Throughout the history of gaming, we have constantly welcomed new innovations and consoles to the market that have altered the face of gaming. Nowadays, computers can be found in the majority of households. Useful for everyday chores and tasks, but also powerful enough to provide gaming entertainment. Elsewhere in the home, a PlayStation 5 or Xbox with controllers sprawled across the coffee table might be found, with online capabilities giving this form of console greater outreach and variety.
There seems no end in sight in the evolution of Sony and Microsoft consoles and the same can be said of another more practical and portable form of gaming console. Of course, we are talking about handheld gaming, which is continuing to enthrall gaming enthusiasts all over the world. In fact, handheld gaming devices go back much further than the first PlayStation or Xbox and has also undergone its own exciting evolution over the past few decades.
The Beginning
The first signs of handheld gaming can be traced back to the 1970’s, with Auto Race and Football amongst the first titles to be played on the single-game devices. Multiple forms of technology available back then were tested to see which was most efficient. And of them, LCD (liquid crystal display) paneling was heavily used during the 70’s and 80’s, which also gave birth to solar powered gaming devices and 3D effects.
However, the early era of handheld gaming was dominated by the Game Boy. While other handheld devices that featured in the 80’s such as Sega Game Gear and Atari Lynx also have a concrete place on the timeline, the Game Boy with monochrome graphics was the first poster boy for handheld gaming. Released on 21st April 1989, games such as Super Mario Land and Pokemon led gaming into a new era in the 90’s, with longer-life batteries providing gamers with a way to play games on the move.
The cartridge-based console was a worldwide hit with Nintendo later releasing the Game Boy Pocket and Game Boy Color with greater technological and software specifications that were indicative of the advances made in overall programming ability at the time.
The 2000’s
While Nintendo had made the big splash in the 80’s and 90’s with the Game Boy, the 2000’s was when handheld gaming consoles got a real technological boost. With stronger ARM processors and CPUs, the enhanced technical specifications gave graphics a much sharper look and vastly improved the overall game play. The Nintendo DS kicked off the new age of Nintendo product, supplemented by the updated Nintendo DS Lite. One recognizable feature of the latest Nintendo products was the sleekness of the consoles. The Nintendo DS was also available as a foldable device, which flipped out to unveil two separate LCD screens.
The early 2000’s also saw Sony branch out into the handheld world. Their PlayStation Portable was released towards the end of 2004 and was the first of its kind to incorporate universal media disc (UMD) technology into its system. With a single, large screen along with the recognizable PlayStation buttons and logo, the PSP became the first in a line of Sony handheld products to hit the gaming market.
The Power of Apps
Of course, by the mid-late 2000’s, smartphones were beginning to emerge. Apple launched their first iPhone on 29th June 2007, which revolutionized the way people communicated and began to optimize people’s lives in ways unthinkable at the time. While smartphones initially enabled us to do simple things more efficiently, like send messages via touchscreen technology, and check the weather and emails, no-one in 2007 would have quite expected smartphones to develop as quickly as they have and to the level of capability they possess nowadays.
With ever greater strides being made in software and tech, smartphones have gone from strength to strength, to the extent that the processing power now mirrors that in a desktop computer. With battery life getting ever longer, greater connectivity to mobile data masts, and enhanced capabilities in coding paving the way for mobile apps, smartphones themselves have become handheld gaming devices. In the current digital era, new forms of entertainment are entering the market and being made available to smartphones in the form of apps.
Amongst the line of new entertainment, online casinos and online sports books are becoming increasingly popular and there are plenty of options for these casinos found in the app store on whichever smartphone you possess. With higher resolution and 6-core graphics to accommodate the game play, smartphones have joined the elite of gaming consoles that have characterized handheld gaming over the years.
With the added convenience of having many other applications required for everyday tasks on the smartphone, the ability to combine gaming with these functions has created a new realm of handheld gaming that will only grow stronger. Apps for online casino play are an example of the shift currently occurring of physical activities morphing into digital formats; a trend that is inevitably going to continue in the coming years.
More to come
Over the history of gaming, there have been handheld consoles of all shapes and sizes. Some have enjoyed more success than others, but they have all contributed to the consoles we have now. With the Nintendo Switch 2 set for release later this year, Nintendo are certainly not slowing down their involvement in the handheld market.
With smartphones becoming an increasingly attractive option for gamers with more recognized titles transforming their products into app form, there are greater levels of competition for companies such as Nintendo. And with technology constantly improving, along with the expected industry-wide implementation of augmented and virtual reality into gaming, there are plenty more chapters in the evolution of handheld gaming consoles to write.