Ah, yes my children, gather around and let me tell you a story of something only 90's
kids will remember.
Okay, maybe not only 90's kids, but let us travel in our minds to a simpler time, a time
when the era of big hair and cocaine fueled businessmen was ending.
flannel was just becoming a thing and America was just starting to get back into fart jokes.
It was the year 1989, and I was still living in my dads balls, still yet to blossom into
the beautiful smart guy you see before you.
but more importantly, it was the year things changed forever as Nintendo was getting ready
to launch it's newest and most innovative project yet, the Gameboy.
This is the Nintendo Gameboy, a simple piece of plastic roughly in the shape of a brick
boasting a stunning, non-backlit, 2,6 inch screen and a color palet of... greenish gray?
It has two action buttons, start and select, and a d-pad.
Seems pretty simple right?
WRONG!
See, this was a different time, people didn't have fancy smart phones, heck, the super nintendo
wasn't even out!
Most people didn't even know what heck the internet was yet!
They were dark days indeed, which certainly didn't help in seeing this little guy's
screen, but I digress.
It's hard to imagine that something so simple was set to change the world as we know it,
so let me give you a little background.
Before the Gameboy was released, there was no such thing as a handheld console like we
know today.
The best you could get is a single game dedicated device.
like tiger electronics handheld games! you remember "football" right?
Big hit in 1987.
Or for those super nerds out there, there was always the classic game and watch platforms.
But along with these boasting only one game, they were also kinda crappy!
There were only about six positions your character could move in, and the sound, UGH THE SOUND!
These tiger-type games were catching on in the 80's but after the launch of the gameboy
they became a huge market!
I'm sure you remember at least some of these bad boys, maybe they were cool in the mid
80's but after the miraculous high-tech marvel that was the gameboy you looked like a scrub
bringing one of those to school!
However, the GameBoy offered something totally new, multiple portable games which came in
the form of cartridges!
Something which became popular with the old atari models, NES, and sega master system.
Now you could truly game on the go!
You could be the gamer you always wanted to be and never stop hitting those buttons!
Well, I guess until it got dark in the car, or your batteries died.
Wait, what's a battery you say?
Well they're those little cylinders your dad puts in the TV remote so he can watch cable,
C'mon, you know!
Those little things he's always yelling at your mom about 'cause she steals them for
her toys?
Yeah, we used to use these to power things like boom-boxes, or walkie talkies.
And the gameboy took four!
Thankfully with the ancient power of these magical alkaline energy pills the new hand-held
device could last up to 30 hours!
From day 1 the gameboy filled a market with virtually no competition and it sold like
crazy!
Everyone had them, girls, boys, even grandparents!
With games like mario land and tetris at launch how could it not sell?
The world was wild about this console!
One thing that Nintendo has in the bag is simplicity...well, generally.
We may not always agree on everything, Nintendo and I, but I can respect their decisions when
it comes to marketing.
The gameboy is old yes, but the design, well the design is classic!
It has everything you need to have fun, two buttons and a d-pad.
Anything more and you get into a realm of convolution.
Nintendo believes in opening access to gaming to not only Quote unquote gamers, but also
to the public at large.
It's good for them cause money, but it's also good for the market because it brings in people
(and also money) that wouldn't have even bothered to try a video game.
Simplicity in game play is also a good thing to a certain degree, less buttons mean less
functions, which keeps games intuitive!
An Intuitive game means anyone can pick them up and have a good time.
Which means you can show someone your gameboy and they can try it out and not be automatically
turned off by obtuse control or harsh difficulty.
Now I'm not saying games shouldn't be challenging, but challenge and difficulty are different
things, and "hard" is a term thrown around a little too much these days.
A game that increases challenge fairly and is coupled with intuitive controls is all
you need.
Thankfully the gameboy had a lot of that!
So not only could you bring your games on the go but you could share games on the go,
this thing essentially sold itself!
But you can't talk about the gameboy without talking about tetris.
All that crap about intuitive control and challenging gameplay is what tetris is all
about.
It's not a confusing game, just make those lines people!
