WEBVTT - The History of Handheld Gaming Part Two 0:00:04.200 --> 0:00:07.200 Get in touch with technology with text Stuff from how 0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:14.320 stuff dot com. Hey there, every one, and welcome to 0:00:14.600 --> 0:00:18.080 text Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Lauren Bulkle Bums. 0:00:18.200 --> 0:00:22.160 And today we're going to conclude our two part series 0:00:22.600 --> 0:00:27.040 on handheld games, their history and the importance thereof. Yes, 0:00:27.400 --> 0:00:31.440 we are not again covering every single handheld gaming system 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:33.720 that has ever come out. No, that would that would 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:36.360 lead to madness, that would Yeah, So we're going to 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:38.440 We're hitting some of the big names and also some 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:40.120 of the funny stories, because there are a couple in 0:00:40.159 --> 0:00:44.440 here that I could not resist, including absolutely our first 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:47.159 entry here is is more one of those, because I 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:49.559 don't think that these so much made a tremendous impact 0:00:49.640 --> 0:00:52.159 on the market as much as they're just really funny 0:00:52.240 --> 0:00:58.000 that this this is We left off after after Sega 0:00:58.320 --> 0:01:01.920 releasing the Game Gear in nineteen the last episode this 0:01:02.000 --> 0:01:05.360 one that the two count or two video game systems 0:01:05.400 --> 0:01:07.319 that were about to talk about. Because they were essentially 0:01:07.360 --> 0:01:10.560 the same thing but branded under two different names, they 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:13.480 did not make the same impact on the market that 0:01:13.560 --> 0:01:16.880 the Game Gear did. They did get some popularity in 0:01:16.920 --> 0:01:19.400 Europe and South America, not in North America as far 0:01:19.440 --> 0:01:21.880 as I can tell. But these two systems, which again 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:25.399 we're pretty much the same thing. We're branded the Mega 0:01:25.480 --> 0:01:30.600 Duck and Cougar Boy. Does sound like the worst superheroes 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:37.360 ever Mega Duck and Cougar Boy fighting crimes. It's yeah. Again, 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:41.479 they're they're cartridge based handheld video game systems. Nothing. Nothing 0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:44.360 particularly notable about the mother than the fact that I 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:46.480 thought their names were a door. Yeah. Yeah. If if 0:01:46.520 --> 0:01:48.880 you haven't heard of them, um, you're in pretty good company, 0:01:48.960 --> 0:01:51.000 especially here in North America. I don't think they ever 0:01:51.120 --> 0:01:54.120 came to this market. They were mostly in um, Europe 0:01:54.160 --> 0:02:00.920 and South America. Actually Brazil actually produced some thus Cougar Boy. 0:02:01.240 --> 0:02:04.480 But yeah, so Mega Duck apparently very popular in the 0:02:04.520 --> 0:02:07.120 Netherlands and Germany. By the way, if any of you 0:02:07.240 --> 0:02:10.680 own any of the game systems, particularly the more obscure 0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:13.800 ones that we're talking about, I welcome you to share 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:16.920 a picture of you holding the handheld game system and 0:02:17.000 --> 0:02:20.000 share it on our Facebook wall and we will totally 0:02:20.560 --> 0:02:23.320 comment on those, yeah, or or if you if you 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:25.440 give us permission to, we will. We will push it 0:02:25.480 --> 0:02:28.079 along to our to our other yeah, like the tumble 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:32.720 twitters and things yeah, because you know, I I have 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:36.160 owned a couple of handheld gaming systems back in the day, 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:39.000 but I never got my hands on a Mega Duck 0:02:39.080 --> 0:02:42.200 or a Cougar Boy. I I never owned a handheld 0:02:42.800 --> 0:02:45.480 huh wow, learning something new about Lauren here. Actually the 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:48.080 only one besides the the You know, I mentioned that 0:02:48.160 --> 0:02:51.360 I had a a football or a football to from 0:02:51.400 --> 0:02:54.160 MATEL Electronics. At least I think I did. I know 0:02:54.200 --> 0:02:56.799 I played one. I assumed that I owned it. It 0:02:56.880 --> 0:02:59.160 was back when I was a little kid. Uh, the 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:02.119 only one that I can remember owning, and it wasn't 0:03:02.160 --> 0:03:03.560 that long ago when I got it. It It was a 0:03:03.600 --> 0:03:05.600 game Boy Advance and we'll talk about that in this 0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:08.799 episode a little bit later. Um. Moving on that is 0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:12.600 when Sega released the Nomad, which was a handheld version 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:14.320 of the Genesis. Right. So, the fact that it could 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:16.799 actually play Genesis games meant that it had a big 0:03:16.880 --> 0:03:18.960 leg up over the competition because it already had an 0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:23.600 established library to pull from. Oh sure, However, the form 0:03:23.680 --> 0:03:26.120 factor of those game cartridges meant that this thing was 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:29.680 pretty huge. Yeah, it was really really bulky. Not easy 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:32.040 for it like it was called a handheld, but sort 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:34.320 of in the same way that early laptops were called 0:03:34.400 --> 0:03:36.240 laptop computers, but if you were to actually put it 0:03:36.280 --> 0:03:38.560 on your lap, you might crush your legs, kind of 0:03:38.600 --> 0:03:42.040 similar to that. Also, um from why I understand, you 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:44.760 could only play for a very short while before it 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:47.440 drained all the batteries and you had to replace them. 0:03:47.600 --> 0:03:50.440 So in fact, so much so that I remember that 0:03:50.640 --> 0:03:53.120 for some of these devices, including this one, one of 0:03:53.160 --> 0:03:56.440 the peripherals that was that was launched shortly after the 0:03:56.520 --> 0:04:01.400 system debut would be little a C adapters for car, 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:03.720 like a car adapter so that you could actually play 0:04:03.720 --> 0:04:06.520 in the car without the batteries dying after half an hour. 0:04:06.800 --> 0:04:12.280 So not terribly popular, partly also because Sega had this 0:04:12.360 --> 0:04:15.000 issue about releasing a whole bunch of different video game 0:04:15.040 --> 0:04:17.719 consoles within a relatively short amount of time, and those 0:04:17.720 --> 0:04:21.240 consoles were mostly incompatible with each other. Yeah, within like 0:04:21.279 --> 0:04:23.880 seven years they had released at least three and and 0:04:23.920 --> 0:04:26.359 that's yeah, it's a lot cutting down on your own market. 0:04:26.360 --> 0:04:29.440 It's never really the best idea. Yeah, ended up saturating 0:04:29.440 --> 0:04:32.040 the market quite a bit, and so that also hurt 0:04:32.080 --> 0:04:36.480 them in the long run. Seven This is an interesting one. 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:40.039 It's the game dot Com with the name of it 0:04:40.080 --> 0:04:43.760 all right, by Tiger Electronics. And this was a handheld device. 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:48.200 And remember this that had Internet connectivity, yes, built in 0:04:48.360 --> 0:04:52.200 specifically you could do things like check your email or 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:56.600 read web pages in text. Yeah, you couldn't play games online. 0:04:57.520 --> 0:05:00.080 The internet functions were more for it was all so 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:02.479 kind of this dual function p d a sort of 0:05:02.520 --> 0:05:06.200 thing because PDAs were so big personal digital assistance for 0:05:06.200 --> 0:05:08.960 those who don't remember, right, Yeah, so this is that 0:05:09.040 --> 0:05:12.440 was what we called smartphones before there were phones in them. Uh, 0:05:12.680 --> 0:05:14.800 Like many other PDAs of the time, it had a 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:18.800 monochrome screen, whereas everything else coming out at this point 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:21.400 had a color screen. So that that injured it definitely 0:05:21.480 --> 0:05:24.840 in the