Generations of video games have been defined in reference to home video game consoles which were released over time and their capabilities. While I have some views on that subject, in today's blog I wish to talk about generations of handheld video games. Handheld video games have always lagged behind their home console brethren due to their need to work within smaller sizes and smaller power sources. In this blog video I will trace the hardware developments in the handheld world and categorize them into eras and technologies which make sense.
First Generation - LED Games (1976-1979)
True handheld video games began when Mattel Electronics introduced Auto Race in 1976. This game was a pure electronic game unlike electro-mechanical racing games which came before it. The "display" consisted of red LEDs moving underneath a strip of translucent plastic. The game was simple, you moved your racer across three lanes to avoid on-coming cars and had to reach the top of the display four times to win. Each car was represented by a small dot and those dots could be shown only on fixed points on the display. You had four speeds to chose from. A pair of seven-segment displays would display your "score." Basic audio was provided by a piezo buzzer and the game required a 9v battery to operate.
Auto Race was very successful and Mattel released more games with similar capabilities like Baseball, Bowling, Football and Soccer. A similar game to Auto Race was sold as Battlestar Galactica Space Alert. The plastic which made up the "playfield" was varied with colors and shapes to represent the various fields on which sporting events would be played. Other companies like Parker Bros Bank Shot and Split Second soon followed with similar games. Later these companies would improve their games to show recognizable shapes with the LEDs rather than dots and dashes.
Inside these systems were a small single-chip microcontroller containing a simple CPU. Generally these microcontrollers were 4-bit or 8-bit in terms of CPU registers, they could address a few dozen bytes of RAM and their programs were contained in a few hundred bytes of ROM. The ROM would be written to these microcontrollers as they were manufactured, so the games could not be changed.
These devices are not so different from other electronic toys of the era like Simon. Electronic toys, Simon being one of the most popular examples, were generally driven by a low-powered microcontroller which could operate lights, process input, advance game logic and produce basic sounds. The key difference is that for a game like Auto Race, the LEDs were meant to represent an abstract idea like a car, a baseball player or a hockey puck, although in these cases they were very abstract. In Simon the lights were there to tell you which button to press, their function was strictly utilitarian. The distinction here is rather fine, but as display technology progressed the differences between an handheld video game and a handheld electronic game would become obvious. Still, some people may not consider the LED games to be true video games, but I would disagree with that.
But let's consider games like Merlin or the Tandy-12. These games behave mostly like Simon in where the LEDs correspond to buttons. In many games the buttons are similar to the function in Simon where they use an electric light to inform you of the button's function or the game's status. This may fall from the definition of a video game as the buttons do not have an abstract function. However, some variations of the games may have an abstract function, so they may qualify. Merlin, Simon and Microvision all use TMS1000/1100 microcontrollers. The Tandy-12 and Simon use incandescent bulbs, not LEDs, but light is light. The general consensus of today appears to be that these devices are not handheld video games but handheld electronic games. I am not sure people who used both Auto Race and Merlin at the time would have considered them different things.
What about games like Blip! or Tomy Digital Daredevil? They have an LED underneath a plastic display, but are not controlled by a microprocessor but a series of gears and levers. While an electricty source was needed to light up an LED, their movement was done by spring-wound gears. They are not handheld video games, they are electromechanical games.
Second Generation - Game & Watch, Mini-Arcades & MicroVision (1979-1989)
In 1980 Nintendo introduced its first Game and Watch game, Ball. Ball used an LCD screen which could only display fixed patterns. While the display was limited in just being able to show or hide these patterns, the patterns were far more detailed and did not require the imagination to associate with real objects than the LED games still on the market. Nonetheless even though the games were not technically incredibly more advanced than the LED games, the visual impression made it seem otherwise. Ball and other early Game and Watch games were a big success for Nintendo and other companies followed suit.
