A History of Handheld Gaming
May 11, 2016Back in 2015, I spent a month or so researching the history of watches that play video games. The research led to a fascinating piece I called “Time Killers,” which ran on Polygon. Unfortunately, my research also sparked a bit of an obsession for me in handheld gaming systems.
It turns out there’s a bit of shared history for both handheld games and game watches that can be traced back to, of all things, calculators.
Back in 1976, Mattel created one of the first handheld game and launched both its own line of Mattel Electronics games and handheld games with the release of Auto Race.
Auto Race, or so the story goes, was the concept of product development engineer George J. Klose who was messing around with other uses for standard calculator hardware. The Auto Race was manufactured by Microelectronics Division of Rockwell International and was so successful that it led to the creation of a slew of other titles, including the much more famous Mattel Football.
Mattel Football was released in 1977, and a year later, the much less successful gaming watch phenomenon bumped and wheezed to life, eventually giving birth to something much broader in nature: The smartwatch and hybrid watch.
Handheld game consoles soon exploded in popularity, expanding in shape and form and — most importantly — shaping the face of home consoles as well.
As I started to read up on the history of these systems, I realized that I had quite a few of my own, and that led me to start collecting those I was missing and building out a display case of my collection.
I’ve annotated the picture of my collection below to offer some details of each system I currently own. Below that, you’ll find a list of what I’m still saving to collect.
- 1975 Quiz Kid
- 1976 Unisonic Casino 7 calculator
- 1976 Mattel Auto Race
- 1976 Texas Instruments Little Professor
- 1977 Unisonic Jimmy the Greek 21 Pocket Blackjack Computer
- 1977 Mattel Football
- 1977 Invitica Electronic Mastermind
- 1979 Tiger Rocket Pinball
- 1979 Milton Bradley Microvision
- 1980 Mattel Computer Chess
- 1981 Sharp WN-100 Wondertopia
- 1983 Casio Game & Radio Shuttle Bomber
- 199x Queentex QGH-78 (Game Kid)
- 1981 Mattel Dungeons & Dragons Computer Fantasy Game
- 1990 Game Plus
- 1991 Bit Corp. Gamate
- 1991 Sharp IQ-7200
- 1992 Watara Supervision
- 1993 Welback Holdings Mega Duck
- 1994 MGA Game Wizard Star Wars
- 1995 Sanyo Giocatraduci
- 1998 Cybiko
- 2001 Apple iPod
- 2003 Sony PegTH Clie
- 2001 Aquaplus P/ece
- 2001 Game Park GP32
- 2003 Tapwave Zodiac
- 2003 Timetop GameKing
- 2003 P5-336 Game
- 2003 Nokia N-Gage
- 2004 Nokia N-Gage QD
- 2004 Timetop GameKing 2
- 2005 Capcom Megaman Advanced PET
- 2005 Timetop GameKing 3
- 2005 Nikko digiBLAST
- 2005 Tiger Telematics Gizmondo
- 2005 Gamepark GP2X
- 2006 PDP G Pocket
- 2007 Apple iPhone
- 2009 Dingoo A320
- 2010 GamePark Caanoo
- 2016 GPD Win
- 2017 Razer Phone
- 2018 Asus ROG Phone
45. 1995 Nintendo Virtual Boy
46. 1989 Nintendo Game Boy
47. 1998 Nintendo Game Boy Light
48. 1998 Nintendo Game Boy Color
49. 1996 Nintendo Game Boy Pocket
50. 1982 Nintendo Donkey Kong Game And Watch
51. 2020 Nintendo Game & Watch Super Mario Bros.
52. 2021 Nintendo Game & Watch Legend of Zelda
53. 1981 Popeye Game & Watch
54. 2001 Nintendo Game Boy Advance
55. 2003 Nintendo Game Boy Advance SP
56. 2005 Nintendo Game Boy Micro
57. 1998 Nintendo Pocket Pikachu
58. 1984 Electronika Igra na ekrane: Mickey Mouse
59. 2001 Nintendo Pokémon Mini
60. 2016 Nintendo Pokemone Go Plus
61. 2013 Nintendo Wii U Fit Meter
62. 1999 Tiger Electronics Pokémon Poké Ball
63. 1983 Mario Bros. Game and Watch
64. 1989 Nelsonic Super Mario Bros. Game Watch
65. 2009 Nintendo Pokewalker
66. 2009 Nintendo Personal Trainer: Activity Meter
67. 2017 Nintendo Switch
68. 2019 Nintendo Switch Lite
69. 2021 Nintendo Switch OLED
70. 2011 Nintendo 3DS
71. 2014 Nintendo New 3DS XL
72. 2013 Nintendo 2DS
73. 2009 Nintendo DSi XL
74. 2006 Nintendo DS Lite
75. 2004 Nintendo DS
76. 2017 Nintendo New 2DS XL
77. 2006 Nintendo DSi
78. 2023 PlayStation Portal
79. 2023 Project X
80. 2011 Sony PlayStation Vita
81. 2004 Sony PlayStation Portable 1000 (Japan)
82. 2005 Sony PlayStation Portable 10001 (U.S.)
