Topic: How about that Game Gear?

[couchmonkey]

Today I've been thinking a lot about PSP vs. DS, as I often do and it got me to thinking about the Sega Game Gear.  Interestingly, all of the sites I've visited on the web label Game Gear as a "failure", but none of them give any concrete figures or anything.  This was news to me because I thought Game Gear really held it's own against the Game Boy.  I knew a few people who owned Game Gears, and I think Sega supported the Game Gear longer than the Saturn or the Dreamcast.

Sp does anybody know just how well/badly Game Gear did?

It was an interesting subject to research.  I learned quite a bit about Sega's history and a bunch of other systems.  It gave me some ideas about where PSP may be going too.

[Bill Aurion]

Well in portable history the Game Gear was the closest to keeping up with Ninty's Game Boy...I have no idea where you could find figures, but I do know that it must have done at least adequately for it to be supported by Sega for 6-ish years(late 1990 to early 1997 I think).  But what I find kind of forboding is that Sega's outlook for the GG is very similar to the PSP's, that being Sega went out of their way to make a system that was technically superior to the Game Boy...

[Zach]

The problem with the game gear was that,because of its technical superiority, it had a really crummy battery life (sound familiar *couph psp couph*).  The battery life was especially bad because the thing took 6 BATTERIES.  It was a neat handheld other than that, and the fact that it was the biggest handheld ever.   The Gamegear did fairly well, but I think that it may have some competition from the psp as the closest to beating nintendo (in handhelds).

[couchmonkey]

Yep, that's about what I read while looking around the web.  I think there are some key differences between Game Gear and PSP that make the PSP's fortune a bit more unknown, but it's interesting to see that Sony is basically making the same mistakes as Sega.

[ThePerm]

what i think is nintendo just whored gameboy out with mediocre games till pokémon became popular and thewn whored gb out some more...sega already was done with the whole handheld thing more or less because they were too busy tryign to save their business on the console side...which didnt work.

[SgtShiversBen]

All I know is, I had a Game Gear and it was fun for the hour or so it lasted.  I didn't buy any more batteries for it after the second set of six.  So the only thing I did was play at home.  But it was great.  It basically had GBA graphics for it's time.  I think I was about 7 or 8 when I got mine.

[KDR_11k]

SgtBen: And it didn't occur to you to use rechargeable batteries?

The Perm: You make it sound as if the GB never had any good games outside of Pokemon.  

[odifiend]

KDR:  The gamegear ate the batteries .  Seriously though, my friend had a battery recharger and a gamegear, but his attempts to recharge the batteries were almost futile.  The monster could not be sated.

[Ian Sane]

At the time neither the Gameboy or the Game Gear really seemed that successful.  Everyone knew what they were but portable gaming was niche.  Sometimes you saw someone with one or the other but it was a rarity.  The kid with a portable was spoiled by his parents and only had a few games anyway.  I did see a lot of Gameboys in 1989 when it first launched but didn't see them again until Pokemon came out.  Most I knew who had one had Tetris, Super Mario Land, and one or two other titles but rarely got any games and the Gameboy just stayed in their closet.

While I feel the Gameboy had plenty of great games before Pokemon, that's when it became something big.  That's when I started seeing people playing it on a regular basis.  At that point the Game Gear was already gone.

Realistically if Pokemon was never released I don't think there would have been a GBC or GBA.  Portable gaming just would have died out and deemed a failed experiment.  It's not so much the Game Gear failed but rather that portable gaming failed until Pokemon which made the Gameboy a success.

The Game Gear however isn't a very good system.  It's survival was probably entirely dependent on two things: 1. It was made by Sega and 2. It was colour and the Gameboy wasn't.  The system just ate too many batteries and the games weren't even that great as most of them were just scaled down ports of Genesis titles.

[Uglydot]

I used rechargables in my GameGear for a while, but it was such a pain that I eventually just started using the pack.   At that time, rechargables also were pretty poor.  Since you had to recharge them every day if you used it much, that was an added cost still.  PSP doesn't have that problem.  The GG is also quite large.  The PSP isn't.