marketplace, definitely, definitely, And you know, it's kind 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:27.040 of it's still kind of a cool idea. But apparently 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:29.640 the games were also not very good, or some people 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:34.360 would say incredibly bad. And so it did have a 0:05:34.400 --> 0:05:37.320 touch screen, which which was pretty innovative for the time 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:40.680 for games anyway. Again, p d as frequently had them, 0:05:41.200 --> 0:05:43.200 but gaming systems did not. So this is you know, 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:47.160 marking two things that would become popular in future game systems, 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:49.880 the touch screen and the Internet connectivity. So it was 0:05:49.920 --> 0:05:51.760 a little ahead of its time. It was it was 0:05:51.839 --> 0:05:58.440 an ambitious product. Ultimately was not success failure. Yeah, something 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:03.200 that was not a failure. One year later, and and 0:06:03.240 --> 0:06:06.000 this was this was a decade after their last big one, 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:08.600 Nintendo released the Game Boy Color, and that was the 0:06:08.960 --> 0:06:11.240 first real update to the game Boy. I mean there 0:06:11.240 --> 0:06:13.200 had been that those few others that we talked about 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:17.040 the at but the guts of the game Boy had 0:06:17.080 --> 0:06:19.680 remained largely the same since it had debut. There had 0:06:19.680 --> 0:06:22.960 not been a major overhaul apart from some of the 0:06:23.000 --> 0:06:27.320 aesthetics of the actual case itself. This is where we 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:30.800 finally get to a brand new kind of technology where 0:06:30.839 --> 0:06:34.520 we get color screens on game boys. So no more 0:06:34.520 --> 0:06:37.799 monochromatic tetris unless you're actually playing an old game Boy cartridge. 0:06:37.800 --> 0:06:39.200 Because one of the nice things about it was that 0:06:39.279 --> 0:06:42.120 it was backwards compatible, so if you bought a game 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:45.080 Boy Color, you didn't have to worry about Well, now 0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:46.880 I have to tell all these games are useless and 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:48.680 I have to have two devices with me if I 0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:51.320 want to Nope, you can play anything you want. Nintendo 0:06:51.400 --> 0:06:54.000 was really good about being backwards compatible with a few 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:57.120 of its different consoles, not all of them, but so 0:06:57.200 --> 0:07:00.240 much enough so that whenever you had a console come out, 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:03.680 whether it was handheld or otherwise that was not backwards compatible, 0:07:03.920 --> 0:07:07.719 people got upset because they got used to it. So 0:07:08.040 --> 0:07:11.160 but this one, definitely in that philosophy, did not have 0:07:11.200 --> 0:07:14.080 a backlit screen, just like the original Game Boy. So 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:17.720 again that meant that the battery consumption was a modest share, 0:07:18.000 --> 0:07:21.600 so it wouldn't die within half an hour, unlike the 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:25.800 Sega Nomad. So uh. And then also that same year 0:07:25.800 --> 0:07:29.800 in another company called Neo Geo released the Neo Geo 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:35.000 Pocket in Japan, which was a monochromatic handheld video game system. 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:38.880 It didn't do very well, but in nine they released 0:07:38.880 --> 0:07:43.120 the Neo Geo Pocket Color or in GPC, which ended 0:07:43.160 --> 0:07:46.440 up being a device that the company would sell around 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:49.320 the world. It wasn't just a Japanese product. Yeah, it 0:07:49.360 --> 0:07:52.400 was a pretty good competitor to to the Game Boy Color. Yeah, 0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:55.960 it was less expensive than the Nintendo device is also 0:07:56.040 --> 0:07:59.000 power efficient just like the Game Boy Color was, but 0:07:59.480 --> 0:08:04.040 ultimate late Nintendo's biggest advantage