When I was a little kid Santa Clause brought me a game gear with a battery pack & a tv adapter. Man it was one of my favorite christmases ever. I really loved that game gear. My parents rocked Christmas that year. Now that I’m older I have a whole new appreciation for what my parents did. They didn’t have a lot of money, but they still made the sacrifices to get me cool stuff for Christmas. This video brought back some memories for me.
Seriously bro, now that I'm 33 and have my own son, I realize how hard it is to get a child the latest and greatest. Shout out to our parents for getting us game gears!
no1 Jack I remember getting Super Nintendo plus Mario , Mario kart and street fighter 2.best Christmas ever. I’m in my 30’s now and while I do enjoy gaming, the love has deff faded.
The first time I saw a game gear, I must have been only a few years old, and while on a flight, some older kids (must have been teenagers themselves) in the next aisle saw me staring at their game gear in awe... and they let me play Sonic on it for quite some time. I’ll never forget that experience and the kind gesture from random strangers!
i had a game gear when i was 7 to 8 years old. I remember going on a coach trip to Brighton, it was a 240+ mile trip, with a bag full of batteries i played my game gear the whole way there, i had shinobi and sonic. Once we got off the coach we had a small walk to the hotel, passing Brighton palace. The game gear had my full attention and i walked straight into a pillar belonging to the palace, i almost knocked myself out and cracked the screen for my game gear.
@@Coolarj10 there was a big Pokemon controversy @ my school because people would be trading Pokemon cards and disrupting classes so they ended up banning them. In order to get around that we would put our cards in individual cases opposed to the big noticeable binders and haggle w/ each other on the low. I went to Catholic schools and wore a uniform that I would immediately change out of when I got home. Well obviously I forgot to take the cards out of my pants pocket one day and my mom threw them in the wash. The rest was history. I had 5 Charizards (3 English, 2 Japanese) and a shit load of other holographic cards. That collection would be in the 5 figures by now. oh well
I had a Game Gear back in 1995 when I was in the Navy. That thing saved my life when it came to needing something to do while out at sea. Just had to stock up on batteries before heading out. Spent many hours playing Shining Force and Shinobi.
I understand that. It was the GameBoy Advance that kept me sane my two tours in the Army. I still have it and it was cool to see a lot of my games I still have become collectible.
I'm from morocco and i buy a Sega Game Gear one year ago for nothing (5$) no sound and no image just the lightscreen, but i just change all the capacitors that I take from old remote controlers, and it works very good, there are so many tutorials about that in the internet, just go on and make all thos dead game gears back to life
2019 here.. We are at the point that retro gamers in youtube have become part of the nostalgia.. Having the angry video game nerd, gamesack, metaljesus and of course the gaming historian are just a blessing. My 90s was awesome and having these guys in my midlife was also great.... I hope when I become a senior citizen we will still have the systems and reviewers around... More power Norman!!
The crappy electrolyic capacitors mentioned in this video are, fortunately, pretty easy to replace when they fail. In addition, removing the florescent tube backlight and its ballast, and replacing it with white LEDs about doubles the GG's battery life. There are a bunch of RU-vid videos that walk you through both replacing the caps and the backlight.
By far the best mod is a Nintendo DSXL display as backlight as it brightens the screen evenly. But you need to solder in a current transformer due to higher voltage and actually making the brightness regulator work requires some knowledge of electronics and potentiometers. Most LED mods involve a LED diode in place of where the tube is and due to the higher brightness it will introduce a line of higher intensity light at the center of the screen, unevenly lighting the screen edges. The transistors also need to be swapped soon after they pop, except for the ones that are needed for sound if you wait too long the acid will eat through your contacts. Still easy to repair since the traces are not that miniscule as today's electronics
Every gamboy fantard like i was back then,secretly wanted a Game Gear. I guarantee it. Basically nothing has changed today for Nintendo exclusive gamers lol
I remember wanting this so bad, I had dreams about wanting it. Seriously, my dreams were about it just being out of reach of actually owning it, or actually holding it, just to have a slideshow of Sonic the Hedgehog play on the screen. All I wanted was a portable version of Sonic the Hedgehog just like on the Sega Genesis.
