AgentOtter

I call it my 3DS XXL. Way more convenient that lugging around my actual 3DS and all these games.

On November 21 2004 Nintendo released the Nintendo DS for $150. It was technically their second handheld with multiple screens. The first being the Game & Watch (covered in pt 1: https://imgur.com/gallery/Sx6yidb). As well as being a full 3D capable handheld, it maintained backwards compatibility with all GBA titles.

Nintendo incorporated many of the features that Tiger's Game.com (covered in pt 2: https://imgur.com/gallery/Wmkv6Uj) had in 1997, including the touch screen, stylus, and internet connectivity. Though these features were much better executed due to the advancement of technology.

Unlike the GBA, the DS featured a built in operating system that managed the time, launching games, internet connectivity settings, and had a built in application: Picto-Chat, an IM client that allowed you to also send drawings/hand written messages to friends.

Over 3400 games were made for the DS with notable titles including: New Super Mario Bros., Tetris DS, Ninja Gaiden DS, Guitar Hero, Animal Crossing: Wild World, Nintendogs, multiple Castlevania games, Megaman ZX, Okamiden, Pokemon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum, Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver, Mario Kart DS, and many, many more...

Current Nintendo president at the time: the late, great, Satoru Iwata said, "We have developed Nintendo DS based upon a completely different concept from existing game devices in order to provide players with a unique entertainment experience for the 21st century."

This first iteration of the system was later affectionately dubbed the "DS Phat" after the DS Lite redesign released 2 years later.

It would go on to sell over 154 Million units.

Released in late 2004 the Game King was a GBA knockoff made by Chinese company Guangzhou Panyu Gaoming Electronics Co

About 20 games were created, mostly clones of existing titles and were sold on 4-in-1 cartridges.

In 2005 Nintendo released the final Game Boy system. The Game Boy Micro is the 2nd smallest cartridge based handheld they ever produced. Barely larger than the GBA carts you plugged into it, it was promoted as a budget alternative to the DS priced at $100.

It had swappable faceplates you could purchase to personalize your Micro. Another downside was the removal of backwards compatibility for OG Game Boy and Game Boy Color games.

It sold over 2.4 million units, well under Nintendo's projections. Iwata later admitted the DS hurt the sales of the Micro.

Sony, no longer content with only dominating the home console market for two generations in a row, finally decided to enter the handheld market in 2005 with the launch of the PlayStation Portable. Costing $100 more than the DS at $250, it boasted much more powerful hardware, a massive 4.3in screen, and many multimedia features the DS was lacking such as: music and movie playback, built in web browser, and a USB port for PC connectivity.

Games came on Sony's UMD (Universal Media Disk) which was a sort of CD/cartridge hybrid. Despite its name it was only ever used on the PSP. Over 1700 games were made for the PSP with notable titles including: Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Megaman Maverick Hunter X, Metal Gear Acid, God of War: Chains of Olympus, Daxter, Monster Hunter Freedom, Phantasy Star Portable, and many more.

The PSP could also connect to the PS3 via wi-fi to use the PSP screen to play games on your PS3. It also had component and composite adapter cables to connect to a TV.

Eventually a large homebrew scene developed for the PSP despite many efforts from Sony to break users of the habit.

It would go on to sell over 76 million units.

Released in early 2005 in the EU and then later on in the year in the US, the Gizmondo was an ambitious handheld created in response to Nokia's N-Gage (covered in pt 3: https://imgur.com/gallery/jaKhYbi).

Priced at £229, the Gizmondo featured full 3D graphics, movie and music playback, web browser, camera, and SMS messaging. The world's first ad supported system, the Smart-Adds enabled device allowed devs to show users ads in order to keep the hardware costs lower. A non Smart-Adds version was available for $400. There was also a GPS add-on.

Only 8 of the 14 planned games released for the system.

The company announced a wide screen version shortly before launch, resulting in low sales.

Leading up to the launch of the system, Gizmondo would host an infamous celebrity party in an expensive London hotel trying to promote the device, as well as sponsored a race car in a 24 hour race.

The Gizmondo's problems were compounded by the reveal of involvement of several of their executives in Swedish organized crime...

In 2007, GameTrailers named it "the worst console of all time." and worst selling handheld in history by GamePro.

It sold less than 25,000 units after being discontinued less than a year later.

GamePark would release the GP2X, a Linux based followup to the GamePark 32 in September 2005. The GP2X is designed for homebrew developers as well as commercial developers.

It is commonly used to run emulators for game consoles such as Neo Geo, Mega Drive/Genesis, Master System, Game Gear, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, NES, TurboGrafx-16, and MAME.

