintendo of America saw a demonstration of the game Tetris at a trade show. Nintendo purchased the rights for the game, and packaged it with the Game Boy system. It was almost an immediate hit. By the end of the year more than a million units were sold, and 25 million were sold by 1992. The original Game Boy (along with the Game Boy Pocket, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance) is the best selling game console ever, having sold more than 190 million units ^[1]. Some say that the Game Boy line had already reached more than 220 million units sold.

Although the Game Boy is by far the most successful handheld game system, there were a number of other systems made throughout the 1990s.

Atari Lynx

In 1987, Epyx created the Handy; a device that would turn into the Atari Lynx in 1989. It was the first color portable ever made, as well as the first with a backlit screen. It featured a color LCD screen with backlight, networking support with up to 17 other players, and advanced hardware that allowed the zooming and scaling of sprites. The Lynx could also be turned upside down to accommodate left-handed players. However, all these features came at a very high price point, which drove consumers to seek cheaper alternatives. The Lynx was also very unwieldy (due to focus groups requesting the machine be bigger so it felt like they "got their money's worth"), consumed batteries very quickly and lacked the third-party support of the alternatives. Due to a high price, short battery life, production shortages, a dearth of compelling games, and Nintendo's aggressive marketing campaign, and despite a redesign in 1991, the Lynx became a commercial failure.

Sega Game Gear

File:Sega GameGear.jpg

Sega GameGear

In response to the Game Boy's success, work began on several handhelds that aimed to capitalize on what was seen to be the Game Boy's main weakness: inadequate graphic quality. The Sega Game Gear was released in late 1990, and featured a backlit color display, like the Lynx's. The Game Gear's internal architecture was almost identical to the Sega Master System console (the Game Gear had 4096 possible colors versus the Master System's 256), which allowed Sega to quickly release a large number of games that had originally been written for the older system. The Game Gear had the same drawbacks as the Lynx, however, and although it fared a bit better(aprox. 10 mil. units sold worldwide), it also failed to impact the Game Boy's dominance.

Several other attempts to compete with the Game Boy were made, such as the NEC TurboExpress, Supervision, and Neo Geo Pocket. Despite technologically superior hardware in almost all of these systems, especially by the mid-1990s, none were ever a close competitor to the Game Boy.

NEC TurboExpress

The TurboExpress was a portable version of the TurboGrafx, released in 1990 for $249.99 (the price was briefly raised to $299.99, soon dropped back to $249.99, and by 1992 it was $199.99). Its Japanese equivalent was the PC Engine GT.

It was the most advanced handheld of its time and could play all the TurboGrafx-16's games(which were on a small, credit-card sized media called HuCards). It had a 66 mm (2.6 in.) screen, the same as the original Game Boy, and could display 64 sprites at once, 16 per scanline, in 512 (some say only 482?) colors. It had 64 kilobytes of RAM. The Turbo ran its two 6820 CPUs at 3.58 MHz in parallel.

The optional "TurboVision" TV tuner included RCA audio/video input, allowing you to use TurboExpress as a video monitor. The "TurboLink" allowed two-player play. Falcon, a flight simulator, included a "head-to-head" dogfight mode that could only be accessed via TurboLink. However, very few TG-16 games offered co-op play modes especially designed with the TurboExpress in mind.

Neo-Geo Pocket

The Neo Geo Pocket was SNK's original hand held system. It was released in Japan in late 1998, and discontinued in 1999, with the advent of the Neo Geo Pocket Color, due to lower than expected sales with the Monochrome Neo Geo Pocket.

The system was only released within the Japanese and Hong Kong market. Even though it had a short life, there were some significant games released on the system such as Samurai Shodown, and King of Fighters R-1.

The Neo Geo Pocket can play many of the newer color games. There are, however, notable exceptions such as Sonic the Hedgehog Pocket Adventure or SNK vs. Capcom: Match Of The Millennium. Since the newer Neo Geo Pocket Color is fully backwards compatible, it does play all the Neo Geo Pocket cartridges.

Late 1990s

The Game Boy was nine years old before it got its first significant makeover. In 1998, the Game Boy Color was released. It used the smaller and lighter form-factor of the Game Boy Pocket, but featured a full color screen. It was also backwards-compatible, so that it could play not only games specifically made for the Game Boy Color, but standard Game Boy games as well. It did not have significantly more computing power than the Game Boy, however.

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 achieve moderate success.

