01 February 2025

Classics to Modern Consoles – Gay in the CLE

Rose-colored Gaming Memories

I absolutely love sitting in my study, on early morning weekends, when my partner is still asleep in bed. I sit here in my room, surrounded by my plants and pieces of my history. Those treasures range from keepsake photographs from various points in my life, to toys from the 1980s. It is like my own Fortress of Solitude. It is where I come to get inspired and to get away from the world outside.

This week has got me thinking a lot about childhood. NIntendo has officially announced its new gaming device, slated to release later this year, and it does have me excited. I came back to Nintendo later in life. They just know how to make fun and beautiful games, but that isn’t the point of this story. The Switch and the Switch 2 mark an evolution in handheld gaming that most people gloss over. My first experiences with handheld gaming came from Mattel’s Football game. Now, I know what you guys are thinking, “You aren’t a sports guy, WTF!!!” You are right, but when you are a kid that is fascinated with video games, you deal with what you got until you get better.

This memory got me thinking about how far handheld gaming has truly come in the many decades since it was first birthed to the world. So, let’s jump in and look at the history and evolution of handheld gaming in a little article I like to call… My Handheld Gaming Journey: Classics to Modern Consoles.

The origins of hand-held gaming

From those small handheld sports games of the late 1970s to the Steamdeck and Nintendo Switch, the evolution of portable gaming consoles is a unique look at the history of computers and fun.

I remember my brothers getting Mattel’s Football game for Christmas, when I was a child. It was amazing, albeit confusing. Here was this tiny green piece of molded plastic that had a display screen that showed little red dots that would move across the simulated field and would give you beeps and bloops, depending on what was happening. To be honest, I never understood the controls and how to play, but I knew if I pressed enough buttons that things happened and it excited me.

The very first portable game was released by Mattel in 1976 and was simply titled Auto Race. This game made Mattel’s Football seem high-tech. FUN FACT: The entire program for Auto Race took up 512MB of space. For comparison, one game on a Nintendo Switch cartridge takes up somewhere between 1 to 32GB of space. The game was slightly bigger than a paperback book. This was a simple, LED-based game where players moved a car up and down a track to avoid oncoming cars, using just three buttons. It was entirely self-contained and marked the beginning of portable gaming.

But what is truly amazing is that early handheld gaming history owes its start to the pocket calculator. That invention allowed for computer devices to get smaller than they ever had before. The prototypes for Auto Race and Football were built off of calculate hardware at the Microelectronics Division of Rockwell International. In three short years, Nintendo would jump into the market when they released the Nintendo Game watch series. It took the single colored dot matrix display that calculators used and added a pre-printed overlay that allowed for character representation in a much updated and user-friendly way. This small system became the standard form factor for Nintendo controllers. It also helped that they were the smallest gaming console of the time. That allowed you to take your game anywhere you went. And soon to become the annoyance of parents everywhere.

The 90s: Rise of the iconic hand-held consoles

While handheld consoles got their start in the late 1970s and early 80s, it would be almost a decade before a true console would come out. During this time, there wasnt a department store around that you could not find some type of handheld electronic game. Nintendo’s game watch definitely led the way for awesome portable gaming. Mattle came out with another small handheld game, in the style of Nintendo Game Watch, called Dungeons and Dragons. No, it wasnt like that table top version, but more like a fit in your hand, less graphically intense version of their arcade nom de plume, this handheld unit allowed players to navigate a dungeon maze and slay monsters in black and white, prefab LCD glory. Three simple buttons were all you were given to interact with the game. Even Tomy released its own handheld that had 3D capabilities, calledTomytronic 3-D Games.

My favorite iteration, during this time, was Tiger Electronics – Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest.This game boasted the same style LCD of games of that era in combination of a pre-printed cell that over-laid the screen. Tiger introduced a more robust control system for games, but was still massively behind what we know today. All of that would change with the first entry into handheld consoles.

If you would like a nostalgic flashback in the History of handheld gaming systems, be sure to check out this article; A History of Handheld Gaming.

The Game Boy Revolution would start in 1989 with the initial release of Nintendo’s Game Boy and would forever change the way we all played video games, on the go.However, it would take on some scrutiny from its creators. Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi felt that the was underpowered and the monochrome screen left a lot to be desired. The design team, instead, decided to air on the side of making it battery powered and economically friendly. This proved to be the major tipping point for it to become the cultural icon it still is. But, the design team also realized that the system needed a hook to make it a household brand. During a visit to a computer trade show opened them up to a gaming craze that would sweep the world as far as the Game Boy would go, Tetris. Nintendo quickly purchased the rights to the game and bundled it with the release of its first model. This allowed Nintendo to create an entire catalog of cartridges to go with their console. This would be the early progenitor to the Nintendo Switch. The rest is history.