An updated version of the system was released in 2007 that featured a touch screen.

Nintendo released a sleeker version of the DS in 2006 for $130. The DS Lite was about 2/3 the size of a DS Phat and boasted a brighter screen. Despite being a smaller unit overall, the DS Lite's stylus was slightly larger than the orginal's.

The launch of the DS Lite mirrored that of the SNES in Japan, with stores selling out of the initial print run of 550,000 units in a matter of days. The shortage was supposed to be eased after Nintendo released an additional 700,000 units during April 2006, however, retailers in Tokyo sold out yet again by late May 2006.

This shortage would last for most of 2006 and 2007 with retailers all around the country having permanent signage apologizing for the shortage and stating that the arrival time of new stock was unknown. Since restocking was erratic, looking for the product often involved several visits to multiple different stores, usually unsuccessfully. This was still the case in Japan as of April 25, 2007, with stores turning away potential customers every day and selling out quickly.

It was much easier to find in the US for some reason.

Nintendo opened a new branch, Nintendo of Korea, on July 20, 2006. The DS Lite was the first system to be released in South Korea by the subsidiary,] being released on January 18, 2007. Popular Korean actors were enlisted to help promote the it. NoK stated they had sold more than one million units in the first year of sale with around 1.4 million sold as of April 2008.

Part 1: https://cohost.org/AgentOtter/post/5565885-a-brief-history-of-v
Part 2: https://cohost.org/AgentOtter/post/5584876-a-brief-history-of-h
Part 3: https://cohost.org/AgentOtter/post/5599570-a-brief-history-of-v

Released October 16, 2000 this virtual pet is a sequel to Pokemon Pikachu, which was released in 1998, as covered in Part 2 of this series. (https://cohost.org/AgentOtter/post/5584876-a-brief-history-of-h)

This time around it had a full color screen and can communicate with Pokemon Gold, Silver, and Crystal via the Game Boy Color's infrared port.

Using those games' Mystery Gift function, the player can send Watts accumulated by walking, which are then converted into items.

A full color follow up to the Neo Geo Pocket from 1998 was released in 2000 for $70. After a good start in both the US and Japan with 14 launch titles (a record at the time), low retail support in the States, lack of communication with 3rd party devs by SNK's US management, the popularity of the Pokemon franchise and anticipation of the GBA, and strong competition from Bandai's WonderSwan in Japan, led to a sales decline in both regions.

Despite its financial failure, the Neo Geo Pocket Color has been regarded as an influential system. It featured an arcade-style microswitched 'clicky stick' joystick, which was praised for its accuracy and being well-suited for fighting games.

Many highly acclaimed games were released for the system, such as SNK vs. Capcom: The Match of the Millennium, King of Fighters R-2, and other quality arcade titles derived from SNK's MVS and AES.

The system had non-backlit display & 40-hour battery on 2 AAs.

SNK went bankrupt later that same year, leading to a halt in all hardware sales.

A follow up to the WonderSwan released a year prior. This full color version ran all of the previously released games. The only drawback to the WSC was the color display halved the battery life to about 20 hours on 2 AAA batteries.

Before the WonderSwan Color could be released, however, Nintendo announced the Game Boy Advance, which featured superior hardware. The WonderSwan Color still retailed at a lower price point at ¥6,800 compared to the Advance at ¥9,800, but despite peaking at 8% of the handheld market share in Japan, the WonderSwan's sales never recovered after the Game Boy Advance reached store shelves in March 2001.

It sold 1.1 million units before being discontinued in 2003.

Nintendo released its 3rd handheld juggernaut in March of 2001 in Japan and June 2001 in the US and EU for $100. Instead of keeping their tried and true form factor from the original and Color versions of the Game Boy, the GBA used a wider form factor similar to the Game Gear and Lynx.

Over 1500 games were developed for the system world wide. Notable titles include: Pokemon Ruby/Saphire/Emerald, The Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap, WarioWare: Twisted, Drill Dozer, Megaman Zero 1-4, multiple entries in the Castlevania series, and many, many more....

The first 32-bit handheld system, fully backwards compatible with all Game Boy and Game Boy Color titles. It would go on to sell over 81 million units. It continued the trend of the link cable port for multiplayer games as well as a special cable to connect to a controller port on the Gamecube, which featured gameplay elements for several cube games such as The Legend of Zelda Wind Waker, Four Swords Adventures, and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicals.

It could run for up to 15 hours on 2 AA batteries.