I still have no idea what my mom did with my game gear. It was light years ahead of the game boy. I even eventually got the tv tuner for it which was MIND blowing at the time. I had my own mini tv to watch my cartoons on lol
A few of my friends had the Game Boy but none of us had even heard about the Game Gear. Then my cousin who lived in another city got one and I got to play it. It totally blew my mind. My friends didn't believe it was real when I told them about it :D
I honestly feel like Segas biggest mistake, across the board, was their attempt at offering so many peripherals, in every system. Rather than focusing on making a quality, high-performance console with innovative qualities that came in the box, they seemed to always try and sell extra components that were just, well, crap.
Yeah kind of the more I think about it. Between the Power Converter, the TV Antenna, the Sega CD, the Sega 32x, the Sega Nomad, the Sega Mega Jet, the Sega 6 Button, the Sega 3D Control Pad, the Sega Channel, the Sega Online thing for the Saturn, the cancelled Sega VR, & the ridiculous amounts of accessories for the Dreamcast, they couldn't help themselves to accessories. Developing all of it probably took a large chunk out of their funds.
Sega Game Gear was an absolute joy in the 90's. So much so, when I first started working properly in 2008, I purchased one on ebay after I got my first paycheck. Still play it to this day.
My folks took one look at the charge life of mine and got me a third party battery pack that you could insert into the place where each of the batteries went. It actually really helped, and I could plug it into the wall to charge it when I wasn't using it
I remember getting one of these for my birthday. I had accidentally stumbled upon the games for it tucked away in a cabinet. Needless to say that I couldn't wait until my birthday, and I had to act surprised when I opened my presents up, lol.
My mother won one of those in France when she was a junior in College (back during the 1993-94 school year). She still has it and it still works to this day.
You ever notice how naming schemes with video game systems and cars are similar? So back in the day, there were creative names that sounded cool. like Jaguar, Genesis, or El Dorado. Now, a lot of people use names that are just numbers, or if you're lucky, some letters thrown in. Like 360, 4, or model 3.
@Brian Chernoble Genisis model 2 ac adapters, and Master system ac adapters are the exact model that were sold for the Game Gear. Also, Super Famicom ac adapters are a match, But not Super Nintendo.
They really did.. it's insane how the game gear is a better handheld than the original Gameboy advance.. the game gear was released ten years before the gba..
I had a Lynx model II, it was freakin' incredible. Very underrated. Shame it didn't get the recognition it deserved. My buddy had a game gear. Many an afternoon were spent swapping systems and trying out new games.
The car adaptor on road trips was the best. Our old van even had a rear passenger cigarette lighter so I got could sit in the back and play games the whole time. Too bad the games I had sucked lol
I loved my gamegear! I got one when they first released. My parents got fed up w/ buying batteries so they got that bulky battery pack. It looks like a big long oblong dildo. It lasted a while, and it saved on battery life. My gamegear still works perfectly. I just turned it on, it has the power rangers game in lol!
I think the American version has better capacitors, here in Europe all the Game Gear now days have problems with the sound or/and the image, unless you have changed the capacitors
I really don't understand why this was an issue to so many people. Pretty much everywhere I went had an electricity socket for me to plug a power supply to. And maybe it was because I was a child/young teenager, but people just didn't dare to say no, so I never needed to play on batteries. I would have it stolen from me if I was seen playing it on the bus or bus stop to/from school anyway.
with an LCD mod and modern Ni-MH AA batteries, you can easily boost game time to 6 hours and more. I've modded mine and STILL have to discharge my new rechargeables through more than 6 hours of non-continuous gameplay.
@@waltercomunello121 does it work just fine with the rechargeables? It's apparently built for 4.5v from two sets parallel sets of three 1.5v in series. But rechargeables are 1.2v, right? So it's only getting 3.6v?
When i was a kid, i didnt think that GG gamez had endings. The batteries gave out in hours, if that, and the adapter would overheat. I just thought the games were supposed to be incomplete, because i never got to finish them.
+sludge_fudge I am. While not a bad idea on paper, the product was universally panned in the trailer, and even I think there's so much room for improvement. I even started a petition on Change.org to get Sega to improve it. If you'd like to sign it, here's the link. www.change.org/p/sega-get-sega-to-improve-the-game-gear-micro
About 15 years ago my best friend and I got his brother's hand me down Game Gear after he got a PS2. I remember us saving up for and buying a 128 pack of AA batteries and eating through them in a month. But it took us months of saving to buy those batteries. Should have just bought the ac adapter.
