Handheld Consoles

Handheld consoles originally started making an appearance to the public eye in the late 70s and early 80s; through technological advances that gave birth to electronic devices small enough to hold and fit in your pockets. Although technology at that time was growing it was still a far cry from today's and each console could usually only play one game each.

Mattel's "Auto Race" being one of the first to become popular with the masses.

The origin of handheld consoles was during the 1970s and 80s, with the development of electronic devices, small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. These were only able to play one game and were of low quality.

Later on in the 90s, handhelds like the Gameboy and Tamagotchi became a big hit. Tamagotchi are tiny handheld consoles that are shaped to represent an egg, each Tamagotchi contains a digital creature that must be fed, nurtured and played with in order to live healthily and happily and so the point of the game is to keep a Tamagotchi alive and happy for as long as you possibly can. Created and sold in Japan by Bandai in the year 1996, Tamagotchi became incredibly popular as it was very simple to play (navigating through options with the three buttons on the front) and the games AI was so lovable more so the longer you play with it. 

The Gameboy selling over 118 million copies worldwide is an incredibly successful handheld console, boasting a new and exciting experience in its time (late 80s, early 90s) for handhelds, as well as offering a cheaper price than most other handhelds at the time. Since the Gameboy was released, Nintendo has had a firm grip on the handheld gaming market even in the current generation of games. Later on in the 90s just as the year 2000 was dawning, Nintendo under pressure from other consoles becoming more sophisticated and technologically advanced decided to upgrade their own Gameboy and thus the Gameboy Colour was born. Running on a much faster processor (x2 speed), much more complicated (aesthetically and dynamically) and faster paced games could be played as the new technology could handle it. Also note that the Gameboy Colour was probably the first backwards compatible console.

A few years later in the year 2001, the Gameboy Advance and SP were released with a storm of games that rose the bar on handheld consoles, with the addition of the left and right triggers. Now capable of handling 16-bit colour palettes rather than 8-bit, Gameboy Advances' graphics far surpassed the Gameboy colours; allowing for much more detailed sprites and eventually with the SP's backlight, much more vibrant tones. Together the total sales for these consoles went over 125 million copies and their best selling games were Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire.

Debuting Winter 2004 and selling 154 million copies worldwide, the Nintendo DS. This console was revolutionary for Nintendo's handheld future as well as having an influence on Nintendo's new home consoles (the Wii U); being the first touchscreen with pen stylus console, the DS once again drastically changed how handheld games could be approached, incorporating 3D graphics (usually prominent on the top screen while the bottom stays familiar with 2D for menu's, GUI, etc.) and effectively making use of touch screen games. A major selling point to the DS too was the ability to play multiplayer games with only one cartridge.  

Moving onto another powerful brand on consoles, the Playstation franchise gave birth to the most sold console to date, the PS2 (155 million copies). Moving on from the PS2 however, Sony's Playstation went in two different directions. The ultimately more powerful PS3 and the handheld Playstation console, the PSP (that stands for Playstation Portable). Also released in 2004; the PSP's hardware is vastly superior to the Nintendo DS's in terms of processing performance and graphics, being capable of handling PS2 level games, such as: Dragonball Z: Shin Budokai which is an a sequal to Dragonball Z: Budokai 3 on the PS2.