Game Boy Color

The Game Boy Color (also referred to as GBC) is Nintendo's successor to the Game Boy and was released on October 21, 1998 in Japan and in November 1998 in the United States. It features a color screen, and is only slightly larger than the Game Boy Pocket. The processor is twice as fast as a Game Boy's, and has twice as much memory. 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.

The Game Boy Color was a response to pressure from game developers for a new system, as they felt that the Game Boy, even in its latest incarnation, the Game Boy Pocket, was insufficient. The resultant product was backward compatible, a first for a handheld console system, and leveraged the large library of games and great installed base of the predecessor system. This became a major feature of the Game Boy line, since it allowed each new launch to begin with a significantly larger library than any of its competitors.

The console was capable of showing up to 56 different colors simultaneously on screen from its palette of 32,768, and could add basic four-color shading to games that had been developed for the original Game Boy. It could also give the sprites and backgrounds separate colors, for a total of more than four colors. However, this resulted in graphic anomalies in certain games where a sprite that was supposed to meld into the background was now colored separate, giving it away.

Neo-Geo Pocket Color

The Neo Geo Pocket Color (or NGPC) was released in 1998 in Japan. It was a 16-bit color hand held game console designed by SNK, the makers of the Neo Geo home console and arcade machine. It came after SNK's original Neo Geo Pocket monochrome handheld, which debuted in 1998 in Japan (and was released in the USA in 1999).

In 2000 following SNK's purchase by Japanese Pachinko manufacturer Aruze, the Neo Geo Pocket Color was dropped from both the United States and European markets, purportedly due to commercial failure. Remaining stock was bought back by SNK for repackaging in Asia. Before SNK was bought out, the Neo Geo Pocket Color was being advertised on US television and units were being sold nationally in Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Toys "R" Us, and other large retail chains. In June 2000 SNK of America (and Europe) tried recalling most of the backstock of systems and games to be flashed and re-sold in Asia where the system would continue to be sold and supported. Some of the backstock of US NGPC hardware and software started showing up back on the marketplace in the US and Asia in 2003. These units frequently appear bundled with six games, and are readily available online, and are sometimes available in video game stores. Neo Geo Pocket Colors have been seen in many Discovery Channel Stores as of the holiday season. They are retailing for $75 with 8 Games.

The system seemed well on its way to being a success in the US. Indeed, it enjoyed a greater success than any Game Boy competitor since Sega's Game Gear. However, it was hurt by several factors, such as the Neo Geo heads' legendary lack of communication with third-party developers, and anticipation of the Game Boy Advance. The decision to ship American games in cardboard boxes in a cost cutting move rather than the much loved hard plastic cases that Japanese and European releases were shipped in may have also hurt the American sales.

Wonderswan Color

File:WonderswanColor.jpg

WonderSwan Color

The WonderSwan Color is a handheld game console designed by Bandai. It was released on December 30, 2000 in Japan, and was a moderate success.

The original WonderSwan had only a black and white screen. Although the WonderSwan Color was slightly larger and heavier (7 mm and 2 g) compared to the original WonderSwan, the color version featured 512K of RAM and a larger color LCD screen. In addition, the WonderSwan Color is compatible with the original WonderSwan library of games.

Prior to WonderSwan's release, Nintendo had virtually a monopoly in the Japanese video game handheld market. After the release of the WonderSwan Color, Bandai took approximately 8% of the market share in Japan partly due to its low price of 6800 yen (approximately $65 U.S. Dollars).

Another reason for the WonderSwan's success in Japan was the fact that Bandai managed to get a deal with Squaresoft to port over the original Famicom Final Fantasy games with improved graphics and controls. However, with the popularity of the Game Boy Advance and the reconciliation between Squaresoft and Nintendo, the WonderSwan Color and its successor, the Swan Crystal quickly lost its competitive advantage.

2000s

Game Boy Advance

In 2001, Nintendo revealed the Game Boy Advance, which added two shoulder buttons, a larger screen, and more computing power. The design was further revised about two years later when the Game Boy Advance SP, a compact "clamshell" (folding open and closed, like a briefcase) version, was released. It also had a frontlit color display and rechargeable battery. Despite its smaller size, the screen remained the same size as that of the Game Boy Advance. The GBA also introduced the concept of "connectivity", using the Game Boy as a controller for the Nintendo GameCube. A handful of games use this feature, most notably Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, Sonic Adventure 2: Battle and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. As of 2005, there are three Game Boy Advance models: Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Advance SP (the SP also got an update with a better backlight), and Game Boy Micro.The GBA,GBASP, and the Game Boy Micro had sold more than 70.04 million units sold worldwide so far.

