11 Things Only 1980s Gamers Will Understand

THE RISE OF HANDHELD GAMING

Handheld gaming – whether that’s on dedicated consoles, or on mobile devices and tablets, or on whatever the hell Switch is – is an integral part of our industry. But it wasn’t always this way- it was during the 1980s that the very concept of dedicated handheld games even emerged. The Game Boy came out in 1989, but the roots of handheld gaming can be traced further back, to handheld electronic games, also known as Game & Watch games (or brick games). Severely limited by hardware capabilities, these were little more than the most rudimentary kind of experiences imaginable- but they worked, and they were fun, and without them, it’s fair to say handheld gaming probably wouldn’t even be a thing.