SuperNova said:
As in, the original gameboy? The device that was famously designed out of cheap old parts, with low energy consumption? The Gameboy was the exact opposite of a high end handheld system. It was successful because it was relatively small, therefore very portable, ultra cheap, had a very long battery life and good games. In fact it beat out direct competitors like the game gear, wich was far more powerful and had a color screen, because it was so cheap. |
That's because in 1989, mobile components were in an *extreme* stage of infancy. Even an LCD display of a large size was something relatively eye raising.
Game Gear never had a chance in hell of ever beating the Game Boy anyway, because Nintendo was the earth, moon, and stars of the gaming world back then.
Today mobile technology largely due to the smartphone boom is in a hugely different place, you can get a tremendous amount of technology in a small size and for a cheap price.
That wan't the case in the Game Boy days. Look at the freaking Game Gear. The thing is almost the same size as an N64! It required like six batteries to run for a couple of hours. This was completely unfeasible technology.
And that Atari Lynx was even bigger than a Game Gear, lol. Way bigger.
Today mobile chip tech is much more akin to what normal processors were in the 90s ... there's no reason why Nintendo cannot make a very powerful portable for 2016, just like the NES, SNES, N64, and GameCube were all very competent, powerful, and affordable simulatenously.
In the 80s/90s a high end handheld didn't make sense, because technically it wasn't possible without producing something laughably huge, expensive, and constantly requiring new batteries. Remember back in the 80s we didn't even recharagable Duracell/Energizer batteries that you could just charge at home. When my Game Boy's batteries died, I had to go to the store and buy new ones every single time or use the AC adaptor to play at home.