was again that amazing library 0:08:04.040 --> 0:08:07.320 of games. Neo Geo had some great games, but Nintendo 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:10.480 had a tonnable Yeah. Yeah, And and Neo Geo's strength 0:08:10.480 --> 0:08:12.840 and development was was certainly in the console market at 0:08:12.880 --> 0:08:16.600 the time. Yeah, so that moves us up to that's 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:20.880 when a Bandai, which was really known for those handheld 0:08:21.360 --> 0:08:24.520 hard coded l c D based games, the ones that 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:27.840 would be like you know, uh licensed after a particular 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:30.800 product or whatever. Uh, it was really known for those 0:08:30.840 --> 0:08:33.440 the ones that weren't any kind of cartridge based games. 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:36.400 That's when they released the Wonder Swan, which was a 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:41.080 monochromatic gaming device, and it was designed by by Gumpey Yokoi. Yeah, 0:08:41.160 --> 0:08:43.560 the same guy who designed the game Boy, the original 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:47.600 game Boy. So this was a notable entry in that 0:08:47.679 --> 0:08:51.160 it was designed by one of the most successful, most 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:55.200 influential designers of the handheld gaming industry. Right, and it 0:08:55.240 --> 0:08:58.240 was also the exclusive mobile platform at the time for 0:08:58.280 --> 0:09:00.960 the Final Fantasy series, which is really huge, I mean 0:09:01.040 --> 0:09:03.559 most lee in Japan. Yeah. In fact that this game 0:09:03.559 --> 0:09:06.800 console never really got popular anywhere other than Japan. It 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:09.719 was never sold in the United States even after they 0:09:09.800 --> 0:09:11.640 updated it. They updated a couple of times, they had 0:09:11.640 --> 0:09:14.360 the Wonder Swan color and then by night by two 0:09:14.400 --> 0:09:17.400 thousand two, rather they came out with the Swan crystal. 0:09:18.120 --> 0:09:20.960 I've seen pictures of them. I don't know how you 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:23.040 were gonna play games on these. He's like, there was 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:25.760 one that it looked like it had two directional pads 0:09:25.920 --> 0:09:29.160 on the same side of the game console. Is another 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:30.319 one of those where I had the screen in the 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:33.120 middle and the controls were on either side, but one 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:36.800 side had a directional pad laid out on top of 0:09:36.840 --> 0:09:38.800 another directional pad, or at least that's what look like 0:09:38.880 --> 0:09:41.000 to me. The picture was not terribly great quality, and 0:09:41.040 --> 0:09:43.000 I've never seen one of these in person. If anyone 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:45.400 has has one, send us a picture, yeah, or send 0:09:45.480 --> 0:09:47.880 us one. You've got an extra one, you can just 0:09:47.920 --> 0:09:50.040 send us one. That's fine, send us some games too, 0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:52.000 because otherwise it's just not gonna I mean, I'll be 0:09:52.000 --> 0:09:54.720 pretty good to look at. But yeah, so anyway, you can't. 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:57.520 You can't program your own cartridge games for I don't 0:09:57.520 --> 0:10:00.560 have that kind of spare time to see a game 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:04.000 I have programmed. I it'll it'll just be made entirely 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:05.920 of puns. I do not want to see that Renaissance 0:10:05.960 --> 0:10:09.680 festival the game what it would be um at any rate. 0:10:09.720 --> 0:10:12.560 A brief note from the year two thousand, that is 0:10:13.320 --> 0:10:16.240 we started seeing a lot of retro nostalgia for for 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:19.040 early games. I think around this time that that has 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:21.520 been pervasive. I mean not that not that nerds will 0:10:22.040 --> 0:10:24.640 have have never not talked about things that they're really 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:27.079 excited about from twenty years ago. But um, but