Despite having a similar form factor as the the Pokemon Pikachu systems, the Pokemon mini is the world's smallest cartridge based handheld. Released in 2001 for $40 it measured in at 74mm × 58mm 23 mm (0.91 in x 2.28in x 0.91 in).

10 separate Pokemon mini games were released for the system between 2001 and 2002 before being discontinued.

Recently a rather active homebrew community has been supporting the system with unofficial games, including a full port of The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening.

it could run for up to 60 hours on 1 AAA battery.

The GP32 (GamePark 32) was developed by the South Korean company Game Park. It was released on November 23, 2001, in South Korea and distributed in some parts of the EU as a competitor to the GBA for €200.

Unlike other handheld systems, which tended to use proprietary cartridge designs, the GP32 used Toshiba's SmartMedia cards (a precursor to SD cards) for storing programs and data, making it accessible for amateur developers as no further development hardware is required.

Game Park wanted users to be able to create homebrew software. They could register the unit on the official website and get a free suite of development tools to create their own programs. Game Park also allowed (with some restrictions) the publishing of such homebrew games on their website. The GP32's original firmware only supported running encrypted games and tools.

Alternative firmware removed the necessity of using the "Free Launcher" software and provided many extra functions that were lacking in the original firmware.

Through this strategy, the GP32 was the host of multiple homebrew applications and games. The various applications made for it ranged from alternative firmware, file managers, games, emulators, game generators (such as RPG Maker), a DivX player and image slideshows.

It sold around 32,000 units. It ran for 6-12 hours on 2 AA batteries.

It should also be noted around this that cell phones were becoming more affordable to the US market, thus an explosion of games existed on various platforms from several major manufacturers.

In 2002 Bandai released the final iteration of the WonderSwan in order to compete with the GBA, the WonderSwan Crystal. Launched at ¥7,800, ¥1,000 less than the GBA.

Despite its low price and an improved LCD screen, the SwanCrystal was unable to compete, so Bandai discontinued the WonderSwan line in 2003 due to low demand and backed out of producing video game hardware altogether.

Nokia in the early 2000s dominated the cell phone market with their nearly indestructible phones. In 2003 they decided to release the first fully gaming oriented cell phone. The N-Gage. In many ways it was ahead of its time and had many of the same features of PDAs and MP3 players of the time.

Launching in late October for $300 (not bad for a cell phone at the time) it tried its hand at competing with the GBA. Running on Symbian OS 6.1, many cell phone games would run natively on the unit.

64 games were developed with notable titles such as: Bomberman, Civilization, Crash Nitro Kart, Tomb Raider, Sonic N, Super Monkey Ball, and The Elder Scrolls Travels: Shadowkey. 25 other games were in development at one point but were canceled for various reasons.

The system received much criticism alleging defects in its physical design and layout, including its vertically oriented screen and requirement of removing the battery to change game cartridges.

The most well known criticism was "sidetalking" due to the placement of the speaker and microphone being on the side edge of the device, causing the user to appear as if they are speaking into a taco.

Despite Nokia giving the device a redesign that addressed the issues of the original it would be discontinued in 2005 after meeting only half of the projected sales goals.

It sold around 3 million units.

Earlier in 2003 Nintendo released the infamous clamshell redesign of the GBA for $100. The Game Boy Advance SP aside from being nearly half the size of the original, also had a front lit display and a built in rechargeable battery (F U C K I N G F I N A L L Y). It also removed the headphone jack. You could still use headphones but it required an adapter cable that plugged into the proprietary charging port of the SP.

In 2005 Nintendo would release a new variant of the system that featured a backlit screen, making it much easier to see.

The battery lasted around 10 hours with the screen light or about 18 hours with it off.

It sold 43.5 million units.

The Tapwave Zodiac was released in late 2003 for the price of $300-400 depending on storage size, 32MB or 128MB. It was marketed as a premium handheld device meant for more mature gamers. Running a modified version of Palm OS, it could play fully 3D games. The Zodiac boasted power closer to what home consoles at the time had, a taste of where handheld gaming was quickly advancing towards.

43 games were made for the system with notable titles including: Tony Hawk 4, Doom 2, Golden Axe 3, and SpyHunter. Several other titles were being worked on but were canceled due Tapwave discontinuing the system in 2005, including a port of Neverwinter Nights.

Its rechargeable lithium ion battery lasted for 3-6 hours depending on activity.
Sales figures were never released by the company.

The Bitcorp Gamate was one of the first handheld game systems created in response to the Game Boy. It released in Asia in 1990 and distributed worldwide by 1991.

