|
Since
the early 80’s, people all over the world have been carrying
handheld games consoles such as Nintendo’s Game & Watch series
everywhere they go. With so many games released it started to
become a chore, you know carrying a ruck-sack a round full of
separate Game & Watch's just to keep yourself happy. It seemed
that the industry was ready for a evolution.
In
1988 Nintendo brought the UK
to a standstill by releasing the infamous Game Boy, a fairly large
but ingenious handheld console. Now everyone could carry around
just one system (with a few games cartridges which were relatively
small). The Game Boy burst onto the market as the forerunner of the
industry - and is also the biggest selling handheld console of all
time. With a large range of games such as the very successful Legend
of Zelda and the infamous Pokemon
and, of course, being
launched with the legendary Tetris, it’s not hard to see
how the system became so successful.
There
were lesser competitors such as the Atari Lynx and Sega Game Gear.
The Atari Lynx was released in 1990, although a superior system to
the 8-bit 2-colour Game Boy, the 8-bit Atari Lynx had limited
battery life and hardly any support from third-party companies to
release their games on the system. The Sega Game Gear suffered the
same fate, although it was closer to the Mega Drive in graphics,
gameplay and games.
Even
today, you could walk down the street and ask anyone if they have
heard of the game Tetris, Nintendo fanboy or not they would
say “yes”. Even in this day and age you can still meet people
who have never heard the names Resident Evil or Mortal
Kombat (that’s people who never read the paper or watch TV,
people who walk around oblivious to the world around them). A
problem in the 80’s and 90’s was that game playing was
classified as nerdy. But now it’s a lot more fashionable to be a
nerd such as Pharrell Williams from the band N*E*R*D/the production
group The Neptunes. People like him have brought the title nerd
into more fashionable circles.
Today
the games companies have realised that advertising is the way to
sell products. Especially now that people have a lot more money to
spend on luxuries. So you see a lot more people carrying handhelds
such as the Game Boy Advance and NintendoDS, and not to forget
Nokia’s N-gage; most people carry mobile phones today, with the
capability to play games, but the N-gage is actually supposed to be
a handheld console, with a vast range of games with a similar price
tag to the other systems.
But
why in 2005 is there such a call for handheld consoles? I know that
the technology of today is much more advanced, but does the fact
that you now have a big and flashy screen make the games better to
play? I don’t think so;  we’ve had games such as Super Mario
Land on the 8-bit 2D games console, which even of today’s
standards is a great game, and games such as the fabled Tetris
which hardly pushed the system
It’s
cool to own a NintendoDS or PSP today with lots of celebrities
backing the systems that are their favourites it makes the
mainstream public want to own their own. And with the vast array of
games on the Game Boy Advance there are games for everyone’s
taste.
|
