CORBIE'S GAME BLOG

This August will mark the 17th anniversary of the release of the original Nintendo Game boy system here in the US so I thought it might be nice to remember the old timer and also take a look at just how far the handheld market has evolved over those 17 years. On August 13, 1989, Nintendo released their portable Game Boy system and kicked off the portable gaming revolution. Now gamers could play their games on the go. The Game Boy used a black and green monochrome display that had no backlite, which forced the player to reflect large amounts of light into the screen in order to be able to view it. It didn't help matters that the refresh rate on this LCD was terrible, thus making everything on the screen fuzzy if anything was in motion. While this may sound terribly annoying, at the time of its' release, the Game Boy was unlike anything we'd seen before and was so mindblowing at the time, no one cared that they were slowly going blind playing it. The system was powered with 4 "AA" batteries which provided about 30 hours of play time before you had to pop in a fresh set of Energizers. The Game Boy sold like wildfire during the '89 holiday season, selling out at many stores as early as October. It didn't hurt that the system was packaged with the hugely popular game Tetris, which many think single-handedly sold a several million Game Boy systems by itself. So although the system was, at the time, considered a little expensive at $109.99, it certainly didn't stop it from going on to become one of the best selling game systems in history. Not even more powerful and full-color LCD offerings from Sega and NEC could stop the mighty Game Boy from flying off of store shelves.

I realize that it seems quite unfair to put those two screenshots next to each other, but I simply couldn't resist. When Super Mario Land was released with the Game Boy system back in 1989, it instantly became a huge seller. In truth, it was a very fun game, and the closest thing to a portable Super Mario Bros. as you could get at the time. It's only real fault was actually not its' fault at all. Once again the refresh rate of the Game Boy's LCD screen was just too slow to keep up with any type of steady scrolling found in Super Mario Land and it made seeing many things in the game difficult at times, especially when coupled with a lack of good lighting. Nintendo released three Super Mario Land games for the Game Boy system, all of which shared much of the same type of success all of the other Super Mario Bros. games did at that time. Now warp forward 17 years to 2006. This month we're going to see the release of a brand new portable Super Mario Bros. adventure, aptly titled "New Super Mario Bros." for Nintendo's newest portable game system, the Nintendo DS. It doesn't take someone with 20/20 vision to take a look at those two screenshots and see just how far portable gaming has come over the years. Can you imagine if you could travel back in time and show Game Boy owners what they'd be playing in 17 years. Of course they'd probably knock you over the head with their big honking Game Boy system and steal your DS, but that's a story for another time. Suffice it to say, it's been a great ride over the past 17 years watching the portable gaming technology just get better and better. Here's to another 17 years! Imagine what the portable games will look like by then.