But what tetris created was a gateway into a larger gaming world for audiences that had
never even stepped foot through the door before.
Go ahead, go ask your mom or your grandpa what kind of video games they like, betcha
one of them answers tetris!
This may sound funny to you but tetris comes with a challenge, try putting the game on
the hardest difficulty, I guarantee you'll lose!
Bundling tetris as a pack in with the gameboy was a total genius move by nintendo.
A system that could be enjoyed by everyone universally, and a game that could be enjoyed
by everyone universally, a match made in handheld heaven.
However, all was not well for these 14 ounce bricks of fun.
You see, this was the age of the console wars and things were just heating up!
At the time Nintendo was heading the pack, their success with the NES had overshadowed
the failing atari and outsold the sega master system substantially, but the sega genisis
also launched in 1989 ushering in the new era of 16 bit gaming.
The gameboy, like it's counterpart the NES, was only an 8-bit system with no real color
to speak of.
But we found out that it didn't really matter in the end.
Even atari tried to take on the success of the gameboy with their respective handhelds,
the 8 bit sega game gear and the atari lynx.
The lynx boasted the first handheld color display and it was backlit!
The game gear followed that same path but also had the brand-new IP: Sonic The Hedgehog,
to back it up.
How could the gameboy compete with attitude and innovation like that, as well as new 16
bit consoles?!
The answer is price.
Both the lynx and the game-gear were priced well over $100 US while the gameboy was only
$89.95.
it had a larger library of games, and remember those battery thingies your mom needs so bad?
Those are expensive!
Nintendo's competitors each took six double As and they lasted only 5-6 hours before needing
more.
That's a significant difference in gaming time.
This taught the gaming world a new lesson, that price is valued over quality.
We would eventually see that lesson rear its ugly head again in the mid 2000's with the
xbox 360 and the ps3.
The latter being a significantly better console, but at double the price-point
of the former.
It wasn't until sony was able to drop their prices that their console started to compete.
Even the psp and playstation vita, which are both arguably better consoles than their competitor's,
were simply not able to maintain a competitive price point or library of games.
Nintendo has proved over and over that it's handheld business model cannot be beat.
These are just some of the many, MANY companies and consoles that tried to compete with the
superpower that is the nintendo handheld market, and every single one of them has failed.
So coolio, we could game on the go and the Gameboy model was super business savvy, but
what about this changing the world stuff I mentioned in the beginning?
Well, let me paint a picture for you.
By the time the 90's came around there wasn't a whole lot of what we see today as standard
tech devices.
Computers weren't a common thing in a household, heck, color TV was still catching on.
Phones were tied to the walls and had buttons, and there was no netflix!
Do you know what it was like trying to watch dragonball Z on cable?
If you missed an episode you were never going to see it again!
Never!
We were getting there, but nintendo and the gameboy were trying to advance in ways we
didn't quite understand yet.
The link cable in particular is an extremely early example of mobile connectivity.
With it you could hook your gameboy up to your friend's system and play two player wherever
you wanted.
There was also the gameboy camera and printer, a mobile digital camera which allowed you
to take, edit, and print out selfies!
This simply hadn't been done yet, and cell phones where miles away from being what they
are today, I mean, LOOK AT THIS!
There was also the factor of customization.
By 1995 nintendo had released multiple color variations of the original gameboy.
the smaller gameboy pocket was on its way, as well as the gameboy color which dropped
in 1998.
The idea of not only having a hand-held gaming system, but having one that matched your American-ass
individuality was something new as well!
Until that point special edition consoles where virtually unheard of.
However this personalization tactic worked so well nintendo continues to utilize it in
their home consoles and handhelds to this day!
But if you take a second to look around you, everything is personalized now, especially
mobile phones.
In fact, there are companies around the world that solely create things like grips, and
cell phone cases to make your products that much more, "you".
Even Nintendo has tried to cash in harder with interchangeable 3DS plates and customizable
home themes on their DS line of systems.
It's crazy how something so unimportant as a color option could have such a global effect
on sales!