The LCD technology of the 1980s was monochrome and overlays could add color but only generally on areas where the characters would not be displayed or with muted colors as the LCD matrix had to be visible through any colors. Another display technology suitable for portable gaming was the Vacuum Fluorescent Display (VFD). A VFD could display objects in color directly and they were self-illuminating so they could be viewed without a source of ambient light, unlike a reflective LCD. VFDs were more power hungry than LCDs and took up more space, so they tended to be used in "Mini-Arcades" like the Coleco Pac-Man and Frogger. Eventually color fixed-pattern LCDs would be made available for systems like the Romtec ColorVision, which used interchangeable "cartridges". According to Wikipedia the cartridge only contained the screen as the code for each game was in the main unit.
Game & Watch games in the "Table Top" and "Panorama" series would also sport color fixed-pattern LCDs but they were much larger than typical Game and Watch handhelds. These devices required an external light source to shine through the LCD, which would be reflected off a mirror for the player's vision. The stronger light source had sufficient luminesce to show light through a pattern of fixed-color stencils.
These years also saw the introduction of the first handheld games that did not rely on a screen limited to fixed patterns. This began with the Microvision from Milton Bradley but also included the AdventureVision, Selec-A-Game (both from Entex) and the Epoch Game Pocket Computer. These systems used cartridges with interchangeable games. In the Microvision's case, the "cartridge" was an overlay that snapped onto the base unit and contained the controls and the CPU with embedded game code. However, the MicroVision's display was limited to 16x16 pixels and the system's games were limited to 64 bytes of RAM, 1-2KiB of ROM and ran on a 4-bit or 8-bit 100KHz CPU, which severely limiting the types of games it could play. Nonetheless, because the display could display different graphics by different cartridges, the games that could be played were
The Entex Adventure Vision was substantially more advanced than the Microvision. It had a single strip of 40 vertical LEDs and used a mirror to display the equivalent of 150 horizontal "pixels". It used an Intel 8048 microcontroller in the console. Code for the games were stored on ROM cartridges unlike previous devices with removable cartridges which included microcontrollers.
While ahead of their time relative to the Game and Watch and Mini-Arcades, none of these consoles were particularly successful. The MicroVision had only 12 games released, the Select-A-Game 6, the Game Pocket Computer 7 and the AdventureVision 4.
Cheap fixed-screen LCD games continued to produced long after they were technologically obsolete. Tiger Electronics sold dozens and dozens of handheld LCD games in the 1990s based off licensed properties that were not more advanced than most of the Game and Watch handhelds (excluding the clock function of the Game and Watch devices).
Third Generation - Game Boy, Lynx, Game Gear (1989-1998)
The third generation is where handheld gaming really began to come into its own. The Game Boy was released in 1989 and quickly became a worldwide phenomenon, thanks in no small part to its pack-in game, Tetris. The Game Boy relied on interchangeable ROM cartridges and included an 8-bit CPU running at 1.05MHz. With a 160x144 resolution display capable of four shades of gray, four sound channels and 4 buttons plus a D-pad, its capabilities were sufficient to play NES-like games.
The Atari Lynx, which used a color LCD screen with a resolution of 160x102 pixels was released later that year. Sega released a portable version of the Master System as the Game Gear in 1991, boasting similar specifications to the Game Boy except but it also used a color screen like the Lynx. The Lynx fizzled thanks to Atari's limited resources but the Game Gear managed to provide some competition to the Game Boy. Both the Lynx and Game Gear used backlit screens, but they were blurry in motion and had somewhat washed out color due to the backlights used. Their biggest weakness compared to the Game Boy was their short battery life.
There were attempts to bring 16-bit consoles to the handheld space during this era. NEC tried three times with the Turbo Express, PC Engine GT and the PC Engine LT. Sega ported the Genesis to a handheld called the Nomad. Because these devices were large, bulky, very expensive and unfriendly to battery life, they did not sell well. Mainstream 16-bit handheld gaming would have to wait for the GBA.
