I mean it was true at the time. The reason gameboy won out was because it was so much cheaper and had a great library within the first few years. They also appealed to people who were not gamers with titles like alleyway and tetris. Not to mention the first few racing games and sports games. Nintendo got dogged for a few years in the magazines. However as the library expanded with hit after hit it was clear which company would win out. The knockout punch was pokemon red and blue. I still play gen 1 pokemon to this day.
I have worked in the games industry, but have just been in software (games are software.. just usually a fun kind) for a decade!.. so, not claiming to be an expert, but I can assure you; games hype, at least through the 360 section of the timeline, was just par for the course… every 4 hour Xbox game was supposed to be a revelation… and it was all hyperbolic… so, I’m assuming that’s what they were doing then (the hype train I mean) and kinda assume they are still trying that stuff today?
@@mtgamateurnightIt also had a dog shit battery life. But you listed the appeals of the Gameboy. It’s not like Nintendo itself couldn’t make a colour screen portable with much better specs, it was the fact that it was a constant balancing act of price, specs, performance, battery etc in what you can ultimately deliver to the consumer. Game magazines would of course go nuts for any new device that offered what the Lynx or Turbografx had, and ignoring issues of price and battery life for the most part. Fast forward to now and nothings changed really.
I won't lie. The gaming historian not only takes me back historically, but also brings back a lot of nostalgia. I could listen to this stuff all day. Keep on making amazing videos!
@@GamingHistorian hey I am sorry for this message but you have on the comment section a username who using your profile picture and lying you give free prizes on telegram can you please block it or at the very least put restrictions for no spam or self promotion I am sorry if it sound overwhelming but those scammers can be dangerous
@@theenderkirby Zack over on JRE did a video on why theyre not going away anytime soon unless youtube makes fundamental changes to their spam filtering system
@@michealpersicko9531 still while I can I try to ask the youtuber of the respective channel to put this spam and self promotion restriction by this those scammers can't put their scams at all and face it is be for the good because I am sure nobody here like to either spam and promote themself
I like this story. BDL response was actually pretty respectable They didn’t complain or try to sue Nintendo over the decision. I can’t help but a feel a huge amount of respect for BDL.
@@bern9642 Actually, you can sue any company you like for any reason you like, so long as you claim damages. The American judicial system makes no assumptions.
@@bern9642 True, but people do often open frivolous lawsuits, and often winning the suit isn't even their goal, such as if they're doing a publicity stunt or a SLAPP suit.
@@AssociationAdmirer lol...nope. people want to win money. It cost money to open a lawsuit. It's not cheap. If someone is suing they feel they have a good chance of getting some money. If you're a rich corporation like Nintendo, you can also sue people in hope of economic benefits. Nintendo do it all the time.
This is one of those weird times when I can see how beneficial something like the Express would have been had it made it to retail, but I can also understand why Nintendo didn't want to do it.
@@stupormanWhile that comparison is valid based on the nature of the Express, I feel the 32x-Saturn analogy would be more accurate. Nintendo didn't want to compete with themselves and divide the Game Boy's potential user base, which, considering what happened when Sega put too many irons in the fire, was shown to be a wise decision.
@@cville991 I'd argue more than bad timing was Sega's general mismanagement post-1994. The Nomad suffered from a general lack of consumer confidence in Sega after the 32x and Saturn debacles as well as SoJ's mind-boggling decision to outright kill the Genesis instead of slowly winding down support.
@@davidm4566 It's still crazy to me that they made the NES cartridges that size instead of just going with the Famicom style size. Apparently it was part of their attempt to market the NES in the US less as a video game system by making it look boxier like a VCR. It's very interesting considering that nowadays the Western market absolutely LOVES the idea of shrinking down technology more and more to fit inside your pocket or a tiny device.
@@GamingHistorian you have now reached 1 Million subscriber! Congratulations!!! Looking forward for more high quality documentaries in the future. Thank you for your hardwork!
I got to try a Lynx once. Some graphically impressive (as I remember it) airplane shooter It was a friends way older brother, I never seen another but it definitely left an impression
This reminds me of the Sega Nomad, which was a portable Genesis. It isn't super top of mind in retro gaming, but I think I still have mine floating around the house in a box somewhere.
