The History of handheld game systems; Nintendo Game Boy.

Taking a step back from the consoles that hook into your television set, handheld gaming systems have also had their part in shaping video game history.

Starting with Nintendo and its Game Boy, handheld gaming has grown among the video game industry the same as consoles.

Game Boy was really the first successful system in this category. By 'hand-held', that term is used rather lightly. The original Game Boy was quite large and would honestly take easily both hands to play, but it was still a lot smaller than the consoles of the time, not to mention that tube-style television that was required for console-play.

The original Game Boy had a green monochrome screen, where the figures on the screen showed up as black pixels. It was released in April 1989 and lasted 14 years before being discontinued in 2003. That is a remarkably long time for one system to exist if you think about it in the computer entertainment industry.

The screen was a whopping 2.6 inches diagonally, as compared to the now common television set rivaling 64-86 inches. Can you imagine playing a game on such a tiny screen and enjoying it?? Well, we did enjoy it as kids when I'd play my friend's Game Boy.

(Picture retrieved from http://www.cyberiapc.com/vgg/nintendo_gameboy.htm )

Over the course of its lifespan, and that of the Game Boy Color, they combined to sell over 118 million units worldwide, and in its U.S. release, it sold its entire 1 million unit shipment in weeks.

(Kent, Steven L. (2001). The Ultimate History of Video Games (1st ed.). Roseville, CA: Prima Publishing. ISBN 0-7615-3643-4., p. 416. "According to an article in Time magazine, the one million Game Boys sent to the United States in 1989 met only half the demand for the product. That allotment sold out in a matter of weeks and its black and white" )


Game Boy had a library of over 800 games, with Tetris being the top-seller selling more than 30 million copies.