Unlike many later Game Boy clones, it was a higher quality. Unfortunately the system's fatal flaw is its screen. Even by the standards of the day, its screen is rather difficult to use, suffering from even worse ghosting problems than the first generation Game Boys. Likely because of this fact sales were quite poor, and Bitcorp closed by 1992. However, new games continued to be published for the Asian market, possibly as late as 1994.

The total number of sales and games released for the system remains unknown.

The Watara Supervision (QuickShot Supervision in the UK) introduced in 1992 as a cut-price competitor for the Game Boy. It came packaged with a game called Crystball, which is similar to Breakout for $50.

One unique feature of the Supervision was that it could be linked up to a television via an official accessory. Games played in this way would display in four colors, much like Nintendo's Super Game Boy add-on for the SNES. A full color TV link was also in the works, but because of the Supervision's failure to make a major impression among gamers it was cancelled, along with the games which were in development for it.

65 games were released for the Supervision before it was canceled in 1993.

The Mega Duck WG-108 (also known as Cougar Boy) was a handheld game console developed and manufactured by Hong Kong-based Welback Holdings through its Timlex International division, and released in 1993. It was marketed under various different brands worldwide including Creatronic and Videojet.

Conceptually, the electronics inside the Supervision and the Mega Duck are very similar. The position of the volume rocker, contrast controls, buttons, and connectors are virtually identical. However, the LCD of the Supervision is larger than the Mega Duck's.

The Mega Duck had 35 games produced for it.

There were many many other Game Boy clones produced around this time by various companies throughout the world. Most of which were not successful.

In 1995 Sega released a revolutionary device to the handheld market. A fully portable version of the Genesis. The Sega Nomad exclusive to the US market for the price of $180. The hardware was heavily based off of a custom unit produced for Japan Airlines known as the Mega Jet. Hoping to capitalize on the popularity of their home console they released the Nomad instead of a true successor to the Game Gear.

Able to play over 500 Sega Genesis games, it featured a port for a second controller and even had an A/V output that allowed the Nomad to be played on a TV. The controller port functions as player 2, so single-player games unfortunately cannot be played with a Genesis controller.

It sold 1 million units and weighed nearly 2 lbs.

It could run for 2-3 hours on six AA batteries.

The Tamagotchi is a handheld digital pet that was created in Japan by Akihiro Yokoi of WiZ and Aki Maita of Bandai. It was released on November 23, 1996 in Japan and in the United States on May 1, 1997, quickly becoming one of the biggest fads of the late 1990s and the early 2000s.

According to Bandai, the name is a portmanteau combining the two Japanese words tamago (たまご), which means "egg", and uotchi (ウオッチ) "watch".

Pets have a Hunger meter, Happy meter and a Training meter to determine how healthy and well-behaved the pet is. There is also an age and weight check function for the current age and weight of the pet. Filling up the Hunger meter can be achieved by feeding the pet a meal (usually bread or burger) or a snack (usually a candy or cake). Filling up the Happy meter can be achieved by playing mini-games with the pet or by feeding it a snack.

Mini-games usually vary between versions. The Training meter (formerly called Discipline in earlier releases) can be filled by pressing the "scold" option when a pet calls for attention despite neither its hunger or happy meter being full, calls for attention but refuses to play or be fed a meal and in later models, sending a prank gift to a friend. Later models added a "praise" option for when the pet sulks or performs a good deed.

The pet will leave droppings around the screen from time to time and can become sick if they are not cleaned up. Before the pet goes to the bathroom, it will make a face and "stink" lines will appear around it. If the player activates the toilet icon during this animation, but before the pet has gone to the bathroom, the pet will use a toilet instead. When done repeatedly, the pet can be potty trained.

44 different versions of the Tamagotchi have been produced as well as 23 video games released on various platforms ranging from the Game Boy to the 3DS.

As of June 2023, over 91 million units have been sold worldwide.

When releasing the Tamagotchi in Japan, Bandai initially marketed them exclusively to teenage girls. Bandai and WiZ would later create a masculine counterpart to the Tamagotchi, the Digital Monster, which would spawn the Digimon franchise.

Tiger released the Game.com(pronounced game com, the dot is silent) in 1997 for the price of $70. It was the first console to feature a touch screen. It was also the first handheld system to feature internet connectivity if you connected it to a modem, hence the ".com" in the name. It was essentially a PDA that could play cartridge based games. It came with a pack in game called Lights Out and had a built in version of Solitaire on the system memory.