I "made" one, not as cool as this, but it worked. For long car trips i had gone to tandy/radioshack and gotten a 9v power supply that connected to the lighter socket in my dads car, and we had a little black and white tv that also plugged into a lighter socket, so i made up a cable that went from the regular tv rf aerial input to the headphone jack style one the portable tv, so i could sit in the back of my dads ford fairlane (it had a lighter socket in each door trim and another in the back of the centre console.. It was the 80's 😂 and play super mario 3 while we drove interstate on a fishing trip or similar. Was pretty good at the time, sat the tv on the centre console the nes on the back seat and had hours of fun. When we got a new car i was upset because it didnt have any rear lighter sockets, so i had to make do with gameboy in the car, which was difficult to see at the best of times let alone at night and made me feel sick looking down at it
@@Colt45hatchback TLDR? The dude "made" a "portable" NES by using already invented lighter socket cables while playing it through a television… Making it not anything close to portable… Unless the original NES itself is considered portable because you can plug it in to any place that gives power and has a television set
@@cineMADvocate well its portable in a sense that you can play it while not at home. A portable tv is just a small tv that goes in a lighter socket or batterys Same shit. No ones car has a mains power socket from factory. It worked in the sense that i could play it in the car.
I'm glad the concept of turning consoles into portables is still relevant today in the gamecube/wii scenes, surprised not many people have delved into making older consoles portable aswell, where is my portable snes?! Great video as always, keep it up ❤️
Technically, the aforementioned RDP from Norm's video is actually a portable SNES. It was shown playing an NES game in the video, but that’s actually made possible by way of an adapter. There is also an adapter for the Sega Genesis, though this adapter is not made by the same company. I should know. I have the RDP and all of these adapters. The RDP comes with an adapter for playing NES games, but that was not always the case. Originally, you would have had to purchase it separately. However, I would personally recommend buying a much better (and much smaller) NES adapter from the same company which produces the SG adapter. They're called RETROBIT. Check it out for yourself.
With emulation you can basically have all of those old games on any portable device, the only issue is controls. Bluetooth controllers are an option but they are not super reliable with phones and tablets and on screen touch controlls are totally wack. There exist things that have built in controller and can receive real cartridges', but it's such a niche market it will never be mass produced.
Just when I think I know everything about video game history, you have more to teach me. Did not know about this thing at all. Dude was ahead of his time.
Dang, Norman. I always get excited to see when you uploaded a new video, and you never fail to deliver with the quality of your content. If these short form videos means that we get to see new videos from you more frequently, I am completely on board. These are the perfect length to watch with a cup of coffee before I have to go to work.
Wow, this is so cool. I assumed cutting boards down for portable console mods was pretty new, but it predates the modding scene by a decade. If anyone's interested in how these kinds of mods are made today, GingerOfOz has some great videos of his projects - some practical, like a handheld PS2, to the more ridiculous all-in-one Wii Fit board.
This is an excellent video, as usual! Thanks Norm! So, funny story about that Biederman Game Boy to NES converter - I saw it in EGM when I got the issue as a kid, but... French is my first language, and at the time, I didn't know what the word "prototype" meant. I told my parents and older sisters to be on the lookout for that converter, because I desperately wanted to play my Game Boy games on a bigger screen. I even got an excited call once from my sister, saying she thought she had spotted it - but no, it was actually Dr. Mario. :D Anyway, years later I found the article again, realized I had put people on the lookout for a dang prototype that never saw the light of day....... oh well, I got the Super Game Boy eventually.
Man, I love your videos. Such excellent research and presentation. Thank you for all you do, and congrats on the soon-to-be one million subs. It's well-deserved.
Wow, this brought back memories! I think I still have that EGM magazine with Hudson Hawk on the cover that talks about the Express. Great video as always!
I never even knew this device existed. So for me, this is not forgotten, this is, freshly discovered. Can't forget about something that you never knew existed in the first place.
@@BendsteinbergerHe did, he showed it to Nintendo, and they rejected his idea, and a lot of the time, you legally can't show things like that to the public, especially if the company you pitched it to, who it runs on, rejected it- But that's the thing, he did show it to people outside of Nintendo, and the video even mentions it. He showed it to several gaming magazines and told his story and they even wrote pieces on it at the time.
Thank goodness for all the engineers, designers, musicians, and programmers who worked long hours in the gaming industry. Making the world infinitely less boring to live in.
These guys poured their hearts and souls, time, and money into the portable, and when they were rejected by Nintendo, they just went 🤷 Respect. They were driven by passion and not profits.
I always enjoyed your videos and the time you put into your research. As a kid that grew up in the 90's I love learning what went into the creation of all my favorite consoles and videogames.
Congrats on 1mil sir. I’ve watched you for probly over a decade and always enjoy your videos and really appreciate the amount of work and level of seriousness you put into what you do. Also I’ve talked to you a few times when you used to stream on FB and you also seem like a really nice, hardworking person and I’m so happy to see people like that doing well.
And I thought I knew it all about the NES era. You continually surprise with these fascinating deep cuts of mostly forgotten lore. We appreciate your hard work!