As a child, the gameboys non-color, non-light screen was a deal breaker for me. How anyone could enjoy playing a game in black and white was beyond me. My brother got the gamegear and it was fun to play. We had a duck tails game that was awesome with great music. We got the tv turner and I remember secretly watching a steven segal movie in bed way past my bedtime, which was a cool thing for a kid. Battery life? We played it plugged into the wall, so this wasn't a big issue.
+TheTundraTerror The reason I enjoy handhelds isn't mainly because it's portable, but because it's comfortable. With a console, you're controller is hooked up and you have to stand in one place. It's difficult to play well while laying back and lounging around. Since the TV is generally on the other side of the room (not held right up in front of your face), you have to sit up and look at it from the right angle, otherwise it just doesn't feel right and can throw you off. With a handheld, the screen is right up close to you. You can lay however and be more comfortable, and you're not going to feel penalized for it. Handhelds are generally more convenient and comfortable when you want to lounge. It's the reason why sometimes I prefer to browse the internet with my smartphone instead of with my laptop.
+Ronan Dee When I got an Atari Lynx 2 I was blown away at how much more advanced it was. It was my favourite Handheld and I sold my Gameboy to get one, never looked back.
I own a Game Gear console in fine shape with the original box. Box is in great shape and has Columns and all parts/papers. Picture and sound are perfect on the system. It even still has the battery covers! I used to fly through batteries when I had a different one in the mid 90's.
I remember waking up Christmas morning and opening up my game gear with the game sonic 2!! I was made up and played on that for about 2 hours before opening any other presents
Having a backlit screen made this thing so much more playable than the Gameboy. Could actually see the screen outdoors at recess without hiding in the shade under the slide
I remember my cousin having a Game Gear. When he stayed with us one summer, I was playing it all the time. All I remember playing was Batman Returns. I felt it was much better than the Game Boy. I remember playing it before going to bed, in this little "fort" that I made. So the backlight was useful in the dark. And I had it plugged in, so the batteries were not a problem.
The Game Gear was in color, and backlit. That alone made it over Game Boy for me, but the wider design to be like a console controller was good too. Although it was a battery drainer, possibly worse than the SNES Super Scope. Regardless, I liked the Game Gear a lot.
+C. Dawg Knight I owned one, too. The LCD display was blurry and a bit washed out. Games were "ok" but nothing particularly special. 7/10. Meh. I didn't expect to say it but the Game Boy, with some of the better titles, delivered a better value and much more enjoyable playing experience overall.
I have never owned a handheld console myself. As a kid, though, I had friends that had Game Boys and Game Gears, so I played both of them. Discounting all other factors (cost, battery life, etc., etc.) and only taking into account the experience of playing the game while I was holding it in my hands, I thought the Game Gear was far superior. I considered buying a Game Gear at one point (never actually did it). I never even considered buying a Game Boy.
It kind of annoys me that so many people think that the Game Gear was a failure just because it didn't sell as many units as the Gameboy. Sega discontinued the Game Gear when they believed 8 bit handhelds were obsolete, and right after that the Gameboy got a second wind from the release of Pokemon, which made the aging Gameboy more popular than it had ever been before, at a time where its only real competition had already been discontinued. At its peak the Game Gear was actually outselling the Gameboy in the United States, even if that victory was somewhat short lived and fell far short of where the Gameboy would go with Pokemon.
If a system doesn't meet any of the sales goals expected by the company that produced it AND if they were selling them at a loss (the GG, like most console, probably cost more to make then what the we're selling for) AND the total sales barely even made a dent in the market then calling said console a dud/failure is appropriate.
Joe Digger How do you know what Sega's sales goals were with the Game Gear? How do you know they failed to meet them? In North America, the sales far exceeded Sega of Japan's expectations, at least according to the book Console Wars. What happened is that when the dust settled, Nintendo fans started moving the goal post and retroactively declared that the Game Gear had failed, which is a misconception that has stuck even though it's not true. The Game Gear had an average lifespan for a piece of gaming hardware while the Gameboy had an exceptionally long one. Contrary to popular belief there are silver medals in these supposed video game races.
I agree completely with your statement that Pokemon made the Gameboy. It's common sense if you look back at it. Ask anyone what game they think of when they picture the Gameboy. Pokemon saved the Gameboy. That ugly yellow screen would have died a slow death if it didn't have a Pokemon life support system.
@Evangelos Killer mike It's not because they lost the competition that they always have been a failure. For nearly a decade, they have been the main competitor against Nintendo, something no other company was able to do. The only fact here is that you don't know shit about the history of video games.
