Gameboy

[Atarifever]

Hey remember me, I'm the game gear guy. I bought a gameboy colour a few weeks ago at a flea market. Since then I've bought a few games for it and a brought out my old B&W gameboy collection to play on it. I don't know if it's just me, but this handheld sucks hard. Forget the fact that my Game Gear screen gives me a headache, in fact forget the fact that each Tiger Electronic individual handheald only has one level, the GBC is far more horrible. I liked the black and white (brown and green or whatever it is, I'm colourblind) better. I don't even get a contrast knob because the colours are already so perfect

This leads me to ask: "How did gameboy ever manage to beat out the other systems? I mean there was a turbo graphic dealy, the Game gear, and (from what I hear here) a great atari handheld. Was it all money. Now, I realize that GBC wasn't out until these other sysytems were dead, but THIS is what the victor in the market war was able to produce after destroying the competition...unbelieveable. How did they do it?

[TailChao]

Simple,

Incredible Game Libraries and Well-known Characters

 

You could actually do some neat things with the GB hardware, although it doesn't measure up in full power to the Lynx, GG, or Turbo Express for that matter.

[Beer Monkey]

I thought the GBC was a very nice little system. Light, small, long battery life, and color. Sure, it wasn't backlit, but there was no way to do that back then and retain the long battery life and small size/weight. Every system has its design tradeoffs.

[chris_lynx1989]

Hey remember me, I'm the game gear guy.  I bought a gameboy colour a few weeks ago at a flea market.  Since then I've bought a few games for it and a brought out my old B&W gameboy collection to play on it.  I don't know if it's just me, but this handheld sucks hard.  Forget the fact that my Game Gear screen gives me a headache, in fact forget the fact that each Tiger Electronic individual handheald only has one level, the GBC is far more  horrible.  I liked the black and white (brown and green or whatever it is, I'm colourblind) better.   I don't even get a contrast knob because the colours are already so perfect    

This leads me to ask: "How did gameboy ever manage to beat out the other systems?  I mean there was a turbo graphic dealy, the Game gear, and (from what I hear here) a great atari handheld.  Was it all money.  Now, I realize that GBC wasn't out until these other sysytems were dead, but THIS is what the victor in the market war was able to produce after destroying the competition...unbelieveable.  How did they do it?

 

it was all about money..... the fact that nintendo had the marketing and the advertising dollars to pull the wool over the gaming folks here in the

u.s. when there were MUCH better color handhelds on the market(a few

had not arrived yet in the day--game gear and turbo express come to mind from back in the fall of 1989,you know. the turbo was good,it was no

atari lynx though.the turbovision tv tuner was a plus with it for me.the

game gear was a fair unit for a color one.the tv tuner (name of it now just

escapes me) was a nice addition for it as well.nothing was the lynx's equal

till the sega nomad came along in 1995/6 as a nice color handheld unit for

use with the 600 genesis games that existed out there.

the original game boy sucked.the game boy pocket sucked.the game boy

pocket color had a few racing games and 720 degrees that were not all that horrible really.really they were sort of good games.nothing till the game boy advance from nintendo has been worth a crap as a handheld

unit at all--especially color.the new nintendo ds is still on the table with me

for more use and all for a better opinion of it yet.some ways it sort of just

leaves me cold with the stylus and all you use on one screen.is it just me,

or does that seem a little bit sucky to others out there?? the color screen

on the thing seems rather nice with metroid prime hunters.i have not seen

ridge racer or madden 2005 and others running on it yet to say further.i

have heard some of the other games out there for it really suck(spider-

man 2 and asphalt gt are at least two of the bad titles i've been told to stay away from by early reviewers of the games).the dual seems nice and

the color seems rather vibrant and all.is there more?any others have a ds

opinion and some input?

the lynx still holds a place in my heart,next to my game boy advance and

nec turbo express as the best color handheld that was produced to this day.the playstation(psp) portable and the nintendo ds could be added to

the list of favorites i have in the future.i still love my atari lynx though!!