Gamepark 32

The original GP32 was released in 2001 by the Korean company Gampark a few months after the launch of the Game Boy Advance. It featured a 32-bit CPU, 133 MHz processor, MP3 and Divx player, and e-book reader. The GP32 was redesigned in 2003. A front-lit screen was added and the new version was called GP32 FLU (Front Light Unit). In the summer of 2004 another redesign was made and this time a back-lit screen was added. It was called the GP32 BLU and it was the first redesign of the system officially released outside Korea (in Europe). While not a commercial success, it gained a cult following of developers and more technically-adept users. It was superceded by the GP2X.

Nokia N-Gage

In 2003, the Nokia N-Gage was released. It was designed as a combination mp3 player, cellphone, PDA, radio, and gaming device. The system received a lot of criticism on its physical design and layout, including its vertically oriented screen and requirement of removing the battery to change game cartridges. The most well known of these was "sidetalking", or the resultant effect of placing the phone speaker and receiver on an edge of the device instead of one of the flat sides.

The N-Gage QD was later released to revise the design. However, the usefulness in its design came at the cost certain features available in the N-Gage phone earlier as the MP3 playback, FM radio reception, and USB connectivity were removed from N-gage QD.

Tapwave Zodiac

In 2004, Tapwave released the Zodiac. It was designed to be a PDA-handheld game console hybrid. It supported photos, movies, music, Internet, and documents. It has the standard stuff any PDA comes with. Palm OS 5 hardware is compatible with the Zodiac. Two versions are available, differing in memory and looks. The Tapwave Zodiac was killed off in July of 2005.

Nintendo DS

The Nintendo DS was released in November, 2004. Among its new features was the incorporation of two screens, as well as a touch screen and wireless connectivity with other devices. The Nintendo DS comes with Dual screens using LCD screening. The two LCD screens offer one of the most groundbreaking gameplay advances ever developed.

The lower screen allows touch sensitivity which helps create an interactive environment for the gamer. The Nintendo DS comes with a stylus that is used on the touch screen and features a microphone port. The console also features online capabilities with the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, the Local Wireless network can support 16 players. It also features Picto-Chat, which is a way to draw and communicate with other DS users. The DS has a separate port for the loading of Game Boy Advance games in singleplayer. The Nintendo DS has sold more than 14 million units worldwide in just over a year ^[2] and currently, reigns over all rivals, in terms of worldwide sales.

In January 2006, Nintendo revealed an updated version of the DS: the Nintendo DS Lite (released on March 2, 2006) with an updated, smaller form factor (40% smaller and 20% lighter than the original Nintendo DS), a cleaner design, much brighter displays (with adjustable brightness). The sleeker, sharper design of the DS Lite also comes with a cover to cover Slot-@ (also known as the Game Boy Advance slot) it is not in use.

Sony PSP

Sony's PlayStation Portable was first revealed at E³ 2004, and was released in Japan and North America in late 2004 and early 2005, respectively. Like previous competitors to the Game Boy, the PSP is also considerably superior in both processing power and screen quality, but inferior in battery life, price, and durability. Unlike previous competitors (except possibly the peripheral-laden Game Gear), the PSP includes several unusual features beyond gaming. The Sony PSP ultimately is more powerful than the Nintendo DS, but it is unable to top Nintendo's handheld dominance in software support or sales, so far.

The PSP, as well as several other handhelds in this generation, is designed with an emphasis on convergence, partially to help differentiate themselves from Nintendo's game-focused offerings. Sony, for example, has trumpeted the PSP's ability to play movies and music from the system's UMD disks, or stored on a Memory Stick. Some of the games for the PSP, such as Wipeout Pure, can use the PSP's web features to download new content. The PSP isn't the only converged game system; Nokia's N-Gage (and its redesigned successor, the N-Gage QD), the Tapwave Zodiac, and the Tiger Telematics Gizmondo include such unusual features as GSM cell phone functionality, GPRS cellular data networking, GPS receivers, PDA functionality, built-in digital cameras, and so on. To a lesser extent, the DS's unusual, albeit game-oriented, features or the movie-playing Play-Yan accessory for the DS and GBA SP could be seen as part of this trend.

It remains to be seen if this trend towards convergence is unique to this generation, or if it survives into the next.

Tiger Telematics Gizmondo

Tiger's Gizmondo came out in the UK during March 2005 and it was released in the USA during October 2005. It is designed to play music, movies, and games, have a camera for taking and storing photos, and have GPS funtions. It also has Internet capabilities. It will have a phone for sending text, multimedia, and email and voice calls will come via a Bluetooth headset.

