Handheld Game Platorms

A handheld video game console is a lightweight, portable electronic device with a built-in screen, game controls, speakers and replaceable and/or rechargeable batteries or battery pack.]Handheld game consoles are smaller than home video game consoles and contain the console, screen, speakers, and controls in one unit, allowing people to carry them and play them at any time or place.

Handheld video gaming has always been a few steps behind its console counterpart, but that’s proven to be a small trade-off for the benefits of portability and, to some, even part of the appeal.

So, while most gamers are now enjoying their PSPs and Micros and DSs, we thought we'd take a little trip back and look at some of the handhelds from whence they came before them. Although we have to warn you, reading this feature may cause an uncontrollable urge to jump over to eBay.

The Early Years:

Mattel’s LED-based Handhelds - 1977-78

The idea of handheld video games with interchangeable cartridges wouldn’t take hold for about another decade, but Mattel managed to pry video games away from quarter-swallowing arcades and dim televisions with their successful line of LED-based, single-game handhelds. Most people today will remember Football, but the company also released the creatively-titled Baseball and Basketball, as well as the non-sports titles Missile Attack, Armour Battle, and Sub Chase. Mattel also managed to jump on the retro-chic bandwagon, re-releasing Football and Baseball in 2000.

Milton Bradley Microvision - 1979

Milton Bradley, a company then better known for Hungry Hungry Hippos than video games, has the distinction of being the first to introduce a handheld video game console with interchangeable cartridges with its Microvision. The system had only a handful of games and was plagued with problems from the start, including a 16x16 pixel LCD screen that was prone to rotting and cartridges that could be permanently damaged by even a relatively small static charge.

Nintendo’s Game & Watch Series - 1980-91

Upping the ante from Mattel’s LED handhelds, Nintendo introduced their first Game & Watch handheld in 1980 and would go on to produce dozens more throughout the decade, offering a small glimpse of what was to come from the company. As the name suggests, the handhelds featured a clock and alarm but the real attraction was the games, which included titles like Donkey Kong, Mario Bros, and Balloon Fight.

The New Wave:

Nintendo Game Boy - 1989

Nintendo released the Game Boy on April 21, 1989 (or in September 1990 for UK). The design team headed by the late Gunpei Yokoi had also been responsible for the Game & Watch system, as well as the Nintendo Entertainment System games Metroid and Kid Icarus. The Game Boy came under scrutiny by some industry critics, saying that the monochrome screen was too small, and the processing power was inadequate. The design team had felt that low initial cost and battery economy were more important concerns, and when compared to the Microvision, the Game Boy was a huge leap forward.

Yokoi recognized that the Game Boy needed a killer app—at least one game that would define the console, and persuade customers to buy it. In June 1988, Minoru Arakawa, then-CEO of Nintendo of America saw a demonstration of the game Tetris at a trade show. Nintendo purchased the rights for the game, and packaged it with the Game Boy system. It was almost an immediate hit. By the end of the year more than a million units were sold in the US, and 25 million were sold by 1992.[verification needed] As of March 31, 2005, the Game Boy and Game Boy Colour combined to sell 118.69 million units worldwide.

Atari Lynx / Lynx II - 1989

In 1987, Epyx created the Handy Game; a device that would turn into the Atari Lynx in 1989. It was the first color handheld console ever made, as well as the first with a backlit screen. It also featured networking support with up to 17 other players, and advanced hardware that allowed the zooming and scaling of sprites. The Lynx could also be turned upside down to accommodate left-handed players. However, all these features came at a very high price point, which drove consumers to seek cheaper alternatives. The Lynx was also very unwieldy, consumed batteries very quickly, and lacked the third-party support enjoyed by its competitors. Due to its high price, short battery life, production shortages, a dearth of compelling games, and Nintendo's aggressive marketing campaign, and despite a redesign in 1991, the Lynx became a commercial failure. Despite this, companies like Telegames helped to keep the system alive long past its commercial relevance, and when new owner Hasbro released the rights to develop for the public domain, independent developers like Songbird have managed to release new commercial games for the system every year until 2004's Winter Games.

