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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."
I have two of these and a TV tuner for each. The Turbo express was bar none the best portable video game machine until the GBA SP. It's ONLY drawback was the power consumption. The games were great on it and the screen is amazing. Not much can beat Blazing Lazers on that thing, good classic schmup action.
Granted I may be biased because I loved my TG-16, having purchased it myself in 8th grade (I think it was 8th grade). I was begging for one, as I was in the know and knew all about how good the PC Engine was doing in Japan. My mom sarcastically remarked that if I could pay for it myself I could have one... which of course sounded like a challenge to me. So I took my allowance money and bought cheap candy and snacks to sell from my desk at school for a profit and after about 3 months I managed to pull together the $200 needed. The TG-16 is one of the most under-rated systems of all times I think. There were some crappy games for it, but there were also some incredibly GOOD games for it as well (Bonk, Blazing Lazers, Legendary Axe, Chew-Man-Fu, etc), AND it was the first video game system to offer a CDRom drive.... ahh the good old days.
CharlesP
wordtrip.com
These guys will write anything to convince their readers they know what they're talking about.
;)
The list both the Gamegear and Wonderswan, both of which are/were solid systems. The gamegear sold quite a number of units when it was released, and gave some decent competition to the Gameboy. The wonderswan is still going stron in Japan.
What exactly qualifies as "making it" for these guys? By their measurements the only systems that ever "made it" were the GBA and gameboy. The latter being 10+ years old, which is a phenomenon in itself, and the former just happening to be the only handheld currently available in the US. (That Ngage thing is not real).
"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?
I have a special place in my heart for two handhelds in particular, the Game Gear and the Turbo Express.
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When I was younger and without a steady source of income I would always dream about owning the Holy Grail of handhelds, the Turbo Express. Running on the same cards as the TG16, being able to play Bonk's Adventure and Splatter House wherever you went, and on top of it all, a bright beautiful color screen and TV tuner add-on? Pure Bliss. I think I still have the drool marks on my old copies of Gamepro.
With the Game Gear, I ended up buying one cheap at a Thrift Store last year. Even with the grainy, dated screen and lack of saving games it provided some great, cheap entertainment. Very underrated, and it's next to impossible to find the games around town, but I managed to find some great ones for around $5-$7. Battery power was another issue
There's something about being young and owning a portable system. It's almost a sense of freedom from the parents, saying I can play this however and wherever I want, you can't kick me off the TV! I look at my son with his GBA and can't help sensing the familiarity, and how he'd rather play his GBA with the dated SNES-Era graphics than with the Xbox or PS2. Because "he's" in control.
And with the systems mentioned in the article, it's hard to imagine how Nintendo cornered the market. Being underpowered and going head to head with Color-LCD back in the day was quite a feat, and I give the companies credit for trying to steal some market share from the Big 'N'. I think Sony will have a viable chance with the PSP and for the first time in a long time I have been excited about owning a handheld again, let's just hope the price is decent
Am I really THAT old to have not found it that funny... I mean it was a huge pissing contest between which you had, a sega or a nintendo and which was better.... how is it shocking that Sega used to be a competitor??? Because they dont exist as a system maker???? Using that logic is like saying its hysterical that Atari owned the marked untill 81!!!!
Im 23 and I remeber getting a 2600, Nintendo and Super NES for christmas... I even remeber when the Playstation came out, do young people REALLY not know the history of video games???? :-\
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Of course, the PSP and whatever's next will be in the same boat.
Here's why I think this:
Home gaming seems to be for adults and older kids. Supposedly, the average age of a gamer is over 20, etc. etc. etc. This is, as far as I know, with consoles (home) not portables.
The only people I see with gameboys are kids. They carry them in there backpacks, pockets, whatever... they play them in backseats (because they don't drive), they play them in school, church, wherever.
Adults (save a few... I actually have a gba -- but rarely play it) don't fit in well to the portable market for the following reasons:
1. They drive
2. They listen when they go to meetings, classes for work, church, etc.
3. They go home after work and CAN take over the tv set
4. Because of 3, would rather play on a 50" tv than a 3" LCD Screen.
5. Why buy something for the same price on one of these when I'd rather play a better one on a bigger screen at my only disposable time (which is at home)
6. These are always going to be a generation behind the at-home model... even with the PSP.
7. Because they are a generation behind, the games are fine, but not as good.
8. more reasons, but am supposed to be working...
