The Game.com is a fifth-generation handheld game console released by Tiger Electronics on September 12, 1997. A smaller version, the Game.com Pocket Pro, was released in mid-1999. The first version of the Game.com can be connected to a 14.4 kbit/s modem for Internet connectivity, hence its name referencing the top level domain .com.
It was the first video game console to include a touchscreen and the first handheld console to include Internet connectivity. The Game.com sold fewer than 300,000 units and was discontinued in 2000 because of poor sales.
In July 1991, Atari introduced a new version of the Lynx, internally called the "Lynx II", with a new marketing campaign, new packaging, slightly improved hardware, better battery life, and a sleeker look. It has rubber hand grips and a clearer backlit color screen with a power save option (which turns off the backlighting). The monaural headphone jack of the original Lynx was replaced with one wired for stereo. The Lynx II was available without any accessories, dropping the price to $99 (equivalent to $210 in 2021).
The Atari Lynx is a hybrid 8/16-bit fourth generation handheld game console released by Atari Corporation in September 1989 in North America and 1990 in Europe and Japan. It was the first handheld game console with a color liquid-crystal display. Powered by a 16 MHz 65C02 8-bit CPU and a custom 16-bit blitter, the Lynx was more advanced than Nintendo's monochrome Game Boy, released two months earlier. It also competed with Sega's Game Gear and NEC's TurboExpress, released the following year.
The system was developed at Epyx by two former designers of the Amiga personal computers. The project was called the Handy Game or simply Handy. In 1991, Atari replaced the Lynx with a smaller model internally referred to as the Lynx II. Atari published a total of 73 games before the Lynx was discontinued in 1995 in preparation for the launch of the Jaguar.
The Cybiko is a Russian handheld computer introduced in the United States by David Yang's company Cybiko Inc. as a retail test market in New York on April 2000, and rolled out nationwide in May 2000. It is designed for teens, featuring its own two-way radio text messaging system. It has over 430 "official" freeware games and applications.
It features a rubber QWERTY keyboard. An MP3 player add-on with a SmartMedia card slot was made for the unit as well. The company stopped manufacturing the units after two product versions and a few years on the market. Cybikos can communicate with each other up to a maximum range of 100 meters (330 ft). Several Cybikos can chat with each other in a wireless chatroom. By the end of 2000, the Cybiko Classic had sold over 500,000 units.
The Microvision (aka Milton Bradley Microvision or MB Microvision) is the first handheld game console that used interchangeable cartridges and in that sense is reprogrammable.
It was released by the Milton Bradley Company in November 1979 for a retail price of $49.99.
The Microvision was designed by Jay Smith, the engineer who would later design the Vectrex gaming console. The Microvision's combination of portability and a cartridge-based system led to moderate success, with Smith Engineering grossing $15 million in the first year of the system's release. However, very few cartridges, a small screen, and a lack of support from established home video game companies led to its demise in 1981. According to Satoru Okada, the former head of Nintendo's R&D1 Department, the Microvision gave birth to Game Boy, the follow up to Game & Watch, after Nintendo designed around Microvision's limitations.
The Xperia Play is a smartphone with elements of a handheld game console produced by Sony Ericsson. With the marketshare for dedicated handheld game consoles diminishing into the 2010s due to the rapid expansion of smartphones with cheap downloadable games, Sony attempted to tackle the issue with two separate devices; a dedicated video game console with elements of a smartphone, called the PlayStation Vita, and a smartphone with elements of a handheld console, the Xperia Play. Originally rumored to be a "PlayStation Phone", the device shed the "PlayStation" branding in favor of the Xperia brand, running on the Android operating system.
