Why did the Game Boy "kill" the competition?

[greenberet79]

Oh and I had the TV tuner on the GG, it was awesome! (for a ten year old in 1990 anyway).

[koopa42]

Oh and I had the TV tuner on the GG, it was awesome! (for a ten year old in 1990 anyway).

I always wanted one portable mini TV FTW ..... unfortunately the nearest I got? was a couple of years back when I saw on at a booty for a quid but the analogue had long since gone

[Antiriad2097]

There's a composite video input on it, so you can plug a betamax in there and watch stuff on the GG still.

[The Laird]

I took my Lynx to school every single day, in my blazer pocket!

No way! It was too tall/wide, wasn't it? Or was that only the first version?

My original Lynx 1 was a bit long, it used to stick into my armpit

But the Lynx 2 was fine, although it did bulge a bit as you can imagine.

Oh and I had the TV tuner on the GG, it was awesome! (for a ten year old in 1990 anyway).

I remember my mate Alex getting one, he brought it into school and we had to pull the massive aerial right out and then climb on top of the science block to get any picture at all

Did your mates have gameboys or lynx's ? Just curious.

I was one of 7 people in my year at school with a Lynx, we used to have a riot with games like California Games, Warbirds, Zarlor Mercenary, Rampage and Xenophobe over Comlynx in out lunch breaks.

[retrosofer]

Lets not speak of that monstrosity that was the Game Gear, worst system I ever had. It ate batteries like they were going out of fashion to the point where in the end I only used it with the mains adaptor, and it was a heavy brick to. I also thought at the time it was pointless playing on it when I could just play on the Master System instead.

The game Boy had better battery life, was lighter more portable, had better games and everyone had one, so it was well supported and easy to share games with others. You couldn't part me from the Game Boy when I was younger, never left home without it lol.

[paranoid marvin]

You could argue battery life, you could argue it was the company name on the console.

I personally would say it was Tetris. Everyone played Tertris; even girls. This meant it was 'cool' to own a Gameboy and it was cool to be seen playing one.

Same reason that the Playstation beat the Saturn.

[koopa42]

You could argue battery life, you could argue it was the company name on the console.

I personally would say it was Tetris. Everyone played Tertris; even girls. This meant it was 'cool' to own a Gameboy and it was cool to be seen playing one.

Same reason that the Playstation beat the Saturn.

Tetris is the ONLY reason to ever have owned/own a Gameboy

[outdated_gamer]

I actually loved the NGage more than i did the GB, at least it was powerful, i could see the screen and had games i wanted to play (Pathway To Glory was superb).

I only saw one from up close once. The premise of a handheld game console that's also a phone seemed interesting back then but there were a lot of criticisms like the screen aspect ratio (good for vertical shooters, bad for FPS and racing games), sluggish and very blocky 3D graphics (CoD ran at like 5 fps on it), a lack of "must have" games (or games in general), sayings that you "looked stupid" making phone calls with it, ect.

Nintendo's answer to the n-Gage was the DS which atleast had smooth 3D graphics and the novel second, touch screen and despite the initial skepticism surrounding it (was originally supposed to be a "3rd pillar" Nintendo system), it pretty much took the handheld market by storm, suprising the skeptics (which I too was) and replacing the Game Boy line altogether.

[Lost Dragon]

Think it speaks volumes that when UK press were reporting on Atari's redesigned Lynx Mk II (April '91?) they were listing all 17 games avaiable for the Lynx with only a further 16 'promised' for that year, by comparison, just how many games were out/due later that year for the GB?.

Lynx never had the software support it deserved and badly needed.

[The Laird]

Shameless plugs:

Atari Lynx Review
Sega Game Gear Review

Haven't got round to doing the Game Boy yet!

[crusto]

Why did the Gameboy kill the competition?

Because...

It's crap!

[PaulEMoz]

It's weird, whenever we look back on systems, I realise I never liked the Nintendo console of its generation as much as its competitors. That holds true for every single generation. I was never a big Game Boy fan, but I absolutely loved my Game Gear. I remember one of the girls at work pinching it off me on overtime to play Sonic, good fun!

[Scratch_Porkings]

tetris, battery life and the fact i could sneak it into the toilet at work

It was six inches long, hard and fun to play with in the toilet.

[outdated_gamer]

Here's another overlooked handheld that took a shot at the Game Boy - Game.com



It was the first handheld that could connect to the internet and featured a touch-screen and stylus. Here's a review:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tIBIny4L6E

[Lost Dragon]

Is'nt there a bit of a side-story to GB Tetris?

Home computer rights to Tetris going to Andromeda who divided them between Spectrum Holobyte and Mirrorsoft, Mirrorsoft then selling USA Coin-Op rights to Atari and Jap.Coin-Op rights to Sega etc.Nintendo realising that console rights, technically remained up for grabs and thought Tetris would be an ideal 'Killer-App' for GB and signed a deal?.

Atari then priduced a NES version of Tetris (under the Tengen label) and was sued, Atari defending itself in court by claiming NES was in reality a home computer as Nintendo had said it'd be bringing a keyboard and disk drive out for the NES, Nintendo countering NES was nothing but a console.Nintendo winning...

Atari then forced to warehouse then destroy it's version of the game, some 263,000 carts.

Or is this just another urban myth?