Sega Game Gear  - 1990

The Sega Game Gear was the third colour handheld console, after the Lynx and the TurboExpress. Released in Japan in 1990 and in North America and Europe in 1991, it was based on the Sega Master System, which gave Sega the ability to quickly create Game Gear games from its large library of games for the Master System. While never reaching the level of success enjoyed by Nintendo, the Sega Game Gear proved to be a fairly durable competitor, lasting longer than any other Game Boy rivals.

While the Game Gear is most frequently seen in black or navy blue, it was also released in a variety of additional colours: red, light blue, yellow, clear, and violet. All of these variations were released in small quantities and frequently only in the Asian market.

Following Sega's success with the Game Gear, they began development on a successor during the early 1990s, which was intended to feature a touchscreen interface, many years before the Nintendo DS. However, such a technology was very expensive at the time, and the handheld itself was estimated to have cost around $289 were it to be released. Sega eventually chose to shelve the idea and instead release the Sega Nomad, a handheld version of the Mega Drive (Genesis), as the successor.

Game Boy Colour - 1998

The Game Boy Colour (also referred to as GBC or CGB) is Nintendo's successor to the Game Boy and was released on October 21, 1998, in Japan and in November of the same year in the United States. It features a colour screen, and is slightly bigger than the Game Boy Pocket. The processor is twice as fast as a Game Boy's and has twice as much memory. It also had an infrared communications port for wireless linking which did not appear in later versions of the Game Boy, such as the Game Boy Advance.

 

The Game Boy Colour was a response to pressure from game developers for a new system, as they felt that the Game Boy, even in its latest incarnation, the Game Boy Pocket, was insufficient. The resulting product was backward compatible, a first for a handheld console system, and leveraged the large library of games and great installed base of the predecessor system. This became a major feature of the Game Boy line, since it allowed each new launch to begin with a significantly larger library than any of its competitors. As of March 31, 2005, the Game Boy and Game Boy Colour combined to sell 118.69 million units worldwide.

The console was capable of displaying up to 56 different colours simultaneously on screen from its palette of 32,768, and could add basic four-color shading to games that had been developed for the original Game Boy. It could also give the sprites and backgrounds separate colours, for a total of more than four colours.

Game Boy Advance / Advance SP - 2001

In 2001, Nintendo released the Game Boy Advance (GBA or AGB), which added two shoulder buttons, a larger screen, and more computing power than the Game Boy Color.

The design was revised two years later when the Game Boy Advance SP (GBA SP), a more compact version, was released. The SP featured a "clamshell" design (folding open and closed, like a laptop computer), as well as a frontlit color display and rechargeable battery. Despite the smaller form factor, the screen remained the same size as that of the original. In 2005, the Game Boy Micro was released. This revision sacrificed screen size and backwards compatibility with previous Game Boys for a dramatic reduction in total size and a brighter backlit screen. A new SP model with a backlit screen was released in some regions around the same time.

Along with the Nintendo GameCube, the GBA also introduced the concept of "connectivity": using a handheld system as a console controller. A handful of games use this feature, most notably Animal Crossing, Pac-Man Vs., Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Metroid Prime, and Sonic Adventure 2: Battle.

The Now Generation:

Nintendo DS / DS Lite - 2004 / 2005

Ever since the first concept designs appeared on the web, the Nintendo DS was met with skepticism. To many, the design seemed like a step backward after the elegant GBA SP, and the dual screens and stylus input seemed more like novelties than the revolution in handheld gaming Nintendo was promising. But gamers were slowly won over as more and more great games kept coming out for the DS, including what are arguably some of the most innovative titles on any system -- the built-in WiFi doesn’t hurt either, which they've used to finally move on pervasive portable online gameplay. Nintendo went on to launch the DS Lite, a smaller, thinner, lighter version of the same device and in 2010 the 3Ds, with its 3D visual gameplay experience.

PlayStation Portable – 2004

 

The most technically advanced handheld system to date, Sony’s PlayStation Portable seems to be holding on to its (comparatively smaller) piece of the market in the face of Nintendo’s array of handhelds, despite its high price tag and relatively few stand-out games. Sony also keeps pushing the UMD format for movies, although many users have opted for more practical means of viewing content on their PSPs.