@@solarbubble703 Also Sony playing dirty was what ultimately led to Sega's Dreamcast demise. Dreamcast was great console with lots or great games and when it was release it was much more powerful than PS1. But Sony with its much better ties/influence with the media spreading lies such as the PS2 was just around the corner (it wasn't) to stale for time and spreading lies/rumours about the PS2 being something like 10 times the power of the final product that eventually got released. Lots of people held-off buying Dreamcast and Sega lost lots of potential sales as a result of that.
According to M2, the Game Gear games on 3DS sold poorly and Sega quietly discontinued the series. Which is a shame, since the emulation is great. I just downloaded The G.G. Shinobi and it's a pretty rad game. And I'd loved to play the Game Gear Mega Man.
luisguillermojg That's a shame about that as I enjoyed the Game Gear Virtual Console games on the 3DS.The Mega Man game on Game Gear would've been great to have seen on the 3DS VC with it being very expensive to purchase.
It feels kind of strange playing Game Gear games on the 3ds. You can even blurr the screen as if you play on an actual Game Gear. I really loved the Sonic games back in the day and i feel bad that Sega screwed up so much. I hope Sonic Mania will make its comeback as the true Sonic 4. Every Sonic game after Sonic and Knuckles sucked big time. I hope that in the future there will be another Sega handheld because Sony just dropped it after the Vita. The PSP had great games but the Vita let everyone down on it. Damn shame Nintendo beats the handheld market everytime. Now we have the shitty @tgames sega handhelds but they are not worth it to buy. It's better to play them old games on the 3DS even though it feels silly. Nintendo beats it everytime. I wish Sega made better Sonic games after they sold out to every company in the gaming industry.
I wanted a gmae boy but my mom saw all the commercials talking about how game gear had color and convinced me to get one.Sad times it was more expensive and I could never have enough batteries for it so I had to buy the charger pack.
I seem to have stumbled across yet another fantastic, underrated channel here on RU-vid. Keep up the outstanding work, sir! You've earned yourself another sub.
I got mine in 1997. Still have it and it still works. The battery pack don't work no more and the speaker is shot but you can still plug headphones in and works fine. Made the bus trip to school way more bearable. I had that super wide thing but it got all scratched up. Can't say i really play it though. Its still kinda neat to say i have it. There is another accessory that completely covers the whole thing and makes it practically waterproof. Complete with a big rubber seal and also had a magnifier. I had a lot of fun with it at the time and it was worth it.
In December of 1993 I got the Sega Game Gear and loved every minute of it. I'm not sure if the lack of 3rd party support was actually true or not because from what I seen the system had a pretty stellar library. There was no shortage of great titles to play in my opinion. If the game released for Sega Genesis, you were almost guaranteed to see a port of it come to the Game Gear.
I had them both as a kid, and looking back and watching the stuff we watch now we all understand the faults of the game gear, but I loved it. I played it way more than my game boy. You could play it at night on long road trips, at night after bed time, and it had a ton of fun games. I even had the TV tuner!! I love the game gear. It doesn't work right anymore though. The sound doesn't work usually and sometimes it won't turn on. :(
The best add-on was by far the Power Back. Not only did it fix the battery issue, but the battery's shape was ergonomic and it felt better holding the console with it !
The Game Gear, and later, a series of Game Boys, was an essential ingredient of my “entertain yourself quietly for hours” trick that my mom loved. I don’t know how many times I beat Power Rangers on Game Gear, but I killed a lot of batteries on that thing. And I had the Mega Wide Screen! So ridiculous but loved it at the time.
I was born in 90 I had a game boy since I was 4. I remember seeing a kid at daycare with a gamegear. He was playing sonic in color and I was completely jealous. I asked my parents for them to buy me one but you know the classic parent response “you already have a game.” Cracka Buy me that shit.
Can you imagine if Sega had held on for another year or two? What if in 1998, with the world crazy with Pokemon fever, they decided to go for broke to get a piece of the action? Make a few sensible changes to the hardware to address some of the problems, and then come out with their own monster battler, either by themselves or maybe by working with Tecmo to make a portable version of Monster Rancher. Pokemon is what saved Nintendo. If Sega gave the genre a try, the gaming world might be very different today. Sega might still be in the hardware business, for one.
Sega has announced that they are releasing a micro version of the Game Gear coming in October 6th in Japan, no word of a USA or European release at this time.
