History of Mobile phone/Hand held gaming
The very first game to be pre-installed on a mobile phone was 'Snake' in 1997. It was installed onto certain Nokia phones. Snake was hugely successful and many different variations have been made. It was/is so successful that it is the most played video game in the world, over 1 billion people have played on the game!
In 2003 Nokia released a gaming-specific mobile phone; the 'N-gage'. The image to the right shows it's aesthetics. The N-gage was an attempt to draw consumers away from the popular Gameboy Advance. It failed, mostly due to the buttons, designed for a phone, were not well-suited for gaming. Also the ugly, brick like look was off putting. Many people refered to it as a 'Taco'
A reletivly recent craze is location based gaming, this uses GPS technology and a variety of games are on offer. Such games can give an over head map, similar to that of google maps, with points marked. The player must run over to these points to 'capture' them, racing opposing players. Modern day phones have improved greatly when it comes to gaming, the graphics are simialr to that of a 5th generation console; which for a system of the size that it is, is impressive. Android phones are extremely popular at the moment, these also offer gaming facilities. The use of touch screen brings new life to the industry and ultimatly; more fun. |
Hand-Held video gaming began way back in 1976 with the Mattel Auto Race system. The game itself used 512 bytes in memory and consisted of simple flashing LED lights. The gamepay was basic, needing the player to reach the top of the screen 4 times within 99 seconds while avoiding oncoming cars. The player moves left or right with the slider at the bottom of the console. The Auto Race did not achieve great success, and had very little publicity.
The Auto race is generally forgotten due to Mattel releasing a much more successful game shortly after the release of the Auto race, This was Mattel's Football. This also used LED lights, and the gameplay was very similar, having to ivade oncoming American football players. This was much more successful than the Auto race, many people believe that this was the first hand held console sadly forgetting the Auto Race.
The Microvision console was released mid november of 1979. It was the first hand held games console to feature an interchangable cartrige system. This console achieved moderate success, mainly due to the portability and game cartridge function. It featured a reletivly small resolution of 16x16 pixel LCD display. Due to this and the lack of games created the console fell into the history books, all interest had been lost by the users. The microvisions released after the original production had issues with the controls, the buttons were programmed to perform the given action/event when the key was released, not when it was pressed. This aggrivated many players who did not achieve their requested action immediatly, they had to release their finger in order to do so. Units produced after this had the problem fixed and ammended.
In present day, Microvision units and their cartridges are extremely rare. Those still in existance suffer from three major problems; Screen rot, keypad destruction and ESD damage (Electrostatic Discharge).
The Auto race is generally forgotten due to Mattel releasing a much more successful game shortly after the release of the Auto race, This was Mattel's Football. This also used LED lights, and the gameplay was very similar, having to ivade oncoming American football players. This was much more successful than the Auto race, many people believe that this was the first hand held console sadly forgetting the Auto Race.
The Microvision console was released mid november of 1979. It was the first hand held games console to feature an interchangable cartrige system. This console achieved moderate success, mainly due to the portability and game cartridge function. It featured a reletivly small resolution of 16x16 pixel LCD display. Due to this and the lack of games created the console fell into the history books, all interest had been lost by the users. The microvisions released after the original production had issues with the controls, the buttons were programmed to perform the given action/event when the key was released, not when it was pressed. This aggrivated many players who did not achieve their requested action immediatly, they had to release their finger in order to do so. Units produced after this had the problem fixed and ammended.
In present day, Microvision units and their cartridges are extremely rare. Those still in existance suffer from three major problems; Screen rot, keypad destruction and ESD damage (Electrostatic Discharge).
In 1980 Nintendo attempted to make their mark on the growing industry with the release of the 'Game and Watch' series. Each console features a single game to be played on an LCD screen in addition to a clock and an alarm. Most of the games have the option to play game 'A' or game 'B', normally game 'B' is a more difficult version of 'A', however there are some exceptions.
