The Mobile Masterpiece
The Atari Lynx, the TurboExpress, and the Sega Game Gear; Three high-end portable gaming consoles that feel almost lost in time. These are devices many people may have never even heard of. But why? They were cutting-edge technologies with great graphics and performance for their time and they were some of the first portable gaming consoles to exist, yet they were all but dismissed and forgotten. They weren't even the only ones… but they all lost to the Game Boy.
Nintendo’s grey brick, the successor to the game and watch, the less powerful, less visually impressive competitor became a hit sensation. When we dive into the deep end of the development and implementation it is easy to see why. There are a few key aspects of mobile gaming that had to hit the mark in order to sell the way that the Game Boy did. The Game Boy was cheaper than the competition, it used fewer batteries and lasted longer, it was smaller than many others, and it was sold with Tetris included in the box.
Because the Game Boy was cheaper than its competitors, it appealed to a larger crowd of people. The Game Boy was not exclusively for “gamers” and this low cost made the purchase decision easier for hesitant buyers. At a price of $90, it had its competitors' larger more powerful consoles beat. Worldwide, the Game Boy has sold over 118 million units compared to Sega’s Game Gear($150) which sold 11 million, and the Atari Lynx($180) which sold 3 million.
Being cheaper came at a price(pun intended), it meant that the Gameboy was not as powerful or as visually stunning as the others. It was also the only console sold without its own backlight requiring the user to have their own light to see the screen. With its 8 KiB of RAM, Custom 8-bit Sharp LR35902 CPU, 160 (w) × 144 (h) pixels resolution, and tiny little speaker it was able to last up to 30 hours on just 4 AA batteries. This meant more game time before having to buy and replace the batteries which made it even more cost-effective. All the other consoles required 6 AA batteries and could only last up to 5 hours before needing new ones. The screen was only able to display 4 shades of a greenish-gray color, but the expert design of the games made them very fun and stylish.
The Game Boy’s smaller size made it more portable than the other Gaming consoles and therefore more appealing to the market. after all, the fact that it was portable was the biggest selling point! While still fairly large(its not called the grey brick for nothing) it is able to fit in a decent-sized pocket.
Nintendo borrowed the concept of interchangeable game cartridges from its own NES and implemented it onto the Game Boy. The easily swapped little cartridges for the Game Boy made changing games a breeze. They also created titles from many of Nintendo's original games like Super-Mario and The Legend of Zelda. In fact, Super-Mario was supposed to be the game that came with the console, however, it was replaced by Tetris because Nintendo believed it would appeal to a larger audience. This decision might have been one of the key pillars to the Game Boy’s success.