Before there Was a Game Boy There was a Game & Watch
The Game & Watch series in 1980 had only one game and no cartridge. Each device had to be sold separately in order to be played. This was invented by Gunpei Yokoi, who also invented the Game Boy. He got the idea from Microvision from Milton Bradley for using cartridges instead of a single game on the device.
Milton Bradley Microvision Handheld Console Used Cartridges
Microvision launched the handheld device in 1979 and used cartridges in order to play different games on the device. This gave Nintendo the idea for changing the Game& Watch into a cartridge based handheld gaming system.
Games Bundled with the New Game Boy
The top 2 selling games that were bundled with the first launch of the Game Boy were Tetris and Super Mario Land. These 2 highly addictive games brought the Game Boy its first success.
There were attachments such as the link cable that solidified the dominance with being able to play multiplayer games with friends. Pokemon was the biggest seller with the ability to trade Pokemon using the link cable.
High Battery Life was a Key Feature
Another main feature that Nintendo has always kept up with is the long battery life. There were competitors on the market such as Sega game gear and Atari lynx, but they had low battery life due to having higher number of colors.
Game Boy Pocket
In 1996 a smaller and lighter version of the Game Boy came out. Nintendo listened to their customers and opted for a black and white color scheme instead of a greenish tint. Backward compatible games were also a key feature that Nintendo decided to keep intact.
Game Boy Color
In 1998 computer processors started to grow. And Nintendo jumped on this by doubling the processing speed of the Game Boy and tripled the memory capacity. This also gave them the ability to have 56 colors while keeping the battery life. Again opting for backward compatible games. This gave them a larger library of games at launch.
Game Boy Advance
In 2001 Nintendo changed the look of the Game Boy and added Left and Right shoulder buttons. But they did not add a back lit screen, which made some games hard to see.
Game Boy Advance sp
In 2003 Nintendo corrected the problem of the Game Boy Advance and added a front lit screen to a clam shell design. This helped a lot of hard to see games, but still needed the back lit option. So, in 2005 they created a new version of the SP and added a back lit screen.
Nintendo DS and 3DS
Nintendo has always inovated and changed their entire design on many occasions. The Nintendo DS and 3DS were no exception. They decided to change their handheld device all together and created a touch screen handheld gaming system.
This paved the way for smart phones and the decline of handheld gaming systems.
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