Sega Game Gear

My Sega Game Gear is still sitting on a shelf. This handheld console released in North America in 1991 as a rival to the popular Game Boy. With a backlit screen, it was already ahead of the time as I distinctly remember having to buy a weird extra light to play my Game Boy on dark car rides. The Game Gear didn’t have a great library of games, but being able to play Sonic the Hedgehog outside of a house was amazing. Unfortunately, due to the fact that it took six batteries that seemed to drain rather quickly and its lack of games, it fell victim to the Game Boy. RIP.

Sega Dreamcast

Sega was great at creating consoles with things no other console of the time had yet not quite beating out the bigger guys. The Dreamcast released in 1999 and was pitted against the Playstation 2, which released the following year, and was designed to be better than the Playstation and Nintendo 64. It was the first console to include an interior modem for online gaming. Mind-blowing. The controller also featured its own screen that showed information such as health or simple messages.

Unfortunately for Sega, the world wasn’t quite ready yet. The Playstation 2 had a built-in DVD player, smaller controller with two joysticks versus the Dreamcast’s one, and an impressive library of games. To the Dreamcast’s credit, we got some great games like Jet Set Radio and Phantasy Star Online. However, the Dreamcast continued dropping its price and was discontinued after a couple of years on the market. The failure actually led to Sega getting out of the console game completely and now just stick to games.

Playstation Vita

I love my Vita and I will die on that mountain. However, I don’t have many in my corner on that. The Vita released in North America in 2012 and was the followup to the PSP. It featured a front and back touchscreen and some pretty stellar graphics for a handheld. It could also be synced to your Playstation for remote play. I didn’t know I needed to play Skyrim in the bathtub until the Vita. Although it had some big name games, such as Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation and LittleBigPlanet, and pretty good numbers at launch, sales began to fall due to a higher price point for both the device itself and its memory card. It wasn’t discontinued until 2019, but it never quite gained the following of its competitor the Nintendo 3DS.

Nintendo 2DS/3DS

Again, I will die on this 3DS mountain with my Pikachu faced 2DS. However, it’s not secret that the 3DS was quickly forgotten in the wake of the Nintendo Switch. The original 3DS released in 2011 and went through a few different variations over the years, just like the former DS did. At launch, I bought the first 3DS which featured a slider allowing you to play certain games in 3D. This sounds like a cool feature unless you’re like me and play video games for extended periods of time. It began just being disorienting to me and was a feature I quickly stopped using. Its augmented reality was also a short-lived gimmick that, after you posted a few blurry Facebook photos of, you just stopped using. I later invested in a Nintendo 2DS which had many of the same features without the 3D element and was much happier. It had a ton of great games, from Pokemon to Animal Crossing, but it’s the Virtual Console that keeps me coming back to my 2DS. I was able to download classic games like Earthbound and Pokemon Red and Blue. The 3DS and 2DS also had remakes of Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask, arguably two of the best video games of all time.

However, many of these handhelds have grown dusty on a shelf due to the popularity of the Nintendo Switch, which can be played as both a handheld or on your television. While I may still be partial to the DS, my Switch is currently my most played console and I tell almost everyone I meet that I consider it one of the best consoles to be released in many years. 

Desiree Carver is a reporter at the Valdosta Daily Times. She can be reached at (229) 244-3400 ext. 1215.