Sega Game Gear – Flickroom

For the American automobile manufacturer, see Mercury (company).

The Game Gear ( ゲームギア ) is a hand-held video recording bet on comfort developed by Sega and released in recently 1990 as a reaction to Nintendo ‘s Game Boy hand-held. It is a fully color comfort and was Sega ‘s first base try to compete in the hand-held games market ( the second being the Sega Nomad — a hand-held Mega Drive ). In South Korea it is known as the Handy Gam*Boy ( 핸디겜보이 ). After development of the Sega Saturn began, the Game Gear was retroactively given the codename Mercury [ 9 ] .

hardware

The Game Gear is a “ portable ” device which was designed to address problems with Nintendo ‘s Game Boy. It is held lengthways at the sides ( preventing the cramp of hands which plagued Nintendo ‘s system ) and has a backlit, colour LCD shield, allowing for clearer and more vibrant visuals than its main rival.

similarly to the Mega Drive, which at the meter was Sega ‘s independent focus in the home console market, the Game Gear is derived from the earlier Sega Master System. Unlike the Mega Drive, however, the Game Gear is largely identical to the Master System, the major difference being a VDP able of displaying palettes consisting of a wider kind of colors, and the playback of stereo sound. Game Gear games traditionally run at a smaller resolution excessively, although with a riddle built similarly to televisions of the earned run average, the Game Gear is in full capable of playing games in higher resolutions. Like the Master System, the Game Gear features a D-Pad and two buttons, and , but besides adds a third, . This is one button short of a Game Boy. unfortunately, due to technical limitations of the era, the Game Gear demands six AA batteries to be played on the fail, of which the fluorescent backlight on the LCD screen will eat through in three to five hours ( though a battery throng provides longer playtime ). Furthermore, the system gives off more heat than the Game Boy, often leading to “ sweaty palms ” after prolonged habit. The system was besides considered not to be very “ portable ” – it ‘s bulky size means it does not fit in many pockets, and the power-draining backlight of the LCD riddle ( which can not be turned off ) mean Game Gears were unserviceable after a short period of time. An AC adapter can be plugged into the system so that it runs off the mains, but this was not considered practical for consumers of the day. Game Gears were besides manufactured at a time where capacitor problems were rampant across the electronics diligence. As a leave, screen and audio failures are coarse, and fixes are not constantly simple .

Models

Main article: Game Gear consoles.

technical specifications

See Sega Master System specifications for further specifications

The hardware is largely identical to the Sega Master System, with some of the differences mentioned below.

• CPU: Zilog Z80 (8-bit)

• Speed: 3.579545 MHz (same as NTSC colorburst)

• Resolution: 160 x 144 pixels
• Color palette available: 4096 colors

• Colors on screen: 32

• Sprites on screen: 64

• Sprite size: 8×8

• Screen size: 3.2 Inches
• Audio: SN76489
• RAM: 24 KB

history

Main article: History of the Sega Game Gear.

Localised names

Games

Main article: Sega Game Gear games.

magazine articles

promotional substantial

artwork

• North American/Japanese logo
• japanese logo
• north american logo ( 1991 )
• north american english logo ( 1992 )
• european logo

  Read more: Pocket Monster (Mega Drive/SNES)

• Arabic logo
• swedish logo
• Console outline

• Sega of Japan catalogue pages (Japanese): Game Gear
• Console Database – Sega Game Gear info and FAQs
• SMS Power – Technical information and more on the Game Gear and its bigger brother, the Master System

References