Sega Game Gear
4th Generation Hand-held Console
In 1989, Sega released the Game Gear colour handheld device, competing directly with the Atari Lynz, the only other colour handheld.
Sega implemented a similar architecture in the Game Gear as they in their Sega Master System to facilitate easy porting of games. However, despite being superior to the Game Boy Mono, it?s battery life was woefully inadequate at only three hours.
The unit achieve a moderate level of success having sold almost nine million units worldwide before being retired in 1997. It sold about one-tenth the number of units as Game Boy.
Date Range: 1990 - 1997
Release Price: US $149.99
Game Gear could play cartridges from any region as they did not include region codes.
The Game Gear was based largely off the Sega Master System, which allowed many games to be easily ported to the Game Gear. Over the life of the console, some 250 plus games were made for the game gear.
The Game Gear had some problems early on with quality and much less battery life than the Game Boy. Coupled with costing US$40.00 more than the Game Boy, the Game Gear had moderate success selling some 8.5 million units.
Product Specs:
- 160 x 146 video
- Stereo sound
- 3.58Mhz processor
- 4096 colours
- 24KB RAM
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