Before Handheld gaming consoles were a thing, people were forced to play with sticks and stones. Even though the first handheld games were very primitive, they got us off to a good start. These handheld devices allowed people to play Donkey Kong on the bus for a decade before the next generation of handhelds would come around.
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Mattel Auto Race - 1977
Mattel's Auto Race was the first ever handheld device. This handheld could only play one game, meaning if you wanted a new game, you would have to buy another device. This console uses tiny Light Emitting Diode (LED) bulbs, so there isn't many shapes it can make. Mattel's games only had 512 bytes, where my computer has 32,000,000,000 bytes. The most well known Mattel handheld was football, which was released in 1978. These games were 20 bucks each.
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Auto Race - Look at how primitive it is.
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Ball - A juggling game on Nintendo's Game & Watch.
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Nintendo Game & Watch - 1980Game & Watch: Ball was Nintendo's first portable console. It got its name from its ability to play a video game, as well as having a clock and alarm feature. Like Mattel's games, Game & Watch is a single game system platform. It has a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) screen, allowing the game creators to make shapes and characters. This was the big selling point for the Game & Watch series because Nintendo was able to bring their popular game characters, like Donkey Kong, from the arcade to the handheld. This series has 59 different games you can choose from with each handheld costing $20.
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Donkey Kong - Nintendo's handheld take on the classic arcade game.
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Zelda - This is one of the most well known Game & Watch game.
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