The 2000s: The age of innovation

NIntendo Game Boy was clearly leaps forward to handheld gaming, but it was just the beginning of the evolution of portable gaming consoles. From its inception, we saw Atari create the Lynx system. Sega Game Gear, and the later released Sega Nomad. We even saw Nintendo evolve the Game Boy into the Game Boy Pocket. All had the failing of the green monochromatic LCD screens. That was until Nintendo shook the industry up, again, when it released the Game Boy Color. “You mean to tell me I can play all my cool games as well as new games on the NIntendo Game Boy Color? Please, take my money.” This simply trick was one that has catapulted NIntendo to the video game beast it still is today. Sure, many of you will disagree, but there are few systems out there that boast the backwards compatibility that Nintendo bakes into many of their consoles. This forced the hand of every other manufacturer out there and to make matters even worse, just three years later, Nintendo would release the Game Boy Advance and Advance SP. These two units built off the Game Boy game library and created behemoths that were hard to compete against

A new competitor would bring about a significant advance to the handheld arena. In 2003, Nokia released the N-Gage system. You say you live a busy life and you really wish something could combine all the things you like into one unit, cell phone, PDA, MP3 player, radio, and a gaming device? We got you covered. Criticism plagued this device. You had to remove batteries to change cartridges. If you wanted to make a call, the speaker and mic were on the side of the device. This made using it awkward to say the least. They would combat this with the release of the N-Gage QD but the upgrade came at its own costs, the removal of the MP3 player, radio, and USB connectivity. This would plague the device and lead to it being moved to a more novel release with the Nokia Smartphones.

Nintendo refused to let a moment go by and lose their place in the gaming world. By 2004, we saw the release of the first Nintendo DS, this would be a critical evolution for Nintendo. The DS added two LCD screens, wireless connectivity to play with others, and a microphone. And I promise, you cant make this shit up, it still used the entire Game Boy library. So at its launch, it had one of the largest gaming libraries to support it. Nuts ,right? This unit led to multiple iterations from the DS lite, the DSi, and up to the 3DS XL.

Playstation got in on the game with the Playstation Portable. I had the experience to play one of these, shortly after its release. The graphics were amazing and the cartridges used an optical disk, much like a CD. This was a feature no other handheld had at the time. This unit saw several iterations, in its lifespan, as well. Some smaller companies worth mentioning during this time were Tiger’s Gizmodo. It was designed as a multimedia device, supporting music, movies, mobile phone, some limited internet functions, and games. It also had a camera for taking pictures. GP2X was an open sourced, Linux based platform for playing video games and media. This, primarily, targeted homebrew developers – for running emulators of other gaming software.

Handheld gaming in the 2000s was quite literally the wild, wild west of gaming history. We saw the rise of portable gaming innovations like adding multimedia and the start of being able to use the internet. Local gaming became a necessity with these systems, to increase playability and to bring your friends along. These were probably some of the best handheld gaming devices over the years, that is until we come into the modern era.

Why hand-held gaming endures

It is no surprise that the draw of video gaming hasn’t slowed since it was introduced to us in the late 1960s. With the invention of handheld gaming units, we no longer were simply stuck at home playing our games when we had free time and friends around. Now, we could take our obsessions with us, anywhere and anytime. If you could carry enough batteries and kept your playing time during daylight or good light sources, you could keep yourself entertained for hours on end.

As technology and graphics have increased, the desire for a mobile platform has not slowed down. And leave it to the likes of Nintendo to keep the love of handheld gaming going. It was only fairly recently that they stopped supporting their DS lines over the importance of the Switch. That system fits neatly into the hybrid category and allows you to take your favorite Nintendo and third party games with you and not lose a minute of play. I mean, how cool is it that you can go from playing The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in your living room, to playing on the bus, breaks at work, or even out at a bar. The limits of where you can play are only tested by the length of battery charge and your imagination.

We can’t reflect on the enduring nature of handheld gaming without giving a nod to modern smartphones. It would seem that we have taken old vision of all in one device and finally perfected them. With nods to Apple and their Apple Arcade and the similar platforms on Android, Amazon, and more, you can play any game you love in almost any place and on any device imaginable. Never has there been a time where gaming is more accessible to all people.

A personal gaming journey

It seems like yesterday when I first found out how much I loved handheld gaming. From staring at a screen with small red dots and beeps and boops to tell your progress to still rocking my Nintendo 3DS, as well as, my Nintendo Switch, gaming has been an integral part of my life. It is amazing to sit here, in my study, and think about how far those units have come since 1977. I wonder if any of those creators ever saw where this would end up or if they simply were trying to get in on a market to make money. I look back over the handhelds I have had the honor of playing and am left with the nostalgia colored glasses of how cool it was and, often, would like to go back to a more innocent time of gaming.

What about you, how many of these handheld devices did you know? How many did you own? Did you have a favorite? Did I miss any that held a special place in your memory, Let me know in the comments below. Gaming is one of the subject I love talking about the most and look forward to any of your comments. Until next time, thank you all again for being a part of GayintheCLE.It seems like yesterday when I first found out how much I loved handheld gaming. From staring at a screen with small red dots and beeps and boops to tell your progress to still rocking my Nintendo 3DS, as well as, my Nintendo Switch, gaming has been an integral part of my life. It is amazing to sit here, in my study, and think about how far those units have come since 1977. I wonder if any of those creators ever saw where this would end up or if they simply were trying to get in on a market to make money. I look back over the handhelds I have had the honor of playing and am left with the nostalgia colored glasses of how cool it was and, often, would like to go back to a more innocent time of gaming.