this 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:29.960 is the year that Mattel re released its late seventies 0:10:30.000 --> 0:10:33.520 games Football and Baseball, and which you know, it makes 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:36.960 sense because the the kids who got these as toys 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:40.240 when they were kids have now grown up and are 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:43.559 now able to purchase stuff on their own. Speaking of that, 0:10:43.679 --> 0:10:46.600 in the year two thousand that that is when Nintendo 0:10:46.679 --> 0:10:49.120 came out with the Game Boy Advance, which was its 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:51.640 next big update to the Game Boy line. Yeah, they 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:54.400 actually launched it in two thousand one. They had been 0:10:54.400 --> 0:10:57.240 developing it for a while and the this one ended 0:10:57.320 --> 0:10:59.920 up having a color screen, it had had a show 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:02.600 were um buttons as well as the regular buttons that 0:11:02.640 --> 0:11:05.400 you had on the games, so that increased the things 0:11:05.440 --> 0:11:08.160 you could do with it. I owned one of these 0:11:08.400 --> 0:11:10.960 at any rate. Um, it was backwards compatible with game 0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:13.240 Boy and game Boy Color cartridges, so that gave it 0:11:13.280 --> 0:11:15.760 a lot of utility. But you know that anything that 0:11:15.880 --> 0:11:20.920 was a game Boy Advanced game was way more uh pratisticated. Yeah, 0:11:20.920 --> 0:11:25.600 and pretty exactly. You could you could do more stuff. Um, 0:11:25.640 --> 0:11:29.480 and they had about the same amount of firepower, you 0:11:29.520 --> 0:11:32.840 could say, as one of their former consoles, right, the SNS, 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:36.320 the Supernintendo Entertainment System, which had debuted like like a 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:39.120 decade earlier. And and I find it really impressive that 0:11:39.160 --> 0:11:42.280 miniaturization had had occurred to the point where in only 0:11:42.320 --> 0:11:45.160 ten years you were able to pack this huge bulky 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:49.600 s NES handheld to the handheld. Yeah, and they would 0:11:49.679 --> 0:11:53.360 also update this line multiple times. So in two thousand three, 0:11:53.440 --> 0:11:57.360 Nintendo released a clamshell version of the Game Boy Advanced, 0:11:57.880 --> 0:12:01.040 and then two five they released the Game Boy Advanced Micro, 0:12:01.280 --> 0:12:04.199 which was a much smaller version of it, because yeah, 0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:05.960 that first one that came out was a bit a 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:09.400 bit clunky. Uh, that's the first version, is the one 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:10.839 that I have. By the way, I don't have the 0:12:11.120 --> 0:12:14.200 micro or the clamshell version. They also would even go 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:17.000 on to offer a wireless adapter in two thousand four, 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:19.319 so instead of using cables to connect your Game Boy 0:12:19.320 --> 0:12:22.679 Advance with someone else's machine, if you both had this 0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:27.600 wireless adapter, you could play games over wireless um and 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:31.480 so yeah, very popular. I also gave you some connectivity 0:12:31.679 --> 0:12:34.480 with the Nintendo GameCube. So if you owned both the 0:12:34.520 --> 0:12:38.480 GameCube and a game Boy Advance, and you own the 0:12:38.480 --> 0:12:44.080 the compatible titles, you could have access to additional content 0:12:44.360 --> 0:12:47.640 on both right, right, you would hook it up by 0:12:47.679 --> 0:12:52.280 by a special cable and and not that many games 0:12:52.440 --> 0:12:54.920 had this capacity, right, but you could. You could access 0:12:55.000 --> 0:12:57.720 a little bit of simultaneous content. Yeah, you could. You 0:12:57.720 --> 0:12:59.959 could actually use your game Boy Advance as a control 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:03.600 roller and it would display extra information inside the Game 0:13:03.600 --> 0:13:07.280 Boy Advances screen. So this kind of pre dates and 0:13:07.320 --> 0:13:10.520 it and it foreshadows