Topic: Losing my Wii-ligion
It was 1990 when I picked up my first Game Boy, which is the original "Brick Type" Game Boy. Before the Game Boy, the only portable form of video games were the basic LCD games... the types where all the possible types of actions were mapped to the screen, like the Game & Watch series. The biggest draw with the Game Boy is that was a dynamic screen & the swappable game packs.
While the first generation games suffered some ghosting problems, most predominate with Super Mario Land, later game releases (like Super Mario Land 2) solved this issue by increasing the size of the sprites & the game worlds. Still, Nintendo was in the place where it could do no wrong as they practically had no direct competition here. The old LCD games were still in the majority around me, I was on the edge of change with electronic entertainment.
My old Game Boy was well enjoyed as I was able to take it along with me on long trips without getting bored... or at least while there was a good amount of lighting. The one downside with the Game Boy was that it had no backlight, while I understand on the technical side (as LED backlighting was properly developed), it wasn't something I was concerned about when I was young. However, as I grew up, it came a bit of a concern. Nintendo released the Game Boy Pocket, a smaller version of the original, but I remained with the old Game Boy. Around 1995, I received a little heat from fellow classmates for sticking with the Game Boy when the Sega Game Gear, Nintendo's first major competition in the portable market. The Game Gear games were in color with a small TV screen, which was fairly nice visually. However, I saw a couple of pitfalls that eventually killed Sega's attempt in the portables. First was the battery consumption. Granted the Game Boy was using 4 AA's for about 10 hours, the Game Gear was using 6 AA's for only about 5 hours of use. Second was the lack of desirable games. Sonic may have been Sega's mascot, but I never felt the urge to fly through the stages & I really didn't hear a lot of Game Gear games.
It was around 1995 when I was getting some grief by my fellow classmates in the console wars, but that's for another chapter.
As my Game Boy aged & pretty much started failing due to years of use & abuse. It was until 1998 that I officially retired my old Game Boy (GBY) with the release of it's true successor: Game Boy Color (GBC). It was a smaller, more powerful system that now featured a color screen (over the old 4-shade greyscale system) that ran at least 10 hour with only 2 AA's. It still ran the old Game Boy games, but now colorized them to breathe some new life into the old games. The old games are still only 4-colors, but it was enough to give some variety to make those games a bit more interesting.
It was later supplemented with the Game Boy Advance (GBA). More power (32-bit) & more controls, but it still had the same issue of no backlight. It had the additional issue of a darker screen, which made proper light more important. While Nintendo fixed these issues with the Game Boy Advance SP (with a backlight & smaller design), I stayed with the old GBA until it's successor game alone, the Nintendo DS. Having being burnt with the GBA, I waited until the second generation of the DS was released, which was the DS Lite. It perfected all the issues that the original DS had, but retained nearly all the options that the GBA had. The only concession made is that the DS's GBA support loses multiplayer capabilities.
While I picked up each system, I did not get rid of their predicessors as each system did not complete everything that I wanted with a system. The GBA did not have the same graphical qualities for the old GBY games that the GBC. The DS, while supports GBA, wasn't able to support multiplayer & could not connect to the Gamecube. I know that I could retire the GBC & GBA with the GBA SP, but I really don't have a major reason to spend money for a better version of the GBA.
Now, Nintendo has released the minor successor with the DSi 6 months ago & now have plans to release the DSi XL, which is just a minor redesign of the DSi... which was another redesign of the DS Lite... which was a redesign of the DS. The DSi has two digital cameras, digital downloadable content & SD card support, it's nothing more than what the GBC is to the GBY. It does the basics, but has a few new features that still yet to get publicly supported by the gaming industry. While I'm still happy with my old DS Lite, I have struggled with the though of "upgrading" to the DSi & now the upcoming DSi XL.
I'll go into more details with some of the joys & issues I have with the DS series, but that's for another chapter.
Coming Soon... Chapter 3: The Rise & Fall of Nintendo's Domination -- The SNES & N64 Eras
