Top Ten Handhelds That Didn't Make It?
Decaffeinated Jedi writes "Over at GameSpy, they're running a feature looking at the top ten handhelds that never made it. Included on the list are such 'favorites' as the Atari Lynx and the more recent Nokia N-Gage, as well as commentary by the GameSpy editors on why these portables failed to set the gaming world on fire."
"Top Ten non-Nintendo handhelds".
It's just that there are very few (multi-game) handhelds, so most of them are in there.
In summary: battery life is much, much more important that anybody would think. Nintendo got lucky with its B/W (actually green/gray) display that required relatively little battery life and the popular franchises didn't hurt any.
Oh, and the Lynx's ultrathick design gives me cramps after playing certain games for only a few minutes.
Maybe this is a market with only enough room for one mainstream system?