"Consolized handheld gaming", playing a handheld game on a TV, became a reality during this era when Nintendo released the Super Game Boy peripheral for the Super Nintendo. Nintendo would follow this up to a small extent on the N64 with the Transfer Pak and fully with the Game Boy Player for the GameCube. The Sega Nomad could connect directly to a TV, but as it is a portable Genesis there were more convenient and cheaper ways to play Genesis games on a TV.
Gaming on cellphones also became a reality toward the end of this era. The Nokia 5110 and 6110 series of cellphones came with Snake, Memory and Logic preinstalled. Directional controls were accomplished via the dialpad and the 84x48 screens were monochrome and backlit with a few LEDs, but the idea of gaming on a utility-based device had been born.
There were lesser-known B&W handheld systems like the Gamate, the SuperVision, the Game Matser and the Mega Duck. These never gained much popularity in the west, being viewed as a "poor kid's Game Boy." The Tiger game.com was a late monochrome system which offered features ahead of its time like internet connectivity and a touchscreen for interactivity beyond the D-pad and buttons. Unfortunately for Tiger the system turned out to be a flop due to awful games, poorly implemented features and its reliance on a monochrome screen.
Nintendo's Game Boy, despite being given a makeover with the Game Boy Pocket in 1996, was clearly showing its age. Nintendo released the Game Boy Color in late 1998 to excellent sales. The Game Boy Color was backward compatible with original Game Boy games and many Game Boy Color games could be played in the monochrome system. The Game Boy Color had some improvements to the underlying hardware to better handle the color screen. The color screen used TFT technology to eliminate the ghosting of the older displays but was not backlit.
After the Game Boy Color was released, SNK had released the Neo Geo Pocket and Bandai had the Wonderswan. Both were B&W systems, and SNK quickly released the Neo Geo Pocket Color in 1999 with similar upgrades over its previous model. It used a non-backlit TFT screen like the Game Boy Color. The WonderSwan did not get a color update until the end of 2000 as it could subsist for a time on the strength of Bandai's licenses. The Wonderswan sold decently enough in Japan and the Neo Geo Pocket Color had a small but dedicated fan base but neither proved to be serious competition for Nintendo.
One might question is this really a fourth generation? The Game Boy Color and Neo Geo Pocket Color are not significantly more capable than the Game Gear and even the Lynx could be competitive. I argue it was, even if the generation was somewhat short-lived because only at this time was color handheld gaming something that everyone could expect to play. People who liked their original Game Boys were likely to upgrade to enjoy the new color systems and people who were getting into handheld gaming would likely be able to afford a Game Boy Color. It should be noted that this generation lasted a little longer for most people because the Wonderswan Color was not released outside Japan and the GBA took three months from its Japanese release to come overseas.
Fifth Generation - Game Boy Advance, WonderSwan Color (2000-2004)
While the WonderSwan Color showed an ability to play 16-bit like games that had been previously released on the SNES and Genesis, Nintendo really kicked off this generation with the release of the Game Boy Advance. The GBA was the dominant console of this generation and until 2004 it was pretty much the only current handheld console available outside of Japan. The GBA was backward compatible with GB and GBC games, so it could boast an enormous library.
In 2003 the GBA received an update, the GBA SP, which added a rechargeable battery and a front-lit screen, allowing for better viewing of its games. 2005 saw the release of the backlit model, which is the model everyone wanted for all the Game Boy line of games until the advent of modern backlit display replacements.
Nokia released the N-Gage as a hybrid cellphone and gaming device. While the N-Gage was more powerful than the GBA, it was not particularly well-suited to gaming and was unable to compete with the Nintendo juggernaut. Far, far more people played Snake on Nokia's 6110 line of phones than ever touched an N-Gage. Nonetheless, the idea of using a phone for gaming would become increasingly relevant with the next two generations.