Hey gaming historian we… Meaning me and Steve and everyone else on this comment section and maybe even the Internet because I'm speaking for everyone as is my right… think you're the hottest dude on the Internet… We think you could do with a lot more shots where you highlight how big your package is we also think that you should wear your hair a little sexier and greasy… Right Steve?
I know this is just a horderve for whatever project you have coming up next, but I would encourage you to keep up this kind of work. Even video game products that didn't come out are endlessly fascinating, and something I'll watch every time you put one out.
Great video, it would have been worth mentioning that the Game Gear was a portable Master System with different cartridges and that it could play Master System games with an adapter.
That answers my question above lol. I asked why he wouldn’t just take his idea to sega? But also he could’ve taken his idea to specific companies like Konami etc and they could’ve created their 8-bit library with some slight modifications to gashes to avoid licensing issues with the big N
The gamegear was a (very) slightly upgraded master system, it had more colour working ram so could render a few more shades iirc. But yeah, it was backwards compatible with a cart adapter.
Yeah it seems like an awful idea for them. As things stood gamers were buying games on both NES and Gameboy. And this would have made them throw out their Gameboys and only buy for the NES. It would have destroyed their handheld business.
@@JeremySharpSMSG They definitely would have. Or more likely, if they had been interested, they would have bought it from them and handled it all themselves. But it was a terrible business move for them at the time either way. It would have killed the Gameboy market, which was letting them sell similar games to players twice
On the one hand, the idea of Nintendo licensing a premium handheld while having their own budget handheld isn't too terrible. On the other, remember Sega's tactic of going for the budget market with the 32X and the premium market with the Saturn. Didn't work.
@@THENAMEISQUICKMAN Yeah it just doesn't work because as things were with the NES being a home console and the Gameboy being portable, they could sell players the same game twice. The games were always where the money was. They would have no interest in letting players play their existing NES games on the go. I'm sure even in modern times they thought long and hard before making the Switch, and determined there was not a long-term future in dedicated handheld consoles. If they didn't decide that, there never would have been a Switch
There's honestly nothing quite like cuddling up in bed to watch a new Gaming Historian video, fully immersing myself in the gaming years of yore. Even if the specific topic in question isn't something I'm personally familiar with, it still never fails to give me a feeling of nostalgia while being remarkably informative. Thanks for another great video, Norm!
@@GamingHistorian It is very hard to believe. The NES on its own consumed something like 9 W of power with no display or speakers. They would practically have to improve this by a factor of ten to get battery life like that, even with expensive batteries.
Congratulations on reaching a million subs, Norm! I had visited your page just a few hours ago and saw you at over 999k, but then I just checked a little bit ago and it said 1M! Great job, man. You've earned it over all these years!!
I remember hearing about this like an urban legend. My cousin was a project manager in Silicon Valley and actually saw the prototype. This is crazy…I heard about this but never saw it in depth until this video. Well done as usual Norman.
If some of you haven't noticed, this channel recently hit 1 million subscribers. I have been watching these videos since I was in my first year of high school. So I have seen Norman's channel grow over the past six years. Congratulations man. I love your content.
You deserve ten million subs, not just one! Gaming Historian represents pure culture and history: you're the National Geographic of video games culture!
Let's give some respect to the person who prepared these beautiful photo realistic 3D animations of this device, this is really a lot of hard work to make such renderings
I lucked into getting one of those "Retro Duo Portables" and the adapters that accompany them. It really does function exactly like the NES, though it becomes a bit comical when you plug a Game Genie into the cartridge and the "portable console" gains another cartridge-length of height.
I have a portable NES player from My Arcade. It’s nice to have around for these old games. It was already relatively expensive today, I can only assume something like this would’ve been a premium item back then.
As always, exceptional work here. The man with the killer beard during the Camerica footage is David Harding. I'm not sure what happened to him after the fall of Camerica. Same story with Terry Hickey, one of the senior folks at the company. Was fantastic meeting the Oliver twins and the rest of the CodeMasters folks on their first US trip (to Las Vegas, no less, haha). It was a fascinating time in gaming history. Camerica always felt like the company was a bit upside down. David and the management were extremely polite, educated people, but I think it turned out about as well as if I tried to open a fashion and musical instrument shop : badly. You see, there is a debate with technology companies in their various iterations. Whether or not they should be led by developers, designers, or engineering minds for projects. Well, Camerica, they were led by managers who did not particularly care for or really *get* what made games fun, what the trends were (especially evident in the move towards 16-Bit), and how to harness their relationship with CodeMasters. Your excellent work on the Aladdin project is emblematic of their attitude. It was not a terrible idea overall. But the timing was abominable. In 1987-88, and with decent support and building a library of games and potential partners for the device, it might have had a shot. By the time they were pushing it, all the $ was on the 16-Bit stuff, and NES titles languished in the big value bins of KayBee, Toys R Us, etc. Shame.
