TIL
The game gear had two major issues:
-It was too far ahead of its time (something SEGA unfortunately did multiple times, cfr Dreamcast’s online gaming capabilities)
-Battery life sucked major donkey cock
It was also somewhat pricey, but the former point was paramount.
Being too ahead of its time was kind of Sega’s thing when it came to hardware. They beat Nintendo to market with 16-bit graphics by like 2 years, Sony to 3D GPU and CD-ROM by a year, the Game Gear absolutely blew every other portable out of the water for as long as it was on the market…
Ahem… (coughs in Atari Lynx)
So many batteries. Car trips more than an hour (when we really wanted games) took a while pack of batteries. And the little brothers really got screwed because they would be stuck with the second turn, and about to die batteries.
yeah the battery life was horrible. it would eat 6 AA batteries like they were candy. I only ever used mine when it was either plugged into the wall or plugged in the cars cigarette lighter which my dad hated cause he smoked.
Hear hear. The Game Gear was basically a portable Sega Master System only better. Can you imagine Nintendo putting out a whole-ass portable NES? They didn’t have the balls.
To this day, one of my favorite gifts I ever received, way back in Christmas of checks notes 360 B.C.
The battery life was hilariously bad, it was almost the defining trait. It was made especially prominent since it was being compared to the OG Game Boy which could go 20 hours on four AA batteries. The GG could only go about five, if you were lucky, on six AA. Mine basically lived plugged into the wall with a long extension code so I could use it from anywhere in my bedroom.
It was more like 30 minutes with the Super Heavy Duty AA’s my dad could afford.
But that’s okay, he hand soldered me a DC adapter that only threw sparks sometimes.
The GG could only go about five, if you were lucky, on six AA
Which, while of course requiring exponentially more power, the Switch 2 only goes for about 6 hours on less demanding games, funny how battery life hasn’t really changed much for advanced handhelds.
You dont have to replace your switches batteries every time they run out tho
Sure but the switch 2 has a rechargeable battery unlike the game gear which had to be supplied with new batteries every time which cost money.
I’m not sure if rechargeable AA were common in those days.
Rechargeable batteries were common, but in my experience they tended to not hold up as long as normal batteries and took 6-8 hours to recharge. At that time they also degraded quickly, were expensive, and overall just a massive hassle to try and manage.
The IBM thinkpad that runs on windows 95 that I have still has a vaguely functional battery. The battery can last a whole 5 minutes still, damned battery was probably more expensive to produce than the entire rest of the laptop.
Ha, I still have my IBM ThinkPad but it has never had a working battery in its life with me. The hinge on one side is also still cracked and I could never properly close it.
Was my first laptop in the mid-2000’s running Windows 95. I got a USB 1.0 Ethernet adapter so I could surf the web on the DSL line we had at home before we finally upgraded to a wireless router.
Good times. On MySpace, ripping music to the 4GB IDE HDD I had into MusicMatch (before I learned about iTunes), checking news for Halo 3, trying to play games…
The biggest problem with rechargeable dry cells is that each one supports 1.2 volts, while alkaline are 1.5. Some devices wouldn’t even run, most run more poorly and run out of battery even faster.
Fwiw, should you need it, there are AA lithium batteries with a usbc slot for charging and they deliver 1.5v. I bought a pack out of curiosity and was very pleasantly surprised.
This is also why I have never considered the Switch a portable system. It was a hybrid that was never quite a “real” console or a handheld, and thus made compromises on both ends. I personally never used the Switch undocked, I’d have rather they sold a fixed model with no screen or joycons that just plugged in.
The real reason that Game Gear was so power hungry is that it was just a Sega Master System crammed into a handheld. This is why it felt wildly better and more advanced then the Game Boy. Sega did the same thing years later with the Sega Nomad aka a Genesis crammed into a handheld.
The biggest culprit is probably the CCFL tube backlight.
I’m generally of the same opinion about the Switch, but it’s amazing to be able to play it on flights
Game Gear “services” are quite common now - you can get them recapped to solve the infamously troublesome sound dropouts, and most will change the screen to a far more power efficient LCD display as well to let you play at night.
It still eats batteries, but at a much slower rate.
I’m just gutted I left mine in the garage in storage where the damp air fucked it for good
The best mod would be changing it from batteries to a cell phone style rechargeable battery. At least then I wouldn’t care as much of how quick it dies since im not replacing a ton of batteries every day. Even rechargeable ones, you still gotta take them out and put them back, which is annoying as well.