even if it does have a few stinking games on the roster. i'm a little iffy on

the title alpine games though,is it just me? do other folks out there think

some of the game graphics are a little bit cheesy for a lynx game? the

background graphics are nice.the characters and the animation is nice too.

just the snowboarding game and the ski jump game could've used some

better graphics on them,i think. some of their graphics seem a little bit on

the below par area for the lynx up until now. i'm not flaming duranik on it

as a whole,you know,just voicing my concerns as an owner of the game.

the lynx still rules with me.--the lynxer

[Dragonforce-Europe]

i just received my atari lynx 2 today, and OMG it is BIG! you guys are wondering why the lynx failed??? OMG

 

here are some facts:

 

Battery life sucks

too big

not a good screen

you think japanese people would actualy TOUCH that thing of THAT size?

not compact, you must be on drugs, if you can put THAT in youre pocket

 

i am not a fan boy of any. and what i just said is MY OPINION. anyone that is gonna flame me (because he is a fan boy) can goto hell.

[Dragonforce-Europe]

this is comparsions

[Trip_Cannon]

The Lynx 2 was roughly the size of a gamegear and not that much bigger than the original gameboy and Turboexpress. The size didn't really matter much to me on a long trip anyway, it was actually better. If you had the cig adapter it didn't matter how much power it was sucking. I had both the lynx and the gameboy back then and the lynx just blew it off the map in all ways possible!! It goes back to what TailChao said... gb had way more games, way more styles of games, and way more muscle backing it.

[Dragonforce-Europe]

if size doesnt matter. its ok . and power consumption. I wasnt into handheld back then (too young:P)

[+davidcalgary29]

Size simply wasn't a consideration for me when I bought my first Lynx in '90. At that time, the Canadian market was limited to the Game Boy and the Lynx, and it was clear (to me, at least) which was the better system.

 

I never found battery life to be a problem the odd times that I actually used my Lynx as a portable. I did take it with me on several trips, and I found that battery life was typically longer than the advertised 5-6 hours, as I didn't play it continuously.

 

The Game Gear was never popular in Canada (e.g. about as popular as the Lynx), and the Turbo Express died a quick death at Radio Shack. There just weren't any other alternatives available for sale.

 

BTW, I think that aesthetics truly are a matter of taste here. I always did like the look of the Lynx (esp. the Lynx I), but hated the Game Gear and dislike the stylings of the GBA (all models).

[Trip_Cannon]

if size doesnt matter. its ok

 

Most women tell me the same thing...

[Dragonforce-Europe]

if size doesnt matter. its ok

 

Most women tell me the same thing...

 

and they talk about the size of the lynx? if not. dont go offtopic

[Agent X]

i just received my atari lynx 2 today, and OMG it is BIG!  you guys are wondering why the lynx failed??? OMG

 

here are some facts:

 

Battery life sucks

 

Battery life wasn't all that bad considering the time of its release, especially compared to the other color handhelds. 4-6 hours on a set of fresh batteries is fine for a handheld, where most games are designed to be played in short bursts. The only drawback is that it took 6 AA batteries, so it got pretty expensive if you were addicted to your Lynx and used it on the go frequently.

 

too big

 

True.

 

Interestingly enough, R.J. Mical (one of the designers of the Lynx) admitted in an interview a few months ago that the system could've been made much smaller, even way back in 1989 when it was first released. However, focus group testers insisted on a larger system, so that's what they decided to do. See this thread for more information.

 

not a good screen

 

Huh? The Lynx screen is one of the best screens of any handheld video game system up until the very recent years. It's very large and easy to view, with good colors, and much less blurring than the Game Boy, Game Gear, or Nomad screens. The only handheld screen from that time period that could compete is the active matrix screen on the TurboExpress, but it was very small; as a result, in-game text (which was usually developed with a full-size TV in mind) was difficult to read.