That would've been incredible in 1990. It looks like the console portable scene is alive and well now, people are making all sorts of portables, like portable Wiis. Congrats on 1 million subscribers!
Back on those days, here in Brazil, what was often released were portable consoles that used small antennas to broadcast the signal to the TV wireless. We had Atari 2600 and NES versions by Dynacom and Master System's by Tec Toy.
I've owned both the Nomad in it's original form and later an upgraded Nomad with a modern LCD Screen. The Nomad with a modern screen is incredible! Not only does the screen quality infinitely better but it improves the battery life to 9 hours per charge (Yes it uses a rechargeable Lithium Battery Pack repurposed from a LED Camcorder).
I have watched your fun and entertaining videos for nearly 8 years now. You have made a wonderful show here on TH-cam Norm, and will cherish the moment you hit 1 Million Subscribers! Cheers 👏
@DontKnowDontCare6.9 it probably was similar to the youtube video of the guy making a CRT gameboy. Battery life will be about a minute long and the batteries will be very hot to the touch and might even melt the contacts on the actual console
I loved handhelds that let you play the console games you already owned. I used to lug around a sega nomad and an ac adapter for it. I would find plugs and hunker down somewhere fun, and didn't need to buy a single new game.
Sometimes I feel bad, for supporting Nintendo, as a kid and as a retro game collector. This is one of those times. To be the best, sometimes you have to hurt the rest. Cheers from Canada P.S. BTW Just wanted to make sure I go out on a positive note! Great video. Once again you have taught me something new and interesting :) With the Gaming historian, I always walk away with knowledge. New knowledge, about a subject I already know a ton about. Thanks for the quality information :)
I laughed out loud at the 30-40 hour battery life. But anyway, with the GB selling 118 million units, I think they made the right call. Yes, the system was "portable." But you would have had to carry it, the controllers, and the games in a backpack. When I was a kid, I had the GB and like 12 games in a fanny pack.
That sucks, when I was a kid we had portable HotWheels but we had to use a briefcase shaped like a racing tire to carry them to go smash or bury them in our friends back yard man!
OK so I tried to guesstimate how much battery life you would actually get out of this thing. The closest comparison would be to the game gear since that is a portable master system that runs on 6 AA with an average battery life of three to five hrs. Assuming that the average C battery is about triple the capacity of a AA battery you're getting about double the battery life of a game gear on 4C with this thing. You could be a little bit generous and say that the master system/GG is more draining than thevNES so you're probably getting 7 to 11 hours give or take.
Bruh, the fact GB advance sold so well proves there was a market for this. Also, did you even watch the video? He updated it to include a built in controller. 🤦♂️
There were famicom portables back in the 90s. In fact, one of my best finds was getting a handheld famicom with a broken screen. The Redant GameAxe it's got a similar feel to the Sega Nomad. Once I had the screen fixed to a modern lcd, it's now just amazing. It also connects to the Famicom disc system.
oh man, what a wild find this must have been! fascinating stuff, and I never knew that what finally nailed camerica was their 800 number. Fantastic stuff as usual, norm, keep up the incredible work!
The greatest portable was the Turbo Express. It was the first handheld system that was 100% a portable version of the main system. I was the only person I knew to this day that actually had a Turbo Grafx 16 and I always wanted one. Good luck finding one for a good price now!
Amazing work as always! This is the type of content that makes the Gaming Historian unrivaled. I have been a gamer my entire life which includes the 199X years when all this happened. I've never heard of this until today.
Man, this guy was thinking 25 years ahead of time before such portable console players even existed. I would love to shake this man's hand for his ingenuity!
On a personal note, my daytime warehouse office job has been eliminated, which has forced me to take a nighttime warehouse floor job. Therefore, I will not be able to keep up with your content as I normally would have. I just wanted to personally thank you for creating quality content that is both educational and entertaining, to appease to my thoughtful mind while do mind-numbing data entry. Good job; keep up the good work.
Norm, my friend. I can’t truly describe how much I appreciate all your hard work. I’ve been a fan of yours since the very beginning. And your videos never fail to brighten up my days. Thank you.
Nice surprise video! That was pretty interesting. Kind of a shame it never came to market, but I guess it was pretty bulky. Game Boy had that real portability factor where you could actually fit it in certain sized pockets.
I'm working on 2 bigger projects at the moment. But in the meantime, I hope you enjoy learning about The Express! See you on the next video.
