Sega Game Gear

Sega Game Gear
Manufacturer: Sega
Release Date RRP Code JP 1990-10-06 ¥19,80019,800 US (NY/LA) 1991-04-15 US (Nationwide) 1991-04-26 DE 1991 ES 1991 FR 1991-06 PT 199x UK 1991-06-24 £99.9999.99 IT 1991 AU 1992 BR 1991-09 R$160,000160,000 KR 1991-01 ₩198,000198,000 SPC-150

The Sega Game Gear (セガゲームギア) is a handheld video game console developed by Sega and released in late 1990 as a response to Nintendo's Game Boy handheld . It is a full colour console and was Sega's first attempt to compete in the handheld games market (the second being the Sega Nomad — a handheld Sega Mega Drive). In South Korea it is known as the Handy Gam*Boy (핸디겜보이).

Hardware

See also: Game Gear consoles

The Sega Game Gear is a "portable" device which was designed to address problems with Nintendo's Game Boy. It is held lengthwise at the sides (preventing the cramping of hands which plagued Nintendo's system) and has a backlit, colour LCD screen, allowing for clearer and more vibrant visuals than its main rival.

Similarly to the Sega Mega Drive, which at the time was Sega's main focus in the home console market, the Sega Game Gear is derived from the earlier Sega Master System. Unlike the Mega Drive, however, the Game Gear is largely identical to the Master System, the major difference being a VDP capable of displaying palettes consisting of a wider variety of colors, and the playback of stereo sound. Game Gear games traditionally run at a smaller resolution too, although with a screen built similarily to televisions of the era, the Game Gear is fully capable of playing games in higher resolutions.

Like the Master System, the Game Gear features a D-Pad and two buttons, and , but also adds a third,  START . This is one button short of a Game Boy.

Unfortunately, due to technical limiations of the era, the Game Gear demands six AA batteries to be played on the go, of which the fluorescent backlight on the LCD screen will eat through in three to five hours (though a battery pack provides longer playtime). Furthermore, the system gives off more heat than the Game Boy, often leading to "sweaty palms" after prolonged use. The system was also considered not to be very "portable" - it's bulky size means it does not fit in many pockets, and the power-draining backlight of the LCD screen (which cannot be turned off) meant Game Gears were unusable after a short period of time. An AC adaptor can be plugged into the system so that it runs off the mains, but this was not considered practical for consumers of the day.

Game Gears were also manufactured at a time where capacitor problems were rampant across the electronics industry. As a result, screen and audio failures are common, and fixes are not always simple.

Technical Specifications

• Main Processor: Zilog Z80 (8-bit)
• Processor Speed: 3.579545 MHz (same as NTSC colorburst)
• Resolution: 160 x 144 pixels
• Colors Available: 4,096
• Colors on screen: 32
• Maximum Sprites: 64
• Sprite Size: 8x8
• Screen Size: 3.2 Inches
• Audio: Texas Instruments SN76489
• RAM: 24 KB

History

Development

Development on the Sega Game Gear began in 1989, with the codename Mercury. At the time, Nintendo's Game Boy was proving to be a huge success, despite its awkward shape and four shades of green/yellow. Sega felt that consumers may buy a handheld that fixed these problems, and so the Game Gear was born. It was originally announced at Tokyo Toy Show 1990 on the 7th June 1990.

The Game Gear was not the first attempt at rivaling the Game Boy - this title goes to the Atari Lynx, released in October 1989 with similar goals in mind. The Lynx's existence does not appear to have influenced the Game Gear's development, although the two share similar advantages and shortcomings over Nintendo's console.

Release

Japan

The Game Gear was first released in Japan on October 6, 1990 with launch titles Columns (bundled with the unit), Super Monaco GP, and Pengo. 40,000 units were reportedly sold in Japan in its first two days of sale, and within a month, 600,000 had been shipped, but Sega struggled to keep the momentum going and sales tailed off by the middle of the decade.

Despite its strong launch, Japanese consumers are thought not have been too interested in the handheld, and early units suffered from several hardware faults. By the time of the "second wave" of Game Boy games materialised, prompted by the hugely successful release of Pocket Monsters in early 1996, the Game Gear was in a distant second, though limited software support continued until the release of G Sonic in December of that year. Despite strong support for the PC Engine in the region, the PC Engine GT, a handheld version of the aforementioned console, is not thought to have performed admirably and would have likely trailed in third place.

Japan was the only region to receive coloured systems (with one exception). Initial units were black, much like the rest of the world, but later, yellow, blue, red and white units were released, as well as several special versions tied to game releases.

North America

North America received the Game Gear in 1991 (after a brief market test in New York and Los Angeles) and Sega of America immediately went on the offensive, attacking the Game Boy at almost every opportunity for its limited colour palette with amusing and bizarre TV spots. This continued throughout the first half of the 1990s despite again trailing in second place, even poking fun at the existence of the coloured Game Boy console lineup of 1995 (i.e. those with coloured shells, not with coloured screens).

The Game Gear debuted at a time when a rival, the Atari Lynx, was taking an (albeit limited) share of the market from Nintendo, but while the Game Gear never topped the Game Boy, it did manage second place with its competitive price and trounced Atari's efforts with a larger library of games. The NEC TurboExpress, as in Japan in PC Engine GT form, buckled under its high asking price and poor marketing and likely finished fourth. Many of the Game Gear's flaws in regards to screens and battery life also applied to the Lynx and TurboExpress (although the Lynx drained its batteries in slightly less time than Sega's - 4-5 hours).

Blue Game Gears were bundled with copies of World Series Baseball and The Lion King in this region. They are considerably rarer than the black models, and a darker shade than the Japanese blue models.