 

Sure, today's portable LCD screen technology crushes what was available on the Lynx, but it likewise crushes all of the other handhelds of that time period, also. When time period is taken into perspective, the Lynx screen actually holds up pretty well.

[wapchimp]

this is comparsions

 

How popular was the gamecom

how popular IS the lynx

[sega saturn x]

The original game boy had its share of good games pokemon and alleyway come to mind. But the color was and is the worst game boy thus far. Most of the games are just ports of old arcade games like pacman or yars revenge. Now theres nothing wrong with those games but they were ushaly screwed up some how. The advanced truly is a great system and far better then the original or color game boy. I cant comment on the lynx or game gear since i dont own one and have never played one. As far as the DS goes i think both the psp and DS will fail. To exspensive lackluster launch games.

[Video]

The lynx isn't all that big, when you take into account it was competing with the GameGear, DMG, and Turbo Express at the time, which were all huge too. (though DMG was smallest of them all)

 

The reason the GameBoy beat out all the other systems was, well...

Battery life, while the other handhelds got 4-6 hours on a set of 6 AA's each, the GameBoy got close to 24 hours on a set of 4. No comparrison.

Name, Atari screwed themselves in the years after the 2600 and basically flushed their name. So people were alergic to the lynx.

Cost. While Nintendo routinely released games at $25-$35 each, Lynx, (and yes, Turbo Express and GameGear) tried to market their games as full consoles at the $50-$70 price common for console games at the time. They simply charged to much.

 

Of course, there are some other considerations. The lynx is pretty faulty and breaks easily, I don't know how many times I've had to dismantle mine to fix it so it would play right. It was simply built cheap. And the Screen, while refresh was better than GameGear and GameBoy, was lower resolution than both.

 

For the record, I love my Game.com too. Sure, lots of games sucked on it, but it had awesome puzzles. I remember some sites giveing GameBoy DS an award for being most inovative, but what is inovative about it? Game.com has the touch screen, and the fact is, the second screen isn't practicle. Metroid is a great game, but if you use the stylus set up, it is an absolutely unplayable game.

 

GameBoy was OK, it was my favorite due to cost, and Mario. And I still have a B/W TV hooked up to my 2600, so you think graphics and color matter to me? Pocket was cool for it's better refresh, Color was awesome, though harder to see than even the DMG due to not being able to adjust the screen at all. And GBA was awesome. But the DS...what went wrong? Instead of two small screens, give us one big one. As for the touch screen, make something useful, or drop it.

[+davidcalgary29]

The reason the GameBoy beat out all the other systems was, well...

 

Name, Atari screwed themselves in the years after the 2600 and basically flushed their name.  So people were alergic to the lynx.

 

I think that people typically read too much into this one. There's a new generation of kids every three years, and they'll buy what they see a) on TV, and b) what other kids are playing. Branding means squat to kids who are exposed to thousands of ads a day, and they are typically much more media savvy than their parents were at the same age.

 

Nintendo advertised the heck out of the gameboy and had thousands of outlets for the system. Atari tried to market the Lynx with one or two TV ads per city per year, and could only get a few major retailers to carry it.

No contest.

 

Cost.  While Nintendo routinely released games at $25-$35 each, Lynx, (and yes, Turbo Express and GameGear) tried to market their games as full consoles at the $50-$70 price common for console games at the time.  They simply charged to much.

 

I don't think this is true at all. Atari had a MSRP of $34.95-$44.95 for their Lynx games from '89-'92, and cut that price in half when the Lynx began to falter in '93. I bought all of my games new, and they did not cost more than $40 CDN each.

 

Of course, there are some other considerations.  The lynx is pretty faulty and breaks easily, I don't know how many times I've had to dismantle mine to fix it so it would play right.  It was simply built cheap.

 

Can't argue with you there, although I think that the Lynx I was much-better built than the GG or the Game Boy. I've had the volume wheel detach in three successive Game Gears that I've owned.