Clearest memory I have of my brother and his Game Gear was him constantly swapping batteries. Mom and dad picked him up eighteen Rayovac AA batteries and chargers. He’d burn through all three sets every day. There wasn’t a moment at least one set was charging in our home for a couple yeqrs
Saw someone with one of these playing Sonic two or three years ago. It was the first and last time I saw a Game Gear in use. A couple of days later I saw him again, but this time he played Tetris on the Game Boy.
Gamegear was actually amazing. The back light alone was just incredible. I can't play any game boys before the SP anymore because I am so spoiled by back lights. The problem with the Gamegear is it cost a fortune in batteries to keep running and it would quite often die in the middle of a game. This happened occasionally on gameboy, but not nearly as often. Every time you got far in a game you were at the mercy of the battery life, it sucked. Otherwise it was awesome. Great games, great graphics, great sound, and just overall great play-ability. Loved it. If only it was chargeable, that could have been another innovation to put it over the top.
I bought one in the early 2000's brand new. I purchased 2 games along with it (Dragon A Bruce Lee Story and NHL Hockey). I still have it in its original box on my gaming shelf. I play it hear and there, however, I need to get some more games for it. I might get an emulator to check out some more games before buying them for the system. I would love to have a portable lithium battery that can be used with my Game Gear so I could get longer battery life.
This was a very well done, and brought back wonderful memories of having a Game Gear in my pre-teens - the very first gaming system that belonged to me, rather than being shared by the family. I picked it over the Game Boy primarily because I was quite fond of the Master System in our living room, and also because buttons on each side plus a colour backlit screen was much more appealing. As mentioned in the video battery life was an issue, so I mostly played against a wall next to an outlet with the charger connected, or conserving power with the brightness down and sound off. Also, even after paying back my parents for purchasing it, I wasn't prepared for the high price of games on babysitting income & allowance. ($50 for something I didn't know if I'd enjoy or even be able to play??? My hamster needed more Habitrail tubes, dangit!) So I got pretty good at playing Sonic or Columns and occasionally met a fellow GG owner willing to lend from their collection. It was a fun way to pass the time, a valuable lesson in economics, and a treasured possession. Thanks for jogging the memories! ~ A.P.
I asked for the game gear for Christmas the year it came out and my parents instead got it for my younger brother who didn’t ask for it. I’m 37 years old and still pissed off about that.
The history of the game gear, reminds me a lot of that of the Ps vita and its competition with the 3ds. A much more powerful and premium handheld console, who despite being superior in almost every single aspect, couldn't compete against a console (gameboy), that although being inferior, was cheaper and had just an unrivaled games library
the PSVita also couldn't appeal all that much to the north american market, sure, it had a lot of handheld versions of home console games, i loved playing little big planet and uncharted on it, but most of the vita's library is composed of animesque games
My parents have a VHS tape of recorded episodes of The Simpsons we all recorded during my toddlerdom in the early 90s. I watched it a lot, I think I've been the last one to watch it the last 64736278945 times. The tape is slowly degrading. I only bring this up because that Game Gear commercial in the beginning is on that tape, and sometimes I think about seeing how to port the tape to a DVD for the sake of them sweet sweet 90s commercials.
It's easy to do....just get a video capture d3vice, hook up vcr to it and use the included software to capture (most video capture devices come with the software)
I'm just getting started on the Game Gear. I actually got into Pocket games until the GameBoy Color with the big Pokémon hype, but my favorites are the Zelda and Castlevania; I didn't get much games for portables since I prefer Consoles and PC, but after getting a 3DS and browsing around the Virtual Consoles, I found myself getting only original GameBoy and Game Gear titles. Good thing my 3DS battery lasts a lot more XD
3:48-3:50 The main reason for this is that the back light was basically a small florescent tube in a reflective box, and that tube was not nice to the battery life, to put it lightly. (Ha, puns.) This is why if you were to mod you Game Gear to have an LED back light, the battery life would go WAY up.
I just ordered a Game Gear off eBay that looks in pretty good condition except the screen won't turn on. I don't know anything about circuit boards or internal components so this will be the start of a journey... wish me luck guys.
I loved the hell out of my game gear, i liked it better than the game boy, just my preference. It was overlooked by most gamers and if more people had of tried one out it would have been alot more popular
@@goiabexp While I usually say that first party takes way too much credit in second party games, Pokemon is a big exception. GF only got off the ground due to loans and manpower by Nintendo.