Sixth Generation - Nintendo DS, PlayStation Portable (2004-2011)
The Nintendo DS was the dominant player in this generation. It introduced a usable touchscreen, dual screens, rechargeable batteries, 3D acceleration not dissimilar to the PlayStation, wireless connectivity and internet access. Its sole serious competition was the Sony Playstation Portable. The PSP was significantly more powerful than the DS and used a screen with a larger resolution than both of the DS screens combined. The PSP's rechargeable battery did not last as long as the DS because it relied on spinning UMD discs. The Nintendo DS has no official consumer accessible method for outputting video to a TV but certain models of the PSP can output to a TV. Sony PSP Sony released the PSP Go in 2009 which relied on downloading games from the Playstation Store but it was not a big seller even though it was forward-thinking. The PlayStation Portable offered the best competition Nintendo ever had in the handheld market but the DS outsold the PSP by almost 2:1.
Toward the end of this generation capable smartphones like the iPhone 3G were quite capable of playing 2D games and became viable gaming platforms in their own right. Mobile gaming was the preferred term to refer to gaming on smartphones, but the differences between smartphone and handheld gaming would become increasingly blurred over time.
Seventh Generation - Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation Vita (2011-2017)
Nintendo once again dominated this generation with the release of the Nintendo 3DS. The 3DS's most obvious advantage over the DS was the introduction of an autostereoscopic screen capable of displaying depth to 3D graphics. This feature was highly touted but enthusiasm for it waned over time and not all games were supporting it by the console's last years. The 2DS and 2DS XL did not have the stereoscopic screens.
Sony tried to compete for the second time with the PlayStation Vita. The Vita sold less well against the 3DS than the PSP had against the DS. The PlayStation TV contained Vita hardware inside a box which connected to a TV, something Nintendo did not support for the 3DS.
Smartphones and tablets were also becoming more powerful and sophisticated and dominated the casual market, causing Nintendo and Sony both to lose out on sales. Sony tried to get in on this action with the Xperia Play phone, but it was not successful. In this generation downloading games from the Nintendo eShop and the Playstation Store was common even though games could be purchased on card-based media. Even Nintendo dipped its toe in the mobile waters with games like Pokemon Go and Super Mario Run.
Eighth Generation - Nintendo Switch, Steam Deck (2017-present)
Nintendo's Switch came at a troubling time for the company as its 3DS was showing its age and its Wii U fared poorly in the home console market, placing a distant 3rd behind the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The Nintendo Switch turned the company's fortunes around. This console was officially a hybrid console in that it could be played both on TV screens and as a handheld. It came with a Dock which sent the signals to the TV and its controllers were detachable from the main unit. It could also use wireless Bluetooth controllers and with the Dock, wired USB controllers. In handheld mode the graphics are limited to 720p but can reach 1080p when Docked. (Games usually render internally in resolutions lower than 1080p to improve performance). While the console in Docked mode was not nearly as powerful as the PlayStation 4 or the Xbox One, Nintendo's strong library of games and its portability more than made up for its lack of horsepower.
For the first few years of the Switch's life, it did not have much in the way of serious competition in terms of other hybrid consoles, never mind dedicated handheld consoles. Nintendo released the Switch Lite which lacked the Docking ability but played the same games and was a true handheld console. Smartphones and tablets could be displayed on a TV screen but their lack of buttons and the cumbersome nature of plugging them in did not make them ideal for more than portable gaming.
The Steam Deck, released at the beginning of 2022, finally put some real competition into this space. It is a PC put into into a gamepad. It runs the Linux OS and connects to Steam to download games. The buttons can be remapped to keyboard keys if necessary and the touchpad and analog sticks, touchpads or touch screen can be used to simulate mouse or analog movement.
The Steam Deck runs on x86-based hardware, which has usually been confined to laptops and tablet PCs. It has 16GiB of DDR5 RAM and Battery life has been an issue with it as it is running much more powerful hardware than the Switch. As the Steam Deck is running on PC hardware it is not unique in providing a portable PC gaming experience.
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