Ooooooo nice I'm excited.
Preemptive congratulations on 1m subs
Sooooo close to 1m!
Oh yes Norm, great short vid in the interim ;)
Been watching you since (I think) about 500k subs, can't wait for you to get to 1M! Great videos! Keep up the good work!
EDIT: YOU HIT 1MIL!!!
For whoever did the 3d animation of The Express showcase they did a nice job 👌
Came here to say the same thing.
+1 to this!
Yoshi Vu
I didn't even catch how nice looking that was the first time around because it just seemed so natural!
not whoever, not they, not nice < niais < nescius := not-skilled but you are
At 5:23 “The game boy is being overshadowed by the Lynx.” That quote in hindsight is utterly hilarious.
I mean it was true at the time. The reason gameboy won out was because it was so much cheaper and had a great library within the first few years. They also appealed to people who were not gamers with titles like alleyway and tetris. Not to mention the first few racing games and sports games.
Nintendo got dogged for a few years in the magazines. However as the library expanded with hit after hit it was clear which company would win out. The knockout punch was pokemon red and blue. I still play gen 1 pokemon to this day.
I have worked in the games industry, but have just been in software (games are software.. just usually a fun kind) for a decade!.. so, not claiming to be an expert, but I can assure you; games hype, at least through the 360 section of the timeline, was just par for the course… every 4 hour Xbox game was supposed to be a revelation… and it was all hyperbolic… so, I’m assuming that’s what they were doing then (the hype train I mean) and kinda assume they are still trying that stuff today?
@@mtgamateurnightIt also had a dog shit battery life. But you listed the appeals of the Gameboy. It’s not like Nintendo itself couldn’t make a colour screen portable with much better specs, it was the fact that it was a constant balancing act of price, specs, performance, battery etc in what you can ultimately deliver to the consumer.
Game magazines would of course go nuts for any new device that offered what the Lynx or Turbografx had, and ignoring issues of price and battery life for the most part.
Fast forward to now and nothings changed really.
Reminds me of the quote from someone from Sega: "WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE ATARI JAGUAR."
@@mtgamateurnight Yeah. That's why they said "in hindsight"😂
I won't lie. The gaming historian not only takes me back historically, but also brings back a lot of nostalgia. I could listen to this stuff all day. Keep on making amazing videos!
Agreed. I thought I knew so much about the NES era, but he teaches me things I never knew! And it's so refreshing.
This channel has really made me aware of things that I wasn’t aware before in videogames
That's the goal! Thanks for watching.
@@GamingHistorian hey I am sorry for this message but you have on the comment section a username who using your profile picture and lying you give free prizes on telegram can you please block it or at the very least put restrictions for no spam or self promotion I am sorry if it sound overwhelming but those scammers can be dangerous
@@theenderkirby Zack over on JRE did a video on why theyre not going away anytime soon unless youtube makes fundamental changes to their spam filtering system
@@michealpersicko9531 still while I can I try to ask the youtuber of the respective channel to put this spam and self promotion restriction by this those scammers can't put their scams at all and face it is be for the good because I am sure nobody here like to either spam and promote themself
I like this story. BDL response was actually pretty respectable They didn’t complain or try to sue Nintendo over the decision. I can’t help but a feel a huge amount of respect for BDL.
How can they sue Nintendo when the product belongs to Nintendo? It's Nintendo that could sue BDL if they went forward with manufacturing
@@bern9642 Actually, you can sue any company you like for any reason you like, so long as you claim damages. The American judicial system makes no assumptions.
@@AssociationAdmirer I meant, it's a frivolous lawsuit and they'd lose.
@@bern9642 True, but people do often open frivolous lawsuits, and often winning the suit isn't even their goal, such as if they're doing a publicity stunt or a SLAPP suit.
@@AssociationAdmirer lol...nope. people want to win money. It cost money to open a lawsuit. It's not cheap. If someone is suing they feel they have a good chance of getting some money.
If you're a rich corporation like Nintendo, you can also sue people in hope of economic benefits. Nintendo do it all the time.
This is one of those weird times when I can see how beneficial something like the Express would have been had it made it to retail, but I can also understand why Nintendo didn't want to do it.
Sega did it with the Nomad and it failed
@@stupormanWhile that comparison is valid based on the nature of the Express, I feel the 32x-Saturn analogy would be more accurate. Nintendo didn't want to compete with themselves and divide the Game Boy's potential user base, which, considering what happened when Sega put too many irons in the fire, was shown to be a wise decision.
It failed because of bad timing. But as a portable Genesis, it’s actually cool. There’s even mods that improve the Nomad.