I have a game store nearby that had plenty of broken sega game gears they were talking about replacing the capacitors on them and just a few weeks ago they finally fixed them and got to pick one up and I'm very excited to play a sega game gear that'll last for years to come.
I remember I saved up my allowance for weeks for one of these because I thought "hey this has color so it must be better than the Gameboy." This was the first and LAST time I bought a console based on graphics. Most of the games I had were either Sonic titles or smaller versions of Genesis games but it had a crappy battery life in the days before rechargeable devices. You could say it was the PSP of it's day (trololololol).
My friend actually has some sort of semi-portable rechargable battery, like a portable DVD player. That doesn't mean the Game Gear had a great battery life, I'm just saying that really helped.
WrongButtonGames Sega should have released refined versions of the GG, as Nintendo did with the Gameboy; later versions of the GG could have longer battery life and smaller form. This is the mistake Sega made, likely as a result of SoJ being obsessed with the Saturn.
Pshhh the Game Gear was discontinued because Sega, rightfully, suspected that 8bit handhelds were becoming obsolete. But head-to-head it DESTROYED the GameBoy. Color? Backlit? That's the one-two punch. And the game library was PLENTY large enough to keep anyone entertained. Honestly, I didn't feel it tore through batteries that bad either. The GameBoy wasn't exactly easy on it's 4 AAAs.
Game Gear's Price: $149 Gameboy's Price: $50 Difference: $99, in Gameboy's favor Game Gear's Average Battery Life: 3 hours out of 6 AA batteries Gameboy's Average Battery life: 12 hours out of 4 AA batteries Difference: 9 hours of play. *9 HOURS* out of *TWO THIRDS THE AMOUNT OF BATTERIES* (essentially three times what the Game Gear had to offer as *THE DIFFERENCE* , not even the total), again, in Gameboy's favor(I remark, this means *250% the battery efficiency* of the Game Gear) You have to outright LIE to yourself to pretend the competition wasn't a massacre in Gameboy's favor(you can swoon over how better the Game Gear was hardware wise all you want, but it just got fucked right up when it came to sales). It was just the more affordable console(in the short AND long run) with MUCH more games to it(Sega had mostly first party titles of variable quality, and some of the third party titles are outright incompetent. Seriously, you are comparing 250 games with a massive lack of decent RPGS and Adventure Games against *1,049* with those fields covered. Something yet again in Gameboy's favor. It wasn't the Atari Lynx bad but it just didn't compare). And 8 bit handhelds obsolete by 1994? Pokemon was released in 1996 for said 8 bit handheld and it took the market by storm. You're almost self patting in the back here, the Gameboy was just what the Game Gear wasn't: affordable, hence successful(this has kept Nintendo at the head of the handheld market for a long time, mind you)
Well, for starters, the Gameboy was $89.99 introductory, not $50. vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Launch_price And I conceded the Game Gear had an inferior battery life and game selection. But hell, there were still plenty of games to keep anyone entertained and they were more advanced than the Game Boy's shit green-colored stuff. Mortal Kombat on gameboy? LOL! And your argument is specifically the lack of RPGs? Who the fuck cares, you nerd. All in all, I was just pointing out that it wasn't a shit system for it's time. Nintendo was just first.
Self liking isn't a strong point, you know. Also, the Gameboy was already lowered in price when the Game Gear came by(even if it wasn't, that's still $60 of difference). And sorry, but the lack of presence for AN ENTIRE GENRE of games IS a point against ANY console, specially since Gameboy's strongest title ever(which was nothing less of a CULTURAL PHENOMENON) IS an RPG(let alone I mentioned adventure games as well, because they weren't the forte of the console. That makes TWO genres the Game Gear isn't covering properly). Also, screen crunch. The Game Gear had multiple not optimally made conversions from the Master System to fill up space. Shit, Screen Crunch affected even original games for the system. It's Megaman game pales compared to the Gameboy ones because it's not designed with the screen size in mind(superior graphics be damned). Same goes for half it's Sonic games. And it wasn't shit, but it was unaffordable, which long term is the same. People simply didn't play it(it's like the PS Vita against the 3DS. The 3DS owned the thing in sales long term in America and Europe, as the Vita only appealed to Japanese players at most. You can't pretend the higher specs are always the better deal, because time and time again history has proven this is NOT a rule). You're playing a game of pretending the console was hotter shit than it was(like that statement about 8 bit handhelds going obsolete with at least other 6 good years of them having a good life in the market ahead of 1994. It just feels like patting one self in the back. They discontinued the handheld because it didn't have a strong enough hold on the market, that's it).