PlayStation Vita – 2011

The PlayStation Vita is the successor to Sony's PSP Handheld series. It was released in Japan and parts of Asia on December 17, 2011[1] and was released in Europe, Australia, and Latin and North America on February 22, 2012. The handheld includes two analog sticks, a 5-inch (130 mm) OLED multi-touch capacitive touchscreen, and supports Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and optional 3G. Internally, the Vita features a 4 core ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore processor and a 4 core SGX543MP4+ graphics processing unit.  The device is fully backwards-compatible with PlayStation Portable games digitally released on the PlayStation Network via the PlayStation Store. However, PS One Classics and TurboGrafx-16 titles were not compatible at the time of the primary public release in Japan. The Vita's dual analog sticks will be supported on selected PSP games. The graphics for PSP releases will be up-scaled, with a smoothing filter to reduce pixelation.

There's nothing quite like the Nvidia Shield. With its traditional game controller, it's competing with portable games consoles like the Sony PS Vita and the Nintendo 3DS. But it's got more in common with smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy S4, thanks to its Android operating system and 5-inch touchscreen display.

It also does something no other device can - it will stream full PC games from a local computer. Is this the handheld games console to rule them all? 

PDAs and SmartPhones:

PDAs (Personal Digital Assistant) is a device similar to a computer that fits in the palm of your hand and allows the user to collect such information as contacts, appointments, files, programs, and more.

A smartphone is a mobile phone that allows you to do more than just make phone calls and send text messages. Smartphones can browse the Internet and run basic software programs like a computer and the user often interacts with the smartphone by using their finger on the touch screen.

PDAs Emulators

PDAs might not be the most natural fit for gaming (outside of point-and-click friendly fare) but that hasn’t stopped developers from producing original games for them and, yes, emulators as well. Sure, it’s no GP2X, but it’s a heck of a lot more discreet, so you can bust out Super Mario Bros 3 and pretend you're working while you try to beat it for the umpteenth time. Don't use the warp pipes, dude, beat it like a real gamer.

Nokia N-Gage / N-Gage QD - 2003-04

Before they introduced the N-Gage, Nokia wasn’t a company that anyone would associate with gaming -- and now, a few years later, they still haven’t really managed to get gamers to take notice. The N-Gage (and it’s most recent revision the QD) is a fairly capable system but it seems that most people still prefer to keep their phoning and their gaming separate. Nokia, however, is hoping that'll change in the next couple of years, and intends to incorporate N-Gage gaming capabilities into future smartphones, not just game-phones.

Xperia PLAY

The Xperia Play, (stylized Xperia PLAY and codenamed Zeus) is a handheld game console smartphone produced by Sony Ericsson. Under the Xperia smartphone brand running Android 2.3 Gingerbread, the device is the first to be part of the PlayStation Certified program which means that it can play PlayStation Mobile games. The device was originally thought to carry the PlayStation branding, though this has been clarified to be a certification of being part of the PlayStation Certified program.

On March 4, 2010, the device was announced for the first time codenamed the PlayStation Phone, but rumors were going around long before Sony announced the device as early as 2005.

On February 13, 2011, at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2011, it was announced that the device would be shipping globally in March 2011, with a launch lineup of around 50 software titles. In the US, the Xperia Play was initially available only on the Verizon network, until the release of the Xperia Play 4G on AT&T. In Mexico it is available through Telcel. In the UK, carriers O₂, Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile and Three have confirmed that they were to stock the handset. In Canada, the device is carried exclusively by Rogers Wireless.

The device is a horizontally sliding phone with its original form resembling the Xperia X10 while the slider below resembles the slider of the PSP Go. The slider features a D-pad in an indented area on the left side, a set of standard PlayStation touch buttons(Triangle, Circle, Cross and Square) in an indented area on the right, a long rectangular touchpad in the middle, start and select buttons in an indented area on the bottom right corner, an option button on the bottom left corner, and two shoulder buttons (L and R) on the back of the device. The original form, has a long rectangular touchscreen, and four buttons below, for back, option, home, and search. The device features a 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, a Qualcomm Adreno 205 GPU, a 4.0 in (100 mm) display with a resolution of 854 × 480, a 5.1-megapixel camera, 512 MB RAM, 400 MB internal storage and a micro-USB connector. It supports microSD cards, in contrast to the PSP consoles, which use Memory Stick variants, and the PlayStation Vita, which uses a custom, proprietary flash storage medium.

The device runs on the Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system, with early prototypes running Android 2.2. It is one of two successors to the PlayStation Portable, the other being the PlayStation Vita.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handheld_game_console 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xperia_Play