Why didn't the Game Gear do better?

[Cmtz]

I never really understood why the Game Gear did not beat the Gameboy. I know the batteries were drained quickly, but besides that why did it lose to the Gameboy?

[demen999]

I dont think it had a vast variety of games to compete. It also didn't have the nintendo "magic" sort of. You know the appealing characters to any age bracket thing.

EDIT: Same thing with the turboexpress, look how hot it looks till this day. Whenever I play it, it's a pretty amazing screen too.

[Snapple]

Better games always wins out over better hardware. Simple as that.

Although, the battery thing was a big deal to me. Four batteries that last me for days, or six battles that last like two hours. Grrr.

Anyway, I owned both, but my Gamegear library doesn't even compare to my Gameboy library.

Yeah, there were a couple good Sonic games, but they still didn't have the replay value of Tetris or Mario Land or Final Fantasy Legend or a good sports game.

[SRC]

My own quote from another forum: (Nothing new)

"Game Gear, Nomad, Lynx, and Turbo Express can all take their superior power and shove it. Not that they're bad systems, but calling them portable is almost an exaggeration. They take a lot of batteries, and there isn't much battery life in return. Some of them probably won't even fit in pockets! But I think the main reason Nintendo dominated with their handhelds is their excellent games and plenty of 3rd party support, maybe not the systems themselves."

[Leroy]

This is rather simple. First of all is the obvious twenty D batteries needed to power the machine for half an hour. Second was the extremely poor visibility of the screen. You spend 15 of the 30 minutes you've got battery life for trying to angle your head and the machine prefect to see what's on the screen and once anything MOVES it just all becomes blur.

[demen999]

The lynx screen wasn't that bad right? The only time i have seen one of these on, was when I was 12-14 (dont remember) in a airport. Some kid was playing it, and I wanted it lol

[Snapple]

Oh, that's a good point. I HATED the blur. It's been so long since I played my GG, I nearly forgot about that. It made some games just a downright chore to play.

[SRC]

I have a Lynx, and it has a good screen.

Almost every good game on it is an Atari/Midway arcade port, can't really say if that's a good or bad thing. :/

[Gamereviewgod]

Talk about the Game Gear/Lynx blur, sure. But you seriously can't ignore how bad it was on the Game Boy.

[Daria]

My own quote from another forum: (Nothing new)

"Game Gear, Nomad, Lynx, and Turbo Express can all take their superior power and shove it. Not that they're bad systems, but calling them portable is almost an exaggeration. They take a lot of batteries, and there isn't much battery life in return. Some of them probably won't even fit in pockets! But I think the main reason Nintendo dominated with their handhelds is their excellent games and plenty of 3rd party support, maybe not the systems themselves."

The Gameboy brick fit into any pocket just as easily as the Gamegear. As for battery life, that was easily remedied with a power pack and ac adaptor. I don't see why anyone would pay for handheld batteries when they could use a rechargable. And as for games... Sonic to Mario, Columns to tetris, Defenders of Oasis to Final Fantasy Legends. The games were there, in color, I don't think the Gameboy library was drastically larger until after the gamegear had already flopped.

I do think however the fact that the gameboy was so much cheaper then the gamegear hurt sales. That and Sega's always sucked at marketing. Parents see the comercials, and they think with their wallets. And then you have the name recognition thing. Nintendo was already the better seller in the US, it's natural anyone who was used to an NES would buy a Gameboy too. Or something like that.

[slownerveaction]

I can think of two major reasons:

1. Nothing to counter Tetris. I bet half of all Game Boys sold during its first 5 years were primarily used for playing Tetris.

2. Sega was too distracted with other things -- competing in the 16-bit wars, misallocating resources to the Sega CD and 32X, and getting ready for the 32-bit wars -- to put their full weight behind it.

Not to mention the screen and battery problems...

[RetroYoungen]

It came down to the titles. I enjoy playing my Game Gear sure, but there honestly aren't any games that keep me coming back (and maybe that's because I just don't have the right games). The various incarnations of the Game Boy has that appeal, whatever it is, that keeps players coming back for more; the Game Gear, for whatever reason, doesn't.

[Leroy]

Talk about the Game Gear/Lynx blur, sure. But you seriously can't ignore how bad it was on the Game Boy.

Huh? Gameboy was LCD based and perfect visiblity from any viewing angle.

[Gamereviewgod]

Huh? Gameboy was LCD based and perfect visiblity from any viewing angle.
_________________

I said blur, not visibility.

[scooby105]

1. Nothing to counter Tetris. I bet half of all Game Boys sold during its first 5 years were primarily used for playing Tetris.

this is the reason most people had a game boy

[SRC]

My own quote from another forum: (Nothing new)

"Game Gear, Nomad, Lynx, and Turbo Express can all take their superior power and shove it. Not that they're bad systems, but calling them portable is almost an exaggeration. They take a lot of batteries, and there isn't much battery life in return. Some of them probably won't even fit in pockets! But I think the main reason Nintendo dominated with their handhelds is their excellent games and plenty of 3rd party support, maybe not the systems themselves."

The Gameboy brick fit into any pocket just as easily as the Gamegear. As for battery life, that was easily remedied with a power pack and ac adaptor. I don't see why anyone would pay for handheld batteries when they could use a rechargable. And as for games... Sonic to Mario, Columns to tetris, Defenders of Oasis to Final Fantasy Legends. The games were there, in color, I don't think the Gameboy library was drastically larger until after the gamegear had already flopped.

I do think however the fact that the gameboy was so much cheaper then the gamegear hurt sales. That and Sega's always sucked at marketing. Parents see the comercials, and they think with their wallets. And then you have the name recognition thing. Nintendo was already the better seller in the US, it's natural anyone who was used to an NES would buy a Gameboy too. Or something like that.

Final Fantasy and Tetris are simply much better known names than Defenders of the Oasis and Columns, the overall library on the Gameboy just can't be beat by competitors, which is thousands of titles.

[Zilla]

Biggest concern for me ,and more importantly my parents, was the price. Gameboy was cheaper end of story. I'm sure my parents weren't the only one that thought that.

[neuropolitique]

I actually wrote a paper about this (kinda) this past semester. It was focaused on the Game Boy's success, rather than the Game gears failure, but the point is the same.

Basically, the Game Boy succeeded because of it's screen. Choosing that screen allowed Nintendo to keep it small, cheap, and long lasting. Those three points overcame any advantages of the color screens of it's competitors.

I got an A on that paper so I must be right.

[Chuplayer]

I didn't play my Game Gear as much as my Game Boy because it sucked down all six batteries in one sitting of Sonic the Hedgehog, and it made my hands smell funny.

[-hellvin-]

Tetris. It's probably the best selling game of all time across many multiple platforms and the fact that people could have an excellent hand held version on the go, well, it just helped the GB kick extreme ass.