The portability of handheld consoles makes them an addicting toy for children. Instead of being limited by the time and location, there is newfound freedom in being able to play wherever you want and whenever you want. Take it with you on the go so that you can play on the train, bus, car, at the station, friend’s house, relative’s house, class, and even in the bathroom. The trade-off for portability is battery life and screen size. There is often a need to recharge/change the batteries after playing for one to two days. Tiny screen size also means that the eyes are often straining to look at the pixels on the screen. I suspect that a significant amount of poor vision among children results from straining to look at the screens of the handheld consoles (probably now touchscreen phones since the cellular revolution).

It would be difficult for those who grew up with touchscreen cellphones to truly understand how much impact the handheld consoles had. Back then, most cellphone designs kids had were the flip-phones or the new “cutting edge” Razor type. Kids used these phones to call their parents or to text their buddies, but usually not to play games. The games on the cell phones were often limited to boring stuff like pool or bejeweled. On the other hand, handheld consoles had more entertaining games such as Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh. Thus, kids more often than not were playing with their handheld consoles instead of their phones on their free time. This changed with the touchscreen revolution and the iPhone. Now games on the phone are on the same if not better than handheld console games.

GameBoy the Nintendo Monopoly

The first handheld console given to me by my parents was the Nintendo GameBoy Color with Pokemon Yellow. This handheld console and the GameBoy Advance following soon after would dominate my adolescence. Little did I know it, but I was part of Nintendo’s astounding sales record that would make them hold a virtual monopoly over the handheld gaming market for years to come. The success of Nintendo’s portable handheld console was evident by how ubiquitous they were at school. My yellow GameBoy Color matched with others that were white, purple, and blue.