Vintage gaming community.
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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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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...
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.
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!
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.
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 had that thing! It was really cool to watch a football match while camping!
And I gave it to my father when he was in the hospital... Eurocup was at the time.
That was great to watch TV for exactly 8 minutes.
Conveniently carry around 20 or so AA batteries and you could probably get through an episode of Benson and the intro to TNG.
It wasn’t that good. The system already drained AA batteries like virgin sacrifices but imagine fm radio dials to sync for tv channels… That being said.. chefs kiss…
I had the AC adapter when I got mine as a kid, which helped a ton with that. It was definitely hungry.
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...😅
That would have been so baller back in the day.
I have this. It's been on my wishlist ever since I was little and now that i have some disposable income I bought it. Unfortunately the analog signal has been disabled for years, but there's a jack on the tuner that allows you to connect composite video (with a special cable to go from the yellow, red and white to a single 3.5mm jack).
I played some Xbox on it, for the novelty. The screen is small, the resolution is low, the lcd isn't very clear in some cases, ... I love it.
There are special kits to replace the screen with a modern crisp led screen, but they are not compatible with the tuner, something to keep in mind.
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.
TIL
I saw this once or twice. Taxi driver had it mounted on his panel to watch something on break. Somewhat solved the power draw problem with a car adapter...
I wonder whether it digitised the video signal and sent digital RGB data over the connector, or whether there were analogue video channels provided for such a device.
Also, in any case, whether any hobbyist hackers have built adapters to use their Game Gear as a monitor for anything else through the same mechanism. (A HDMI in adapter would be cool, if slightly ridiculous.)
it's fascinating, the game gear itself actually has a "TV Mode" that's activated by holding down a certain signal on the cartridge bus which bypasses the z80 and VDP and chucks a digital RGB signal and some kind of custom timing information straight to the screen
Yes! I remember wanting one and envying the kid on the bus with his!
It was incredibly high tech at the time. SciFi Stuff. Unfortunately the Game gear also had incredibly bad battery life, and back then, batteries life literally meant "Battery", not "rechargeable Battery"
My Dad took 16 rechargeable AAs and ran a small circuit board to them with an adapter cable coming out. The zipper cases they made for GGs had a large cavity behind the storage area that was perfect for hiding them. I could play for an extra 16 hours with those things. Had to recharge them with a huge wall wort but it was the best gift my Dad ever made for me. I loved that damn system.
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:
Is this a computer in a keyboard ? Staggering beauty. Magnificient arrow keys
I had one. And a TV sender (totally illegal where I was) to broadcast my cable internally to the game gear. I even played my mega drive (genesis) on the small screen.
What a waste of money, but at least I have memories!
I had a cdx with an x32 attachment. It was not recommended but it worked