@@cville991 I'd argue more than bad timing was Sega's general mismanagement post-1994. The Nomad suffered from a general lack of consumer confidence in Sega after the 32x and Saturn debacles as well as SoJ's mind-boggling decision to outright kill the Genesis instead of slowly winding down support.
With the release of Switch and Switch Lite, it's kinda ironic for Nintendo isn't it?
This is exactly what I wanted when I was a kid. The gameboy never quite did it for me . I wanted to play my actual nes games anywhere
Most of the NES game cartridge was just empty space, so they could have made small, portable cartridges all along.
Yeah while I loved my gameboy (was a Christmas gift from my grandma) I was sometimes sand about the ports of certain games.
@@davidm4566 It's still crazy to me that they made the NES cartridges that size instead of just going with the Famicom style size. Apparently it was part of their attempt to market the NES in the US less as a video game system by making it look boxier like a VCR. It's very interesting considering that nowadays the Western market absolutely LOVES the idea of shrinking down technology more and more to fit inside your pocket or a tiny device.
@@THENAMEISQUICKMANblame Atari, they killed videogames in the West
Congrats on the soon 1million subs Gaming Historian! You made history been a fan since the old days of TH-cam and Retroware. :D
Thanks, Alex. Almost there! And right around the 15 year anniversary of the show. Seems fitting!
It only shows 999K subscribers. You're a bit early.
I was just about to give you an early congrats as well, your vids are great and you deserve every single one of those subs :)
@@GamingHistorian Congratulations on 1M m8!!
@@GamingHistorian you have now reached 1 Million subscriber! Congratulations!!! Looking forward for more high quality documentaries in the future. Thank you for your hardwork!
the express looked so clean compared to all the other handhelds competing with nintendo at the time. Love the design!
I would love to see you do a episode on the LYNX, you're always super thorough and entertaining!
From researching this topic, I certainly learned more about the Lynx. I'd love to cover it in the future!
I got to try a Lynx once. Some graphically impressive (as I remember it) airplane shooter It was a friends way older brother, I never seen another but it definitely left an impression
@@MichaelWilliams85 I loved my LYNX, I kept joking when I was younger that when it broke, I am going to use it as a snowboard
@@MichaelWilliams85 Blue Lightning it was. It was even shown in the video!
@@GamingHistorian The portable console you can take to the restroom! For anyone who remembers the ad.
This reminds me of the Sega Nomad, which was a portable Genesis. It isn't super top of mind in retro gaming, but I think I still have mine floating around the house in a box somewhere.
That’s exactly what it was!
0:58 This had to be what inspired The Super Game Boy & other Nintendo lock-on technology like The Rumble Pack.
My thoughts too
The 3D animation is done really well. Top notch quality!
fake ass kissing comment
I would've loved a portable nes at the time
I "made" one, not as cool as this, but it worked. For long car trips i had gone to tandy/radioshack and gotten a 9v power supply that connected to the lighter socket in my dads car, and we had a little black and white tv that also plugged into a lighter socket, so i made up a cable that went from the regular tv rf aerial input to the headphone jack style one the portable tv, so i could sit in the back of my dads ford fairlane (it had a lighter socket in each door trim and another in the back of the centre console.. It was the 80's 😂 and play super mario 3 while we drove interstate on a fishing trip or similar. Was pretty good at the time, sat the tv on the centre console the nes on the back seat and had hours of fun. When we got a new car i was upset because it didnt have any rear lighter sockets, so i had to make do with gameboy in the car, which was difficult to see at the best of times let alone at night and made me feel sick looking down at it
@@Colt45hatchback TLDR? The dude "made" a "portable" NES by using already invented lighter socket cables while playing it through a television… Making it not anything close to portable… Unless the original NES itself is considered portable because you can plug it in to any place that gives power and has a television set
@@cineMADvocate Wow, who shit in your cereal this morning? It's a more portable NES than many of us had at the time! Why does it offend you so?
check out a system called the "GAME BOY" lol
@@cineMADvocate well its portable in a sense that you can play it while not at home. A portable tv is just a small tv that goes in a lighter socket or batterys Same shit. No ones car has a mains power socket from factory. It worked in the sense that i could play it in the car.
8:43 the Retro Duo Portable is a pretty underrated little device. Playing SNES games on the go is fantastic.
I'm glad the concept of turning consoles into portables is still relevant today in the gamecube/wii scenes, surprised not many people have delved into making older consoles portable aswell, where is my portable snes?!