That's 4 AA's instead of 6 and it got more than twice the lifespan out of them. While indeed the GBA would almost triple that time with only 2 AA's it's still a significant step up. The GB was just about a crucial threshold where the battery life was deemed acceptable by players. The thing is Sega did not create a 16bit handheld while Nintendo did. Also I often used in on the taxi to school and there often with the sun shining backlighting didn't make it any better. If anything often backlit screens had more glare than non-lighted screens because the dark background of a non-lit system would absorb most of the excess light. It's also why I didn't replace my GBA with the SP when I bought a second one. I still play my DS and DS3 with the backlighting on it's lowest setting.
Game Gear's COLUMNS was the first game my mom ever played on a portable. She really enjoyed playing that. NOW:, she's addicted to CANDY CRUSH on her iPhone I gave her (iPhone 12 Pro Max) . Basically the same game.
I was a little kid when my older brother (+6 years) convinced my parents to get a Game Gear. Other than that, our house was all Nintendo - NES, SNES, N64, and a pair of GBCs for him and me. I never really appreciated it like I otherwise would have, being the only non-Nintendo thing we had, but I did admire its sheer power compared to the comparatively anemic performance of the Game Boy. Every once in a while I'd play it (exclusively plugged into the wall) and try whatever Sonic game we had (I wasn't very good) or Klax (I think it was called? It was like a Breakout-ish game with tiles that "rolled" down lanes). It was definitely quickly forgotten for the consoles proper but impress nonetheless.
It was the steam deck of its day. I remember the Christmas I got one. I'll never forget it. It was the best gift I was ever given, during my childhood.
I never had the pleasure of owning a game boy or game gear growing up but I did have access to both, many friends owned gameboys and my uncle owned a gamegear, he was the only person I knew that owned one, I considered it much better and it seemed like it was some rare system since I had only seen the one and it was a color back lit screen compared to the game boy. I grew up in a rural area in the extremely rural province of pei Canada. We seemed to be behind the rest of the planet by a few years until the Internet became a staple. Anyways... This channel brings back so many memories and nostalgia. Thanks
Back in like 1996 my babysitter had a Game Gear. Blew my mind as a kid because I didn't even realize something like this existed. Played Sonic on it nonstop, I was probably the easiest kid ever to babysit lol
Sega has made a lot of bad decisions, but, in theory, Gamegear should have destroyed Nintendo. I didn't own any video games until I was like 12 or 13, but many of my friends had the original Gameboy, and it was so clunky. It had no backlight, and shining a bright light on it caused reflection. On screen movement blurred, it only did black and white, and as the system aged, the screen discolored to a dark yellowish tone. The Gamegear was years ahead as far as quality of the picture, colors, sound, and backlighting. The screen was actually better than any screen on any portable device of any type that I had seen, until Nintendo finally released their next gen portable. The only real issue was how fast it blew through batteries, and the lack of games. Still, it's potential was so much greater than the Gameboy, and it still amazes me that the Gameboy lasted so long, despite only minimal tweaking to the original design. Even in the age of 3D gaming like the N64 and PSX, the Gameboy remained the top handheld console. Though, those last few years of popularity were almost entirely due to Pokemon, a game that thrived on simplicity. I almost feel bad for Sega. The few kids I knew who owned Gamegears never played them. They sat, unused, in their toy boxes. Does anyone know why third parties were so reluctant to program for the Gamegear?
groomedtodie Well, it's a lesson, not always the better graphics and stuff manage to make a console the best option. There's a lot of variables on why a system succeed or not...
The same could be said about the PS Vita. Its specs are vastly superior to the 3DS yet the 3DS is crushing the Vita. The Vita is essentially a modern day Game Gear.
groomedtodie The Gameboy launched a year before for $99 - The Gamegear launched at $149. The Gameboy got 10 -14 hours battery life on four batteries and the Genesis was lucky to get 5 hours with 6 batteries. The Gameboy had 789 titles and the Game Gear had 363 titles. It's hard to beat a system with Tetris as it's launch title.
I remember bringing my game gear camping and thinking I’m in heaven I can game even out in the woods. I think it also took six double a batteries, three on each side.