Gamepark Holdings GP2X

File:GP2X.jpg

The GP2X plays games and homebrew apps and also suports a wide range of audio, video and picture formats.

Released in November 2005, the GP2X is a handheld game console that uses the Linux operating system and is designed to support videos, music, photos, and games in an open architecture allowing any user to develop software for the device. Expandability for future upgrades (new media formats, features, operating system, etc) has been made possible by flash upgradable firmware.

The GP2X natively supports codecs and formats such as DivX, XviD, MP3 and Ogg Vorbis, but because the player is based on the open-source media player named mplayer, it will be easily possible to add other codecs unsupported at the launch. It is also expected to be able to emulate games for many systems, including the NES, SMS, PC Engine, SNES, and Sega Genesis. Since GP2X units were sent to some developers before the official commercial launch, there are projects of some emulators, like a Neo Geo CD emulator ported to GP2X by a Korean developer.

List of handheld game consoles, notable features, and industry firsts

Milton Bradley Microvision (1979)
Epoch Game Pocket Computer - (1984) - Japanese only; not a success
Nintendo Game Boy (1989) - First international commercial success
Atari Lynx (1989) - First backlit screen
NEC TurboExpress (1990, Japan; 1991, North America) - Played huCard (PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16) games, first console/handheld intercompatibility
Sega Game Gear (1991) - Architecturally similar to Sega Master System, notable accessory firsts include a TV tuner
Watara Supervision (1992)
Sega Mega Jet (1992) - no screen, made for Japan Air Lines
Nintendo Virtual Boy (1994) - Monochromatic (red only) 3D goggle set, only semi-portable; first 3D portable
Sega Nomad (1995) - Played normal Sega Genesis cartridges, albeit at lower resolution
SNK Neo Geo Pocket (1996) - Unrelated to Neo Geo consoles or arcade systems save for name
Nintendo Game Boy Pocket (1996) - Slimmer redesign of Game Boy
Nintendo Game Boy Pocket Light (1997) - Japanese only backlit version of the Game Boy Pocket
Tiger game.com (1997) - First touch screen, first internet support (with use of sold-separately modem)
Nintendo Game Boy Color (1998)
Cybiko (Around 1998)
SNK Neo Geo Pocket Color (1999)
Bandai WonderSwan (1999) - Developed by Gumpei Yokoi after leaving Nintendo
Bandai WonderSwan Color (2000)
Game Park GP32 (2001) - first with full homebrew support
Nintendo Game Boy Advance (2001)
Nintendo Pokemon Mini (2004) - Tiny interchangeable handheld with Pokemon themed games
Bandai Swan Crystal (2002) - Minor redesign of WonderSwan Color
Nokia N-Gage (2003) - Game system and GSM cell phone (first combination of the two); first included mp3 player and FM radio; used Bluetooth (first wireless multiplayer); first use of GPRS for online play
Nintendo Game Boy Advance SP (2003) - Redesign of GBA: slimmer, clamshell form factor; frontlit screen
Timetop Gameking (2003)
Tapwave Zodiac (2004) - First PDA/game handheld hybrid; Palm OS PDA with game-focused form factor and features
Nokia N-Gage QD (2004) - Redesign of N-Gage, removed mp3 playback and radio
Nintendo DS (2004) - First inclusion of dual screens, built-in microphone, and Wi-Fi for wireless multiplayer; touchscreen
Sony PSP (2004/2005) - First use of optical media; uses Memory Sticks for saved data; plays movies and music and views JPEG pictures.
Tiger Gizmondo (2005) - Uses GPRS network; first inclusion of GPS for location-based games, first built-in camera
Game Boy Micro (2005) - Redesign of GBA; smallest Game Boy form factor to date, first transflective LCD screen in a handheld.
Game Park XGP (2005) and Game Park Holdings GP2X (2005) - Successor units to the GP32 handheld, each being developed by the two companies that split off from Game Park.
V-Smile Pocket (2005) - handheld version of the V-Smile console. Specifically designed for education purposes.
Ez MINI (2005) by Shanda

References

^ "Game Boy Advance Evolves Again". Nintendo.com. May 11, 2004. Retrieved February 12. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
^ Jenkins, David (January 5, 2006). "Nintendo Reveals 13 Million DS Sales, Gets Stock Upgrade". GamaSutra. Retrieved February 12. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: year (link)