Great video as always, keep it up ❤️
Technically, the aforementioned RDP from Norm's video is actually a portable SNES. It was shown playing an NES game in the video, but that’s actually made possible by way of an adapter. There is also an adapter for the Sega Genesis, though this adapter is not made by the same company. I should know. I have the RDP and all of these adapters. The RDP comes with an adapter for playing NES games, but that was not always the case. Originally, you would have had to purchase it separately. However, I would personally recommend buying a much better (and much smaller) NES adapter from the same company which produces the SG adapter. They're called RETROBIT. Check it out for yourself.
There are some third party options available at least in terms of a portable SNES. The Hyperkin Supaboy comes to mind.
Over on the Element14 youtube channel, I think Ben Heck did a portable N64, Dreamcast, Atari 2600, and knockoff NES.
With emulation you can basically have all of those old games on any portable device, the only issue is controls. Bluetooth controllers are an option but they are not super reliable with phones and tablets and on screen touch controlls are totally wack. There exist things that have built in controller and can receive real cartridges', but it's such a niche market it will never be mass produced.
@@no_nameyouknow and now we have the steam deck, which is powerful enough for even switch emulation.
Just when I think I know everything about video game history, you have more to teach me. Did not know about this thing at all. Dude was ahead of his time.
Dang, Norman. I always get excited to see when you uploaded a new video, and you never fail to deliver with the quality of your content. If these short form videos means that we get to see new videos from you more frequently, I am completely on board. These are the perfect length to watch with a cup of coffee before I have to go to work.
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Wow, this is so cool. I assumed cutting boards down for portable console mods was pretty new, but it predates the modding scene by a decade.
If anyone's interested in how these kinds of mods are made today, GingerOfOz has some great videos of his projects - some practical, like a handheld PS2, to the more ridiculous all-in-one Wii Fit board.
This is an excellent video, as usual! Thanks Norm!
So, funny story about that Biederman Game Boy to NES converter - I saw it in EGM when I got the issue as a kid, but... French is my first language, and at the time, I didn't know what the word "prototype" meant. I told my parents and older sisters to be on the lookout for that converter, because I desperately wanted to play my Game Boy games on a bigger screen.
I even got an excited call once from my sister, saying she thought she had spotted it - but no, it was actually Dr. Mario. :D
Anyway, years later I found the article again, realized I had put people on the lookout for a dang prototype that never saw the light of day....... oh well, I got the Super Game Boy eventually.
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Another fantastic story! Thanks for all the great content!! Keep up the good work!!
Thank you, Robert!
This is one of the few channels where no matter what the new content is, I go to watch it as soon as I can.
02:13 I didn't know with which you could speed up / slow down NES Games. That's a pretty good idea imo!
This is one of the best videos so far. Those 3d animations are amazing!
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You see DIY projects like this all the time now, but that was very impressive in 1990!!
Man, I love your videos. Such excellent research and presentation. Thank you for all you do, and congrats on the soon-to-be one million subs. It's well-deserved.
I appreciate the kind words, thank you!
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Wow, this brought back memories! I think I still have that EGM magazine with Hudson Hawk on the cover that talks about the Express. Great video as always!
I never even knew this device existed. So for me, this is not forgotten, this is, freshly discovered. Can't forget about something that you never knew existed in the first place.
I don’t believe it unless I see it. Paul would’ve produced it and shown it off to someone by now.
Same. Nintendo Power subscriber starting from the Dragon Warrior 1 deal, and to my knowledge they never covered it. Gee, I wonder why.
Uhh, it never DID exist....
@@BendsteinbergerHe did, he showed it to Nintendo, and they rejected his idea, and a lot of the time, you legally can't show things like that to the public, especially if the company you pitched it to, who it runs on, rejected it- But that's the thing, he did show it to people outside of Nintendo, and the video even mentions it. He showed it to several gaming magazines and told his story and they even wrote pieces on it at the time.
You're not the only one in this world, so forgotten is apt.
Thank goodness for all the engineers, designers, musicians, and programmers who worked long hours in the gaming industry. Making the world infinitely less boring to live in.
These guys poured their hearts and souls, time, and money into the portable, and when they were rejected by Nintendo, they just went 🤷
Respect. They were driven by passion and not profits.
Thanks to the historians too
I'd rather all those people have to not slave away their lives so I could be slightly less bored.
There are other recreations you can do aside from gaming lol 🙄🤣😴
Thanks for pharmaceuticals that keep me away from the real world
"It would have prevented customers going out and buying a colour handeld like the Atari Lynx" - NO ONE BOUGHT AN ATARI LYNX!
I’m 30 years old and have never heard ANYONE speak on the Lynx. Flop handheld as far as I’m concerned.
I had one. Relax
I had one too, and so did a couple of other friends of mine. Sure the Game Boy and the Game Gear were more successful.