[Dragonforce-Europe]

this is comparsions

 

How popular was the gamecom

how popular IS the lynx

 

i ment the size. my brother walked in. and the first thing he sdaid was: OMG that thing is BIG! i never tought it was that big. same idea what i had when i saw it first

[MegaManFan]

I had a poster of the Lynx on my wall, but I owned a GameBoy given to me as a Christmas gift. That I think is what really says it all. The Lynx was cooler, but the GameBoy was everywhere and Nintendo marketed the hell out of it.

[Dragonforce-Europe]

atleast the lynx is easy to find when lost

 

i must say that day2 of my experience with the lynx is more satisfied, it feels comfortable in my hands.

 

But then again. Its a typical american product.

 

As they say here:

 

Americans always want everything big, they think big is better. like their cars. they dont like to drive small cars.

 

no offense to americans. i like americans.

[MegaManFan]

Personally I hate big cars. They're impossible to parallel park, they guzzle too much gas, and the people who drive them always feel entitled to the road and cut you off at their whim. Give me a nice zippy compact car like my 3-door Saturn any day. Good mileage and never a hassle to park even in the tightest of crowded parking lots at Xmas.

 

My only real gripe with the Lynx is the same as yours. It's fun to play, damn does that color screen look great (and boy were they ahead of their time with it), but the thing is just so HUGE! It makes me think of the website where the guy makes "p" systems - VCSp, NESp, et cetera. I know it sounds a bit odd to make a "portable" more portable, but I'd honestly love to see him make a LynxP. Strip everything out of one down to the bare essentials, then remake it as a handheld half the size. Say what you will about those original brick GameBoy systems, but at least you could hold it to play comfortably for long periods of time. The Lynx fails that test. I can't tell you how many times I've wished there was a "LynxPlayer" equivalent to the Game Boy Player for GameCube.

[wapchimp]

yeah I get aching hands playing the lynx

[The_Laird]

Aching hands? Don't agree with that. The Gameboy was just a brick and the Gamegear wasn't much better. One of the best things about the Lynx is the way it fits in your hands, especially the Lynx 2 with its rubber hand grips. I remember a Lynx advert where there were a load of kids sitting in cubilcles at school playing California Games with the comlynx cable going under the divide of each toilet. That advert was one of the things that did it for me ( I got one in 1989 ) its a shame they only showed it about twice. I used to keep it in my inside pocket of my blazer at school, it fitted perfectly, and play at breaks and even in class sometimes! I even used to charge kids to play on it. Never quite re-created the advert but me and 3 friends used to play California Games on comlynx regularly.

[wapchimp]

maybe my hands are smaller

[Agent X]

My only real gripe with the Lynx is the same as yours.  It's fun to play, damn does that color screen look great (and boy were they ahead of their time with it), but the thing is just so HUGE!

 

Yeah, it's definitely a big machine. It didn't seem large at the time, probably because of the novelty of having a portable video game system of that quality. It's kind of like the Commodore SX-64 was considered "manageable" initially, but a few years later would be looked back on as "enormous."

 

I would've loved to see the other smaller prototypes that the developers had back in 1989, that the focus groups rejected in favor of the larger model that was actually released.

 

It makes me think of the website where the guy makes "p" systems - VCSp, NESp, et cetera.  I know it sounds a bit odd to make a "portable" more portable, but I'd honestly love to see him make a LynxP.  Strip everything out of one down to the bare essentials, then remake it as a handheld half the size.  Say what you will about those original brick GameBoy systems, but at least you could hold it to play comfortably for long periods of time.  The Lynx fails that test.  I can't tell you how many times I've wished there was a "LynxPlayer" equivalent to the Game Boy Player for GameCube.

 

Funny, I was thinking exactly the same thing. The person you're thinking of is Benjamin Heckendorn, and here is his Web site. I'd love to see him (or anyone) build a "Pocket Lynx" comparable in size to the GBA or even smaller.

[Twoface2]

Yes, I made Ben the same suggestion via email, but never got an answer.

 

Maybe we should start a petition here to show him that there is need for it