the Nintendo We You, which wouldn't 0:13:10.520 --> 0:13:12.240 come out for another decade. Yea. So the we You, 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:14.360 I mean we you know, it's got that tablet based 0:13:14.400 --> 0:13:16.640 controller where you can get extra stuff on it that 0:13:16.840 --> 0:13:19.280 you know, that's obviously not a new idea, and Nintendo 0:13:19.320 --> 0:13:22.320 I've been playing with that idea for a while. Also 0:13:22.400 --> 0:13:26.000 in two thousand one, over in Korea, there was a 0:13:26.880 --> 0:13:31.160 company called game Park that released the g P thirty 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:36.119 two handheld gaming console, full color screen, typical kind of handheld, 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:39.880 but it was a little bit different from the previous 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:42.920 consoles we had seen. Yeah, this one was was really 0:13:43.000 --> 0:13:46.560 interesting because games were not stored on cartridges. They use 0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:49.920 little flash cards, yeah, smart media flash cards, which meant 0:13:49.960 --> 0:13:53.600 that anyone could develop a game for this and then 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:55.760 store it. As long as you knew how to program 0:13:55.800 --> 0:13:58.320 for this device, you could build a game for it 0:13:58.440 --> 0:14:00.760 or an application for it, and store it on a 0:14:00.760 --> 0:14:03.760 smart media card and use it on the system. Because 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:07.160 you know, cartridges, that's hard to program for. You're talking 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:10.440 about actual physical circuits, you media, right, Yeah, this is 0:14:10.600 --> 0:14:13.400 much more expensive, so this was much easier to code for. 0:14:13.440 --> 0:14:16.360 It was a great boon too, two independent developers who 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:19.520 were interested in getting into it. Unfortunately, it also made 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:22.320 things really easy to pirate, yeah, which made a lot 0:14:22.360 --> 0:14:25.600 of the established game companies say, you know, we're not 0:14:25.640 --> 0:14:27.560 going to develop for this because we don't want to 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:30.320 have our stuff stolen everywhere. It doesn't make any sense 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:33.600 for us to pour a lot of money into development, marketing, sales, 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:36.280 all that kind of stuff, only to see a handful 0:14:36.320 --> 0:14:39.000 of games go out before they're all pirated. So it 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:40.960 didn't get a lot of support from the industry, but 0:14:41.040 --> 0:14:43.840 it was one of those things that really took off 0:14:43.960 --> 0:14:47.640 in the independent circle and the emulator circle, the people 0:14:47.640 --> 0:14:52.160 who wanted to create emulators that could play games based 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:55.280 on other systems, and then you would have one handled 0:14:55.320 --> 0:14:59.160 console that could do practically anything. Uh two thousand three, 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:02.200 here's where we have one of our big flops stories. 0:15:02.240 --> 0:15:06.520 One of my favorites. Actually, I remember when this came out. Yeah, 0:15:06.640 --> 0:15:10.960 the Engage. Yeah so um Engage also sometimes called the 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:15.360 Taco because it was vaguely taco shape. And here's the 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:17.640 crazy thing. Did you ever see anyone having to make 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:19.440 a call on one of these things? I never saw 0:15:19.480 --> 0:15:22.760 anyone use one period. Okay. So, the the speaker and 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:25.240 the receiver on it. If you think of a taco 0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:28.040 like a taco shell, the fold of the taco shell 0:15:28.120 --> 0:15:31.360 like a hard, crispy taco. Gosh, I want tacos now. 0:15:31.720 --> 0:15:33.480 But if you think of the fold of the shell, 0:15:33.600 --> 0:15:37.640 the speaker and the receiver were on the outside of 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:43.120 that fold, so you actually like a taco out to 0:15:43.200 --> 