Majesco, who were given the rights to distribute older Sega consoles, re-released the Game Gear in 2000 with slightly improved specifications, including a better screen and longer battery life. Majesco Game Gears can be identified by their non-coloured logos and purple start buttons. They are incompatible with the TV Tuner.

Europe

Though a reasonably popular handheld in Europe, the Game Gear again played second best to the Game Boy, making it the first Sega console in that region to make less money than Nintendo. Sega Europe curiously put a greater emphasis on the Game Gear's TV Tuner, bundling it with consoles and using it as a marketing tactic against the system's only rival, however the Game Gear struggled for similar reasons as it had in North America - poor battery life, awkward design choices and a smaller library of games.

South Korea and Asia

The Game Gear is known to have been released in these markets but its performance is not fully understood. More than likely the system failed to get off the ground due to high asking prices.

Legacy

While its hardware was superior to the Game Boy, and was its most successful and longest lasting competitor, a combination of poor design choices and poor third-party support led to the Game Gear's eventual decline and discontinuation in 1997. The next generation of Game Boy rivals, such as the Neo Geo Pocket Color, the WonderSwan and Game.com all opted to follow in Nintendo's footsteps - cutting back on performance-degrading backlit screens and demanding graphics, and instead utiliising monochrome screens or specifications akin to the 1998 release of the Game Boy Color. Arguably Nintendo themselves did not surpass the Game Gear's 1990 specifications until 2001 with the launch of the Game Boy Advance.

As with later Sega consoles, third-party support for the Game Gear was in short supply, particularly from Japanese developers. However, due to the hardware similarities, many early Game Gear games were modifications of Sega Master System games made to take advantage of the larger palette capabilities and smaller screen size. This meant many companies could convert their Master System lineup in to Game Gear titles fairly easily (and vice versa), but this only applied to companies supporting Europe, as by the time the Game Gear was released, the Master System had been discontinued in Japan and North America.

Approximately 390 Game Gear games were produced, with 11 million Game Gear units sold worldwide.

After the Game Gear's discontinuation, Sega did not attempt to re-enter the handheld console market, instead choosing to become a third-party developer for other handhelds. Sega of America immediately moved to supporting Tiger Electronics's Game.com and R-Zone units, and by the end of the decade Sega of Japan backed the Neo Geo Pocket Color and licensed games to Bandai for the WonderSwan and to Media Factory for Nintendo's Game Boy Color. By the end of 2000 Sega had become a licensed third-party developer for Nintendo's handhelds, releasing Chu Chu Rocket! as a launch title for the Game Boy Advance.

Game Gear games are offered in the Nintendo 3DS's Virtual Console service.

Games

See List of Game Gear games for a complete list.

Launch Titles

Japan

• Columns
• Super Monaco GP
• Pengo

North America

• Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse
• Columns
• G-Loc: Air Battle
• Psychic World
• Revenge of Drancon
• Super Monaco GP

Europe

• Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse
• Columns
• Dragon Crystal
• G-Loc: Air Battle
• Psychic World
• Super Monaco GP
• Wonder Boy

Brazil

• Columns
• G-Loc: Air Battle
• Psychic World
• Super Monaco GP
• Wonder Boy

Gallery

• 

  US/JP logo

• 

  EU logo

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  Console outline

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  Console (black)

• 

  US model (Sports Edition)

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  US model (Majesco)

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  JP model (light blue)

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  JP model (red)

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  JP model (yellow)

• 

  JP model (white)

• 

  JP model (Coca Cola Kid edition (Model #3210CR))

• 

  JP model (Magic Knight Rayearth edition (Model #HGG-3210 RAY))

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  JP model (Virtua Fighter Mini edition)

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  KR model (Handy Gam*Boy)

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  Prototype model

Promotional Material

Print Advertisements

• GameGear US PrintAdvert 3.jpg

  US (pre-launch)

• GameGear US PrintAdvert.jpg

  US (launch)

• GameGear US PrintAdvert SuperSonicSavings.jpg

  US (Super Sonic Savings)

• GameGear US PrintAdvert 2.jpg

  US

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  JP

• GameGear UK PrintAdvert.jpg

  UK

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  UK (Judge Dredd')

• GG FR PrintAdvert.jpg

  FR (1)

• GG FR PrintAdvert 2.jpg

  FR (2)

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  ES (launch)

• GameGear PreciosSega06 ES PrintAd 1992-04.jpg

  ES (1)

• GameGear SoftwareSega3 ES PrintAd 1992-11.jpg

  ES (2)

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  ES (3; variation 1)

• GameGearTVPack ES PrintAd 1993-05 2.jpg

  ES (3; variation 2)

• GameGear ES PrintAd 1993-09.jpg

  ES (4)

• GameGear ES PrintAd 1993-10.jpg

  ES (5)

• GameGear ES PrintAd 1993-12 1.jpg

  ES (6)

• GameGear ES PrintAd 1993-12 2.jpg

  ES (7; variation 1)

• GameGear ES PrintAd 1993-12 3.jpg

  ES (7; variation 2)

• GameGear ES PrintAd 1994-04.jpg

  ES (8)

• GameGear ES PrintAd 1994-07.jpg

  ES (9; variation 1)

• GameGear ES PrintAd 1994-09.jpg

  ES (9; variation 2)

• GameGear ES PrintAd 1995-07.jpg

  ES (10)

• GameGear ES PrintAd 1995-12.jpg

  ES (11)

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  IT (1)

• GameGear BR PrintAdvert.jpg

  BR

Television Advertisements

• US (1995?)

External links

• Console Database - Sega Game Gear info and FAQs
• SMS Power - Technical information and more on the Game Gear and its bigger brother, the Master System

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