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jarrod on 23 November 2009
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mai said:

jarrod said:

Game Gear held about 25-30% of the handheld market during it's lifespan (1990-95).  Which about as well as PSP's doing overall for hardware (30-35%).  Unlike GG though, PSP launched alongside it's competitor.

It's more like ~20% hardware-wise - 11M GG vs. 44M GB at the end of 1996 - still far more than most people thought it was.

 

Sega dropped handheld in early 1997 (only one game release during 1997), but already in 1996 the handheld was barely alive (ammount of game releases in 1996 was just a little over it's launch year, 1990). So Game Boy was dominant after Game Gear passed away. Still it was very good attempt to capture handheld market, it might be more sucessful if GG started after Sega gained some brand loyalty in Europe when Mega Drive was launched.

Sega ceased internal GG support in late 95 though (along with MD/CD/32X, to refocus all R&D on Saturn), that's essentially when the platform ended it's cycle.  GG in 1996 was basically like N64 in 2001 or GBA in 2006.

 

edit: 1996 was also the year Game Boy entered into it's "2nd cycle" with Pokemon in Japan and the Pocket worldwide.  It was firing on all cylinders while GG was a walking dead platform that year.