There were 59 different games produced. The last game to be produced by the Game and Watch series was released in 1991. Towards the end of the 80s Nintendo released the world renowned 'GameBoy'. This 8-bit console used interchangable cartridges and was originally bundled with the game Tetris. It features a reflective 160 × 144 pixel display. The gameboy had a fantastic reception and sparked the later release of the GameBoy Color in 1998. Together Nintendo sold over 118.69 million units of both the gameboy and gameboy color.The gameboy color was able to produce up to 56 different colours on screenfrom its palette of 32,768. |
Sega released their first hand-held console in 1990. This also offered cartridge based games aswell as being on a colour screen of the exact same resolution as the GameBoy.
Nintendo went on to release 3 more game boy variations. The gameboy Advance in 2001, the gameboy advance SP in 2003 and the GameBoy Micro in 2005.
The GameBoy Advance features a 32-bit screen with a resolution of 240 × 160 pixels.
The 'SP' stands for 'special' featured a backlight intergrated into the LCD screen allowing greater detail and picture quality.
The small, sleek Micro was the last GameBoy model to be released. It is similar in size to that of a typical mobile phone. The console retains most of the features from the Advanced SP but does no longer play original gameboy games. It also offers the same resolution of 240 × 160.
More recent devalopments in the hand held industry include that of the Sony PSP, PSP Go and the Nintendo DS, DS lite, DSi.
The original PSP was released back in 2005 and was the first hand held console to feature optical disks (Universal media disks). Its display was extremely impressive for a hand-held device; 480 × 272 pixels with 16.8 million colors. It was a whole media center in the palms of your hands, including video playback, image viewing, music playback and most of all video gaming. It also included a nifty internet browser with wireless, Wi-fi connection.
Although brilliant as it was, the PSP fell behind it main competitor in the the market, the Nintendo DS range. The original DS, the rather chunky, ugly looking one was released almost a year before the PSP. 'DS' stands for 'Duel-Screen' as it has 2 screens, similar to the game and watch. The lower screen does feature a unique, touch-screen function allowing a variety of different games. Different versions have been created such as the DS lite, released in 2006. It was smaller, lighter, thiner and offered a brighter screen(s). Nintendo re-disigned the DS once again in 2008 when the DSi was released, similar to the DS lite, except with the addition of two built in cameras. A year later a bigger version of the DSi was released, the DSi XL, it also had a longer battery life than the previous DS consoles.
The PSP Go was released in 2009, it features a sliding screen, which is smaller than older versions of the console. It no longer features a UMD drive, needing games to be downloaded via the playstation store online.
Nintendo went on to release 3 more game boy variations. The gameboy Advance in 2001, the gameboy advance SP in 2003 and the GameBoy Micro in 2005.
The GameBoy Advance features a 32-bit screen with a resolution of 240 × 160 pixels.
The 'SP' stands for 'special' featured a backlight intergrated into the LCD screen allowing greater detail and picture quality.
The small, sleek Micro was the last GameBoy model to be released. It is similar in size to that of a typical mobile phone. The console retains most of the features from the Advanced SP but does no longer play original gameboy games. It also offers the same resolution of 240 × 160.
More recent devalopments in the hand held industry include that of the Sony PSP, PSP Go and the Nintendo DS, DS lite, DSi.
The original PSP was released back in 2005 and was the first hand held console to feature optical disks (Universal media disks). Its display was extremely impressive for a hand-held device; 480 × 272 pixels with 16.8 million colors. It was a whole media center in the palms of your hands, including video playback, image viewing, music playback and most of all video gaming. It also included a nifty internet browser with wireless, Wi-fi connection.
Although brilliant as it was, the PSP fell behind it main competitor in the the market, the Nintendo DS range. The original DS, the rather chunky, ugly looking one was released almost a year before the PSP. 'DS' stands for 'Duel-Screen' as it has 2 screens, similar to the game and watch. The lower screen does feature a unique, touch-screen function allowing a variety of different games. Different versions have been created such as the DS lite, released in 2006. It was smaller, lighter, thiner and offered a brighter screen(s). Nintendo re-disigned the DS once again in 2008 when the DSi was released, similar to the DS lite, except with the addition of two built in cameras. A year later a bigger version of the DSi was released, the DSi XL, it also had a longer battery life than the previous DS consoles.
The PSP Go was released in 2009, it features a sliding screen, which is smaller than older versions of the console. It no longer features a UMD drive, needing games to be downloaded via the playstation store online.