The device was powered by four AA batteries. Also available was the compete.com serial cable, allowing players to connect their consoles to play multiplayer games. The console had two game cartridge slots, in addition to reducing the need to swap out cartridges, this enabled Game.com games to include online elements, since both a game cartridge and the modem cartridge could be inserted at the same time.

Tiger developed 21 games for the Game.com. Notable games include: Duke Nukem 3D, Mortal Kombat, Sonic Jam, Resident Evil 2, and multiple Wheel of Fortune games. There were 20 other games that were announced, such as a port of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, but never released due to the system being discontinued.

One of the major drawbacks of the system was the black and white display. Accessing the Internet also required the use of an Internet cartridge and a dial-up modem, neither of which were included with the console. Later on they released the Web Link cartridge which allowed you to connect to their PCs, but this only allowed you to upload your game scores to the game.com leaderboards.

It had a legendarily bad marketing campaign with a TV commercial in which a spokesperson insults gamers who ask questions about the console, while stating that it "plays more games than you idiots have brain cells!".

It sold approximately 300,000 units.

The Digital Monster is a digital pet created by WiZ and Bandai released on June 26, 1997, in Japan and on December 5, 1997 in North America. This pet was a masculine counterpart to the Tamagotchi, which was deemed more appropriate for girls. It was similar to the gameplay of Tamagotchi, with the distinction of being a fighting pet that could connect with others like it.

The original Digital Monster model that was released in 1997 sold 14 million units worldwide. As of 2005, more than 24 million Digital Monster units had been sold worldwide.

There are many other Tamagotchi clones including the Gigapet, Pingu, and Neopets.

The Digital Monster franchise would later evolve into the Digimon franchise, one of the few monster series able to rival Pokemon.

Pokémon Pikachu (Pocket Pikachu in Japan) It debuted on March 27, 1998, in Japan, on November 2, 1998 in North America, and in December 1998 in Europe.

Similar to other Tamagotchi virtual pets it featured a Pikachu that you could do various activities. Gameplay differs slightly from other portable virtual pets in that Pikachu does not need to be fed, watered, or cleaned up after.

Instead, the Pokémon Pikachu unit can be strapped to a belt and used as a pedometer. With every twenty steps it counts, the Pokémon Pikachu credits its user with one watt, a virtual currency used to buy Pikachu presents.

Additional activities become available as the player spends more time with their virtual Pikachu. If neglected, Pikachu will express anger and eventually refuse to recognize the player.

Nintendo finally released a follow up to its hyper-successful Game Boy in October of 1998 in Japan (November elsewhere) after they learned of plans by Bandai to create a new system with the help of several former Nintendo employees, including the legendary Gunpei Yokoi.

The Game Boy Color, featured full backwards compatibility with all previously released Game Boy games as well as being able to enhance some of them by adding color, most notably the Pokemon games. Though it is only considered a version of the OG Game Boy by many, it featured nearly double the power of the original.

Over 900 Game Boy Color games were created with notable titles such as: Pokemon Gold/Silver/Crystal, The Legend of Zelda Links Awakening DX, Dragon Warrior 1&2, Hello Kitty's Cube Frenzy, and many, many more...

Introduced at the price of $80, it sold over 53 million units.

It could run for up to 10 hours on two AA batteries.

Released just 7 days later in Japan on October 28th was the Neo Geo Pocket by SNK. It was primarily sold in Japan and Hong Kong. The system and all five English games saw limited distribution in the west, where it could be ordered directly from SNK USA.

9 games were released for the system before it was discontinued in 1999 in favor of the Neo Geo Pocket Color.

It could run for up to 40 hours on 2 AAA batteries.

The WonderSwan was the final piece of hardware developed by Gunpei Yokoi before he passed away in 1997. His swansong was developed in tandem with Bandai and was unfortunately never released outside of Japan. Yokoi designed the system around being able to play games in different orientations, some games you would hold the system vertically and others horizontally. This allowed games like space shooters more vertical display space and others such as fighting games or platformers to have more horizontal space.

It released for a the price of ¥4,800 (about $50). Despite the launch of Game Boy Color 5 months prior, Bandai was confident that the WonderSwan and its monochrome screen would perform well because the original Game Boy had previously been more successful than its color-screen competitors.

It boasted a 40 hour battery life on 1 AA battery and over 100 games.

In 2000, Bandai signed an agreement with Mattel to bring the handheld to the US, but ultimately decided against it. The exact reason for this is unknown.

It sold over 1.1 million units.

Part 1: https://cohost.org/AgentOtter/post/5565885-a-brief-history-of-v