0:15:46.800 the side of your face. Yes, it didn't sit flat 0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:50.160 against your face. The edge was against your face. So 0:15:50.320 --> 0:15:54.800 the it was enormous. Okay. So this was clever in 0:15:54.840 --> 0:15:57.920 a way, and the concept was clever in the in 0:15:57.960 --> 0:16:01.120 the Nokio was a really dominant force in the cell 0:16:01.160 --> 0:16:03.720 phone business at the time, and they were trying to 0:16:04.640 --> 0:16:08.440 make a cell phone that was also a handheld gaming 0:16:08.480 --> 0:16:11.640 system and and hey, we we have some things that 0:16:11.680 --> 0:16:14.120 are kind of like that today. Yeah. At the time, 0:16:14.200 --> 0:16:17.080 that was before the smartphone revolution had really taken off, 0:16:17.120 --> 0:16:21.720 So this was a really brand new kind of Oh sure, sure. 0:16:21.800 --> 0:16:25.440 Unfortunately it was a terrible phone and a terrible gaming system. Yeah, 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:28.720 it really was awful at both things that was supposed 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:31.440 to do, and so it did not get very far. 0:16:31.840 --> 0:16:35.480 There was a sequel to the Engage, which was more 0:16:35.600 --> 0:16:40.160 about kind of a game system, like a game library 0:16:40.200 --> 0:16:44.240 that you could download to Nokia based phones. Yeah. Yeah, 0:16:44.280 --> 0:16:46.320 A couple of years later, it would it would release 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:49.720 an update to the Engage that was better than the 0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:52.120 Engage had been. It was called the q D Engage 0:16:52.200 --> 0:16:55.040 qt uh but it's still flopped and um and right. 0:16:55.080 --> 0:16:56.960 And then then after that they would they would release 0:16:57.040 --> 0:17:00.480 this a kind of app that was that was sort 0:17:00.520 --> 0:17:03.720 of an in in phone gaming system. I was getting 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:06.320 away from that physical form factor that had burned them 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:09.639 so badly. But but it would even abandon that and 0:17:09.800 --> 0:17:13.240 Heather in another few years, as as app stores became things. 0:17:13.320 --> 0:17:16.920 They realized that having a specific gaming app wasn't as useful. Yea. 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:19.480 So two thousand four, this is where we see one 0:17:19.520 --> 0:17:24.360 of the big influential players get into the space finally yea, Sony, Yeah, 0:17:24.520 --> 0:17:27.359 with the where have you Been? Sony? They had been 0:17:27.400 --> 0:17:30.879 developing the PlayStation Portable or PSP. They launched it in 0:17:31.040 --> 0:17:34.080 Japan and December two thousand four, didn't get over into 0:17:34.160 --> 0:17:37.200 the United States and uh in Europe until the next year. 0:17:37.560 --> 0:17:39.880 Of course, being Sony at the time, it did not 0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:43.639 use cartridges or or even flash cards. It went straight 0:17:43.640 --> 0:17:47.760 for optical discs, which you're like, what you know, when 0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:49.800 you think about it, it's a real challenge to make 0:17:49.840 --> 0:17:52.840 any kind of portable device that uses optical discs, because 0:17:52.920 --> 0:17:56.160 any kind of jos bouncy, right, it's gonna it's gonna 0:17:56.560 --> 0:17:59.000 the laser, the laser of course. Yeah. And and these 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:01.240 these are those those little many optical discs. They look 0:18:01.280 --> 0:18:04.960 like a little yeah, universal media discs d s. Yeah. 0:18:05.200 --> 0:18:07.040 In this case, they did a really good job at 0:18:07.040 --> 0:18:09.560 designing it so that you you know, unless you were 0:18:09.600 --> 0:18:12.959 particularly rough with your PSP, or you were you know, 0:18:13.080 --> 0:18:16.080 maybe going down a dirt road, perhaps you're a good 0:18:16.080 --> 0:18:18.800 old boy never meaning no harm. Then you might have 0:18:18.880 --> 0:18:23.080 some issues, but otherwise it's pretty smooth. Uh. It had 0:18:23.119 --> 0:18:25.840 connectivity to the internet, you could connect to other PSPs, 0:18:26.040 --> 0:18:30.720 you connect to console. Um, pretty pretty good machine. I 0:18:30.720 --> 0:18:33.400 mean I I remember getting the chance to play on them. Again, 0:18:33.440 --> 0:18:35.399 I didn't own one of these. Boy, that's just a 0:18:35.480 --> 0:18:38.040 story of my life here. I'm like, I'm actually craving 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:40.920 some of these. Now, I can see why collectors get 0:18:41.000 --> 0:18:44.080 so passionate about this problem. We we looked at a 0:18:44.119 --> 0:18:46.320 lot of different collections while we were pulling together the 0:18:46.320 --> 0:18:48.800 information for this podcast, and there are a lot of 0:18:48.800 --> 0:18:52.120 people out there who have huge collections of handheld gaming devices. 