[Infernal Monkey]

Sega (once again) helped kill off the Game Gear themselves. Some of it's BEST games never got Western releases. Panzer Dragoon Mini, Factory Panic, Coca Cola Kid (by Sonic Team), Fantasy Zone Story. OOPS. The constant attack of Sega Master System ports didn't do it any good, either. Though I 'spose that would of only affected Euro sales, since America ignored the SMS. (SMS > NES) >=|

It was a funky system, yeah. But the battery life and massive lack of third party support outside Japan kinda sat on it. Also, Sonic Chaos was RUINED on the Game Gear, new pathetic music and crap slow-down. (Sega elitism in this thread)

[S-U-P-E-R]

Quote
I think Sega supported the Game Gear longer than the Saturn or the Dreamcast.

lol no, but they licensed it to another company that tried to rerelease it, I hear. (Majesco? Somebody like that)

Also, GameGear didn't have Tetris

[Infernal Monkey]

No, but it had Columns. AND FOUR HUNDRED VERSIONS OF PUYO PUYO.
Including NAZI Puyo and NAZI Puyo 2. Hitler runs Compile.

[KDR_11k]

Handheld gaming wasn't big??? I know, this isn't data, but I lived in a rural community and I knew many people with Game Boys. Everyone had those things! I counted 1 SMS2, 1 NES, 2 SNES (one of which was mine), 1 C64 and at least five Game Boys.

[couchmonkey]

According to the copyright dates on gamerland.com, Sega developed games for the Game Gear from 1990 through 1996.  If that's true, it would be a lot longer than the Dreamcast or the Saturn.

I don't think the question of Game Gear's success can fully be answered since statistics either don't exist or seem to be long lost.

[ThePerm]

i had an adapter that let me plug my game gear into the wall, and Ian sane is pretty much right in saying that while gb had good games before pokémon it was rather niche untill pokémon came out making gameboy mainstream....or more or less giving it an extra life.

[ruby_onix]

I don't think the GameBoy was really "niche" before Pokemon. There were a lot of not just good, but big games on the system. Metroid 2. A couple of Mario games. Several Megaman and Castlevania titles. Four Square RPGs. I think the original GameBoy probably had more 3rd party support than the Sega Genesis. They even released the Super GameBoy on the SNES. All before Pokemon.

Pokemon was just "the next Tetris", and made for a powerful lead-in to the GameBoy Color.

IMO, the old fat GameBoy represented the pre-Pokemon days, and the GameBoy Pocket was for the later ones.

I do remember that almost nobody ever had any classic GameBoy systems or games to rent anywhere, but all the videogame selling places seemed to give the GameBoy as much shelf space as the NES and the Genesis (which was much more than something niche, like the TG-16).

I think the GameBoy was just "a little different" from regular videogames, but not "niche", because it was still big (not "reports on the news of teachers having to confiscate GameBoy units" big, but still big).

I remember the Game Gear being rather "niche" though. You had to go to a "serious" videogame place to even be able to buy stuff. It seemed to me that only the "hardcore" people even knew it existed (and always seemed mad at the popularity of the GameBoy, for "hindering progress", which never made sense to me).

Oh and, you usually can't really use the Saturn and Dreamcast as comparisons for anything. The Saturn supposedly actually did pretty well in Japan, but it got canned in America by Bernie Stolar so that they could concentrate on the launch of the Dreamcast. And then the Dreamcast just got unplugged in it's early life with severe abruptness.

[Draygaia]

I don't know about you guys but other than the GB I enjoyed Wonderswan and Neo Geo Pocket Color.  I thought everything else was crap.  The Game Gear (like some people) I thought was good because of SEGA but when I played the games people who missed Sega in the console race should miss the consoles only for they really had something worth playing.  

[ProtonX]

I still own my old Sega Game Gear and it is so much better than the gameboy of its time.  It has a built in backlight (therefore the 6 batterys) and a color screen.  Nintendo didn't have any of these until future years. Sega would have killed the Gameboy, but it was alot more expensive.

[Captain Olimar]

i was still playing on amiga500's when the gameboy was emerging. but i eventually caved in and bought one when the special slim metallic version come out, only to find out a few months later that Gameboy colour was now availible. i felt ripped off cos the colour gameboys were around the same price. sold the damn thing and got hold of a 2nd hand psx soon after..

im definately gonna sit this next handheld war out and see how it goes. good luck nin youll need it. i hope sega will help you out