The price point is aimed at adults. The games will be aimed at adults. But, I THINK, adults aren't as interested as they think they are...
Nintendo owns this market because they're cheap, the batteries last long, and they KNOW kids.
Certainly every man at his best state is but vapor
Is it too early to just go ahead and put the Nintendo DS on the list? Hey, I'm just trying to save us all some time.
It's so easy to bash something, and while the DS does sound a little goofy, it's challenging the norm - a punk rock approach to gaming. Even if it loses, who cares? It tried at least! The only way we're going to get ahead is by breaking the rules - and I welcome that. This is coming from a guy who's played one too many Spikey-Haired RPG's(TM), seen too many fake video game breasts, and played as too many stealthy ninjas. Not that there's anything wrong with it. But on a complete off-rant, is anyone else agree the stealth genre needs a severe kick in the ass?
Game.Com: ;) The pocket pro has nice design. I loved the backlight and touchscreen, but unfortunately the refresh rate was far too low to enjoy games for too long.
I kinda liked the device. It was a pity my favorite game was Lights Out.
Lynx:
I purchased one off of eBay some years back with a whole bunch of games and accessories (All new). Not too bad, great games, especially Chip's Challenge and the Mahjongg one, but unfortunately the cards lacked memory and ate batteries.
Game Gear: It was ok, but everytime I saw someone playing it, they were using an AC adapter to play it. It defeats the purpose, plus it didn't fit in your pocket. Although the Disney games were some of the best.
Nomad:
Battery WHORE.
Turbo Express:
THICK, bright screen.
GP32:
I like SM cards, but the community is built off of pirated roms and emulators. Plus the Zodiac2 blows it away now.
NGPC:
Got one at Fry's with 6 games for $70. Great deal. I love it all around. There's a reason it was #1.
N-Gage:
I own an MDM game that works in PPC, PalmOS and N-Gage. I hate the N-Gage.
Microvision:
A collector's item I'd like to have.
Wonderswan:
I never really had a chance to see one. Some games intrigued me, especially the MMBN on it.
First of all, the Game.com has no business being on this list. Not only didn't it "make it"... it never had any chance whatsoever. I bought one of these things off of eBay with about 8 games a while back for a total of about $30... and let me tell ya, it's just barely worth that. The "PDA functions" are a joke (you can enter some telephone numbers, use calculator, and view (but not annotate) a calendar), and most of the games are unplayable. Mortal Kombat Trilogy and Fighter's Megamix animate so poorly and move so choppily that you can't even really play them... Sonic Jam and Indy 500 move far too fast, which causes the screen to blur horribly (WAY worse than the Gameboy ever did), which in turn makes them impossible to play properly. The only games worth a damn on this system are the built-in Solitaire game, Wheel of Fortune, and Tiger Casino. Oh, and Resident Evil 2 is surprisingly decent on this system... it's not good, but I expected it to be a LOT worse. The only redeeming factor for the Game.com is that it was still MUCH better than Tiger's other system, the R-Zone... boy, was that ever a horrible failure.
The Microvision also failed for a very good reason: It was horribly underpowered. I know it was released in the 70's, but the thing uses a 100kHz 4-bit CPU (I'm not kidding here), 32 nibbles of ram (Since the CPU is less than 8-bit, it's meaningless to refer to things in bytes), and the screen resolution is 16x16 (again, I'm not kidding). I seriously don't see how you can actually do anything meaningful with a system like that. I commend Milton Bradley for their innovation, but the technology just wasn't there.
I also question the wisdom of including handhelds that were never released in North America. Even if we're talking about worldwide sales, the fact that the Wonderswan and GP32 were never released here pretty much guarantees that they won't be successful regardless of how good they are.
Having said that, I think the Lynx and Nomad are very underrated... the Lynx had a lot of nifty features, like the ability to turn off it's backlight to save batteries when you pause, the ability to flip the screen so you could play left handed, and some games could play sideways to get a better aspect ratio. It really could have used more big name games though... all it really had were Atari's arcade ports, which weren't as popular as they were in the Asteroids heyday. Atari's marketing certainly didn't help either.
As for the Nomad, the system was overpriced and undermarketed... aside from the fact that it tears through batteries (If you got three hours from 6 AA's, then you did good), it's a very impressive system from a technical standpoint. A friend of mine has one, and he plays it all the time. You really need an AC adaptor for this one though.
-"One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man." -EH