I miss mine as well. I remember as a kid our grandmother got me and a few cousins it for Xmas one year. I also remember breaking it the following year during a parent kid picnic at school where it got crushed. I still remember it, which says a lot because I have very few memories from way back then!
Edit: of course they made this mod! If I ever find one for cheap I would love to do this just as a hobby.
https://handheldlegend.com/products/cleanjuice-game-gear-rechargeable-battery-module
I had a rechargable battery pack for mine back in the 90s.
Bit of rubbing alcohol and a toothbrush usually solves those “damp air fucked my electronics” issues.
How bad is it? You would be amazed how salvageable they are with the right chemical soak and solder reflow.
Honestly I never opened it. I have a Master System II and in fairness, the difference in game ports are negligible for the most part, so I never really looked at repairing it.
Speaking more broadly, I wouldn’t mind learning how to solder - my skills have mostly been in software rather than hardware. Things like fucking about with a Raspberry Pi and their expansion boards sounds like a right laugh.
Soldering is super easy, don’t let it intimidate you. You can be going in no time after dropping just a few bucks.
I wish I didn’t lose my gamegear
Still have mine and a few precious games! Mine has the giant battery attachment!
You really need it that battery life is horrid
Yes! I remember wanting one and envying the kid on the bus with his!
This is the handsomest piece of analog gear I have ever seen. Absolute peak max sexiness, holy shite
Bubble-economy Japan led the way for an insane amount of features, aesthetics, and innovation for personal electronics. Most of it was dead-sexy stuff.
One of my favorite examples, the Sony MSX HitBit F1XD:
I know capitalism is evil and all that jazz, but the Japanese consumer electronics boom was so sick
Everything is a rectangle now 😭
Is this a computer in a keyboard ? Staggering beauty. Magnificient arrow keys
Back in the day I had the portible TurboGFX with TV tunner. Seemed so cool but rarely got that much use.
That is amazing
That would have been so baller back in the day.
There was one for the Gameboy Advance too! Loved that thing.
I gotta get my gamegear fixed. It’s too bad we switched over to digital OTA signal because I would love to mess around with this tuner.
Had a Game Gear and really wanted one of these as a kid.
Still have that Game Gear and still really want one.
I never saw a game gear last 5 hours. The one guy I knew who owned one seemed to have it run out of battery everyday on the school bus which was only like a 45 minute ride.
I got one for xmas one year, probably it’s last year when Sega was clearing inventory, because I didn’t ask for it. All I ever had was the pack-in Sonic title. I wish I kept it so that I could modernize it, but who would have seen that coming? I remember playing it and then seeing the battery light flash and I was like, “I wonder what that means, that can’t mean a low battery since I’ve not been playing it all that long!” Yep, it was a low battery :(
It probably wouldn’t have been a big deal IF Sega bundled a damn AC adapter with it instead of charging separately for it. It was hard to convince my parents to get me video game stuff as a kid.
He should’ve bought the official Game Gear AA battery bandolier
I have several game gears so have some first hand experience.
90s batteries didn’t last long. Regular batteries are 1.5V, rechargeable are 1.2V. When freshly charged they can be around 1.4V, but the game gear will quickly “detect” the voltage dropping and start indicating low battery.
Older batteries didn’t hold as much charge as modern batteries do. You can go hours now with rechargeable batteries, but it used to be different.
As a kid, I had a game gear fanny pack that held the device, some games and all the batteries I could cram in there, which was a lot.
I understand why they think they needed to do it, but killing analog OTA television was seriously the stupidest decision I’d ever seen prior to 2009.
After that it kinda started to happen a lot. Which, uh, must be coincidence.
That was one of the reasons I wanted to have one.
One kid on my bus had it, we were all SUPER jealous and kicked his seat
The whole union of kobolds kicked his seat!? That must have been miserable for him!
Poor guy only got UPN like who were the real bullies 🤣
I did too, but my Dad ended up buying me one of those tiny handheld TVs with a 1" screen instead. It was more a novelty that anything, it sucked down batteries faster than an actual Game Gear.
Yep!
An every time I was in Toy r Us, Babbage’s, Children’s Palace or looking througu the JC Penny’s Christmas catalog, I thought it was the coolest thing in the world and oh so desperately wanted it…despite not owning a Game Gear…😅