Even Apple, Dell, and HP PC's and laptops have attempted this genius move!
Personally, I had a green gameboy color and pokemon red was- basically my first game.
I don't count you wario land!
You sucked and I hate you!
Get out of here!
My best friend growing up, and one of the founding members of Treesicle, Tyler, had
a teal GBC and pokemon blue to go with it.
We used to battle and trade, bring our systems to school and on vacations, everyone was doing
it man!
It was a total phenomenon!
It also didn't hurt the gameboy's success to have the
greatest handheld games of all time as exclusives.
Pokemon and gameboy have always gone hand in hand.
The main reason for this, is the game's creator Satoshi Tajiri was adamant that pokemon needed
to be an active and communal experience.
The core gameplay of trading and battling was inspired by his love for catching bugs
as child.
Tajiri-san wanted to make sure that kids were able to get the same experiences he had virtually
with his game, and it worked!
We used to have pokemon parties and competitions over the gameboy link cable at friend's houses
and even at school.
They were good times...
But there are people out there who have made lifelong friends, or even ended up marrying
each other because pokemon brought them together!
That's another success of mobile gaming: connectivity.
Being able to stay connected to not only your game, but also its community on the go was
a huge change in gaming culture.
Instead of sitting down, playing on your genesis alone in your mom's basement, you could go
out with your gameboy!
Seeing another person with the device instantly connected you in a way that was previously
unimagined, there was an instant silent communication of "hey, I'm into that too!"
Nowadays the mobile gaming market generates more money than console and pc gaming COMBINED.
And it all started with this little guy.
The concept of putting a game on a cell phone was adapted early on, but without the gameboy
would we have had things like snake, or mobile tetris?
Without the gameboy would tetris have even become the 30.6 million seller that it is
today?
The answer is probably not.
But thankfully that's not the way history decided to turn and instead we've had amazing
mobile games flooding the market for almost 30 years!
With advancements on the gameboy's technology we now have fully backlit HD 60fps gaming
that's literally in the palm of your hands.
You can even talk to a friend and play zelda on your phone at the same time.
Throughout it's incredibly long lifetime the Nintendo gameboy and its counterpart the gameboy
color sold 118 million units worldwide, an amazing feat for any gaming console.
It ushered in a new era of technology and its lineage is by far the best selling and
most dominant handheld line of gaming systems to this day.
And the new nintendo switch has taken a brand-new direction of a handheld console hybrid, planting
its feet in a brand-new market once again.
However, (more importantly) what the gameboy proved is that we want things on the go.
At least in America, we tend to be busy, and we also travel a lot.
The advent of being able to electronically entertain ourselves wherever we were was a
serious game changer.
It brought about a whole new generation of technology.
I mean think about it, the gameboy is basically a low-quality NES shrunk way down and powered
by batteries.
And smart phones are just lower quality computers shrunk down and powered by batteries.
In fact, as time and technology has progressed we've continually been making things better,
smaller, and more mobile to suit our needs as consumers and active people.
You could argue that the pocket calculator may have been the first example of mass handheld
success, but it wasn't until the Gameboy that the concept reached the masses and became
a staple of modern day life.
So next time you're sending a fire tweet, or sharing a picture of your avocado toast
on instagram, make sure to take a second and thank the gameboy, because without it, you
might've had to actually call someone and tell them about your toast instead, and, who
wants to actually talk to people?
So that's it, the advent of the gameboy helped usher in a new era of mobile gaming,
mobile platforms, and personalization of tech devices.
It's pretty crazy to think of something so small and so well.. derpy, having such an
amazing impact on society and particularly gaming culture.
So, what's your favorite handheld?
Make sure to let me know in the comments below, my all-time favorite has got to be that old
green GBC of mine, it holds some serious memories man.
But right now, I've been using the Switch quite a bit!
Also, make sure to let us know what you thought of this video, we're trying something a little
different here and want to make sure you enjoyed, and while you're at it, don't forget to
like and subscribe, and maybe follow us on social media, we have avocado toast!
But that's all for this one.
Thanks for watching people!
And I'll see you next time!
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