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:55.000 Oh yeah, yeah. Another cool thing about this because you know, 0:18:55.040 --> 0:18:58.360 but because it was a Sony property, Um, you could 0:18:58.359 --> 0:19:01.639 watch Sony films on these little min disks in the 0:19:01.680 --> 0:19:05.080 correct aspect ratio, yes, sixteen nine aspect ratio, so it 0:19:05.119 --> 0:19:08.360 wasn't that four three which the old television sets were. 0:19:08.680 --> 0:19:11.160 And this is that wide screen format, so you didn't 0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:13.280 have the little black bars on the top and bottom. 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:15.560 It actually would play in full view on the screen 0:19:16.240 --> 0:19:19.200 in the native aspect ratio. Is that was a really 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:22.880 really smart idea and It also was kind of again 0:19:23.400 --> 0:19:26.120 they were predicting how we were going to be using 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:28.600 mobile devices to consume media. They were ahead of the 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:31.479 game on this one, and it did pretty well. You know, 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:36.399 It's still wasn't really catching up to Nintendo's domination of 0:19:36.440 --> 0:19:40.800 the market, but they weren't hurting either, certainly not, although 0:19:40.880 --> 0:19:43.240 it did not help their case that two four was 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:46.320 the same year that Nintendo released their DS. Oh yes, 0:19:46.400 --> 0:19:51.200 another incredibly popular game platform. Now, this was where they said, 0:19:51.240 --> 0:19:54.040 you know that game Boy that we've been making, it's 0:19:54.080 --> 0:19:56.520 taken us a long way, and I think it's pretty 0:19:56.600 --> 0:19:58.760 much gone as far as it can go. We need 0:19:58.760 --> 0:20:01.639 to take the next step. We need to go a 0:20:01.760 --> 0:20:05.240 big jump beyond what the game Boy can do. And 0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:07.680 that's when they came out with the DS and the 0:20:07.680 --> 0:20:09.639 The innovative thing about the DS was something that we 0:20:09.760 --> 0:20:12.560 talked about from way back in the eighties on that 0:20:12.680 --> 0:20:15.560 game and watch series, the multi screen series right right. 0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:17.639 It had it had these two screens and one of 0:20:17.680 --> 0:20:20.520 them was was was touch capable. Yeah, so you could 0:20:20.520 --> 0:20:24.320 actually have a touch capable part on that you're you're 0:20:24.359 --> 0:20:26.720 playing actively on and a second screen that could be 0:20:26.760 --> 0:20:30.359 displaying whatever else. It needed to. Uh, you could also 0:20:30.440 --> 0:20:32.560 create games that didn't use the touch screen at all, 0:20:32.600 --> 0:20:34.560 but use both screens so that you could move your 0:20:34.640 --> 0:20:38.160 character between one or the other. I mean, all kinds 0:20:38.200 --> 0:20:40.360 of different options. And some of the games that came 0:20:40.359 --> 0:20:42.520 out for this were so innovative, and I think that 0:20:42.520 --> 0:20:44.720 that's one of the huge selling points of it. It 0:20:45.040 --> 0:20:48.359 was that independent library, or not independent, but just just 0:20:48.440 --> 0:20:51.800 individual library of games that you couldn't get anywhere else. Absolutely, 0:20:51.880 --> 0:20:54.439 And so you know, the PSP although it was an 0:20:54.440 --> 0:20:57.439 incredibly powerful device, and and and if you were to 0:20:57.440 --> 0:21:02.480 look at the specs, it outstripped the Nintendo Fly but 0:21:02.680 --> 0:21:07.240 Nintendo sold more than PSP. In fact, it was according 0:21:07.240 --> 0:21:10.040 to at least some estimates, it was a two to 0:21:10.160 --> 0:21:13.840 one ratio twice as many Nintendo ds has sold as PSPs. 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:19.760 It had half the screen resolution or just about yeah. Yeah, 0:21:19.800 --> 0:21:22.199