83. 2007 Sony PSP Slim and Lite
84. 2011 Sony PSP Street
85. 2011 Sony Xperia Play
86. 2009 Sony PSP Go
87. 1999 Sony Pocketstation
88. 1977 Unitrex Monte Carlo game watch
89. 1981 ALBA Y761-5010
90. 1981 Nelsonic Space Attacker
91. 1980 Casio Game Watch
92. 2021 Thumby
93. 2018 Pocketsprite
94. 2021 FunKey S
95. 2021 Bandai Demon Slayer Tamagotchi
96. 2020 Tamagotchi Nano x PAC-Man
97. 1991 Atari Lynx II
98. 1989 Atari Lynx
99. 1995 Sega Nomad
100. 1991 Sega Game Gear
101. 1998 Sega Dreamcast VMU
102. 2014 Sega Genesis Ultimate
103. 1978 Atari Touch Me
104. 2015 Atari Flashback Portable
105. 2020 Blaze Entertainment Evercade
106. 2022 Blace Entertainment Evercade EXP
107. 2010 Sega Camega
108. 2020 Sega Game Gear Micro
109. Hyper Mega Tech’s Super Pocket Limited Edition Capcom Taito bundle
110. Hyper Mega Tech’s Super Pocket Limited Edition Capcom Taito bundle
111. 1990 NEC TurboExpress
112. 1984 Epoch Game Pocket Computer
113. 2012 SNK NEO GEO X Gold
114. 1982 Super Barcode Wars
115. 1995 Bandai Paluseata (Variant of Design Master Denshi Mangajuku)
116. 1978 Parker Bros. Merlin
117. 1982 Bandai Invaders of the Mummy’s Tomb
118. 1984 Bandai Digi Casse
119. 1997 Tiger Game.com
120. Catchen Hartung
121. 1984 Palmtex Portable Videogame System (Super Micro)
122. 2010 OpenPandora GmbH Pandora
123. 1997 Tiger Electronics XPG R-Zone
124. 1999 SNK NeoGeo Pocket Color
125. 1999 Bandai Wonderswan
126. 2000 Bandai WonderSwan Color
127. 2002 Bandai WonderSwan Crystal
128. 2013 GCW Zero
129. 2022 Valve Steam Deck
130. 2023 Valve Steam Deck OLED Limited Edition
131. 2023 ASUS ROG Ally
132. 2023 Lenovo Legion Go
133. 2022 Logitech G Cloud
134. 2021 Analogue Pocket
135. 2023 Razer Edge
136. 2024 MyArcade 7-Eleven Slurpee x Tetris Handheld
137. 2002 LEGO Kek Powerizer
138. 2023 McDonald’s Tetris McNugget handheld (not even kidding)
139. 2019 Panic Playdate
140. 1981 Entex Galaxian 2
Not Shown
1975 Tomy Pocket Game Baseball (physical pachinko-like game)
1977 Tomy Blip (Technically, electro-magnetic so doesn’t fit here)
1980 Tomy Tennis1981 Entex Pac Man 2
1981 Tomy Pac Man
1981 Bambino Safari
1989 Game Axe Color
1999 Mattel Uno
2003 Palm Treo 600
2006 Conny Pocket Dream Console
2010 Nintendo Mini Classics Parachute
2012 MyArcade DataEast
2014 Nintendo New 3DS
2015 Teenage Engineering Pocket Operator 10 arcade
2015 Revo K101 Plus
2016 Arduboy
2016 Arduboy Tetris
2019 BasicFun! Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego
2019 Arduboy Space Invaders
2021 Go-Volmon handheld 900-in-1
Still Looking
While I’m quite happy with my current collection, there are still many important systems missing, including:
1982 GCE Arcade Time watch
198? Altair DBGB-061
1990 Hartung Game Master
1996 Koei PasoGo
1996 Philips In2It
2005 MoMA Eve
2009 Planet Interactive MI2
2011 Jungle
2012 Blaze Entertainment GameGadget
2021 Smach Z
It’s worth noting that a lot of the systems that hit in the late 1970s and early 1980s were single-game handhelds. That means there’s a lot to collect if, for instance, I wanted to gather all of the Game & Watch, the Bandai games, or even the relatively small assortment of Mattel handhelds. I decided it’s best to collect a single iconic handheld from each, with an eye toward collecting the first from each eventually. Ball, I’ve got my eye on you! There are, of course, quite a few variations, which I’ve largely ignored for my collection.
I’ll work on updating this list as my collection grows.
