The Game Boy Era Is Over

[Frogacuda]

In all honesty, I consider August 24th, 2000 to be the birth of portable gaming. The GBA, PSP, and DS are just that much stronger in libaries then the previous generations.

The GBA (SP), PSP, and DS are more practical too. Rechargable, smaller size, just makes them work much better than the OG systems. I think that made those systems a major breakthrough.

But I'd be lying if I said I didn't play a LOT of Lynx, GameGear, and yes, even the old Gameboy. For that reason I'd never think of the GBA as the birth of anything, just making it more practical.

I mean hell even the Microvision was pretty cool by standards of the day and plenty playable.

[mollipen]

In all honesty, I consider August 24th, 2000 to be the birth of portable gaming. The GBA, PSP, and DS are just that much stronger in libaries then the previous generations.

I would mostly agree, except I would argue that the launch of the GBA SP was the start of "true" portable gaming. You had a handheld that truly was portable, more so than any previous machine (the only possible exception being the GB Pocket), you had a machine that could really last a long time off of a built-in rechargable battery, and you had a screen that could allow the SP to honestly be played everywhere. And, of course, you had at that point a GBA library that really made the GBA feel like a legit machine instead of a collection of half-assed games, or games you knew would be better on a console.

Everything up to the GBA was practice for where handhelds needed to be, the GBA was the rough start, and the SP was where handhelds begin to morph into what they were supposed to be.

[Tigana]

I would mostly agree, except I would argue that the launch of the GBA SP was the start of "true" portable gaming. You had a handheld that truly was portable, more so than any previous machine (the only possible exception being the GB Pocket), you had a machine that could really last a long time off of a built-in rechargable battery, and you had a screen that could allow the SP to honestly be played everywhere. And, of course, you had at that point a GBA library that really made the GBA feel like a legit machine instead of a collection of half-assed games, or games you knew would be better on a console.

Everything up to the GBA was practice for where handhelds needed to be, the GBA was the rough start, and the SP was where handhelds begin to morph into what they were supposed to be.

I agree with you except for one caveat, the phat DS and the PSP are both comparable in size with the original GBA. The rechargable battery though makes a huge difference as does the screen issue, in actually making portable systems portable and convenient.

[Calliander]

I would mostly agree, except I would argue that the launch of the GBA SP was the start of "true" portable gaming. You had a handheld that truly was portable, more so than any previous machine (the only possible exception being the GB Pocket), you had a machine that could really last a long time off of a built-in rechargable battery, and you had a screen that could allow the SP to honestly be played everywhere. And, of course, you had at that point a GBA library that really made the GBA feel like a legit machine instead of a collection of half-assed games, or games you knew would be better on a console.

Everything up to the GBA was practice for where handhelds needed to be, the GBA was the rough start, and the SP was where handhelds begin to morph into what they were supposed to be.

I'll second this one; I love my SP to death and I love being able to play all the old-school SNES Final Fantasy games. I'm sad to hear that the GameBoy line is going out, but the DS isn't a GameBoy and it is also pretty damned cool, as well.

Word up about the battery life. I've charged the thing like five times.

[Daitokuji]

I guess for me this is kind of a blow, but I can still go out and get old games. I didn't care for the Gameboy, Game Gear, or Lynx at all during all the years mentioned. I only began to care when the SP came out. I refused to get a gameboy that I couldn't see in the dark. Tho I did get a NGPC before I got any other handheld mainly for KOF. Now I own a Game Gear, Lynx and Old School GB and I've played them recently and I think the Lynx's screen is as bad as the Game Gear screen and both of them are fucking big and bulky. Even though I own a GBA SP and a DS I still want the brighter screen SP... dunno why I've been playing GBA games on the DS as of late.

[Frogacuda]

I was talking to Tigana, and I think I wanted to add that a big part of what made the Lynx's library so special is not just that it seemed to be of very consistently high quality, but it was a unique piece of hardware for the time and the games often had a very unique feel. They weren't like games on other systems. They had their own thing going.

I think it's why Vectrex has such a cult following, too. There's just something special about the kinds of games they made for it, and it offered something different. Part of it is that, like I said before, 90% of these games were first party, but even those that weren't kept that feel going. It's why I've enjoyed some of the posthumous releases for Vectrex and Lynx.

[SpoDaddy]

Yeah, but you said 1991 initially, which is asinine.

No I didn't. I said the real war between Lynx and Game Boy started in 1991 (with the Lynx redesign) and ended in 1994.

[Frogacuda]

No I didn't. I said the real war between Lynx and Game Boy started in 1991 (with the Lynx redesign) and ended in 1994.

The way you phrased it made it sound like 91-94 was a drop off for Lynx because of the the jaguar. I guess you only meant your reference to refer to the 94 part, but the way you said it didn't make that clear.

It's still an incorrect statement. The Gameboy still had a lot of crap and a handful of classics, and the Lynx had very little crap and a considerable number of classics.

[Cheebs]

Nintendo just got people so used to shit, they thought shit was all anyone could practically make, but that's a lie, and if you stop and actually think about WHY, you'd realize it.

Are you totally high? Do you have any idea what portable gaming is about?

People want INEXPENSIVE portable systems with INEXPENSIVE games with batteries that last forever.

Portables are NOT about pushing tech and NOT about glorious 900-hour 10-years-in-the-making epics. They're the hotdogs of the video game world: Anybody can afford one, anybody can rip though one in no time, and anybody can then go buy another. And they're tons of fun.

Look, I owned a Lynx on launch day. It had amazing games. It looked and sounded great. But I would only ever play in the house tethered to the wall with the AC adapter. It just wasn't a portable. It deserved to lose to the Gameboy because the philosiphy behind it was all wrong. Ditto for the others.

[Kentaochstoffe]

I dont know about the other classic portables.. But the orignal gameboy is probably the worst major system ever released. I got it when it was released. Almost all games where pure shit.. I mean it was it was THE portable platform for what? 13 years(incl gbc)? And all i have on gb(and gbc) is like 10 games..

But it wasnt just the horrible line up.. whats worse was the shitty screen. You basically need perfect light condition to see whats going on.. And even then the screen will smear like hell when anything moves.

The first decent game boy(or handheld for that matter) was the gba sp...