I always enjoyed your videos and the time you put into your research. As a kid that grew up in the 90's I love learning what went into the creation of all my favorite consoles and videogames.
Thank you for the support!
Congrats on 1mil sir. I’ve watched you for probly over a decade and always enjoy your videos and really appreciate the amount of work and level of seriousness you put into what you do. Also I’ve talked to you a few times when you used to stream on FB and you also seem like a really nice, hardworking person and I’m so happy to see people like that doing well.
Thanks! Nice to learn about something I’ve never heard of before!
I appreciate it!
Have you done an NES Advantage video? I'd like to see one about the NES Advantage controller.
And I thought I knew it all about the NES era. You continually surprise with these fascinating deep cuts of mostly forgotten lore. We appreciate your hard work!
Hey gaming historian we… Meaning me and Steve and everyone else on this comment section and maybe even the Internet because I'm speaking for everyone as is my right… think you're the hottest dude on the Internet… We think you could do with a lot more shots where you highlight how big your package is we also think that you should wear your hair a little sexier and greasy… Right Steve?
"The Game Boy is quickly being overshadowed by the Lynx"
Gaming journalism has never changed lmao
I feel like these videos are the only things that give me comfort sometimes.
Thank you.
I know this is just a horderve for whatever project you have coming up next, but I would encourage you to keep up this kind of work. Even video game products that didn't come out are endlessly fascinating, and something I'll watch every time you put one out.
Great video, it would have been worth mentioning that the Game Gear was a portable Master System with different cartridges and that it could play Master System games with an adapter.
That answers my question above lol. I asked why he wouldn’t just take his idea to sega? But also he could’ve taken his idea to specific companies like Konami etc and they could’ve created their 8-bit library with some slight modifications to gashes to avoid licensing issues with the big N
The gamegear was a (very) slightly upgraded master system, it had more colour working ram so could render a few more shades iirc. But yeah, it was backwards compatible with a cart adapter.
4:07 - "Hey Nintendo, could you please grant me a license so I can create a direct competitor to your top-selling handheld game console?"
Yeah it seems like an awful idea for them. As things stood gamers were buying games on both NES and Gameboy. And this would have made them throw out their Gameboys and only buy for the NES. It would have destroyed their handheld business.
You think Nintendo wouldn't take some massive percentage from the sales?
@@JeremySharpSMSG They definitely would have. Or more likely, if they had been interested, they would have bought it from them and handled it all themselves. But it was a terrible business move for them at the time either way. It would have killed the Gameboy market, which was letting them sell similar games to players twice
On the one hand, the idea of Nintendo licensing a premium handheld while having their own budget handheld isn't too terrible. On the other, remember Sega's tactic of going for the budget market with the 32X and the premium market with the Saturn. Didn't work.
@@THENAMEISQUICKMAN Yeah it just doesn't work because as things were with the NES being a home console and the Gameboy being portable, they could sell players the same game twice. The games were always where the money was. They would have no interest in letting players play their existing NES games on the go. I'm sure even in modern times they thought long and hard before making the Switch, and determined there was not a long-term future in dedicated handheld consoles. If they didn't decide that, there never would have been a Switch
I just wanted to say I love how beautifully professional and informative these videos are.
I love these videos, the host, the format, the details, everything. Thank you for keeping up with the quality after so many years.
There's honestly nothing quite like cuddling up in bed to watch a new Gaming Historian video, fully immersing myself in the gaming years of yore. Even if the specific topic in question isn't something I'm personally familiar with, it still never fails to give me a feeling of nostalgia while being remarkably informative.
Thanks for another great video, Norm!
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I'm actually doing this exactly right now and I completely agree on the immersion/nostalgia part! :)
Sounds like a novel idea. Sega had the Nomad and this concept seemed like a winner, sans battery consumption of course. Too bad it didn't take off
The 30-40 hour battery claim is wild. I wonder if that was true!
I got a Ben Ven screen for my 2nd gen lynx.. Now, it's like how it should have been.
@@GamingHistorian It is very hard to believe. The NES on its own consumed something like 9 W of power with no display or speakers. They would practically have to improve this by a factor of ten to get battery life like that, even with expensive batteries.
@@EebstertheGreat It's hard to imagine a semiconductor fab producing something like that in 1990 at an appropriate cost.
@@GamingHistorian Sure, if you hooked it up to a car battery.
Congratulations on reaching a million subs, Norm! I had visited your page just a few hours ago and saw you at over 999k, but then I just checked a little bit ago and it said 1M! Great job, man. You've earned it over all these years!!
I remember hearing about this like an urban legend. My cousin was a project manager in Silicon Valley and actually saw the prototype. This is crazy…I heard about this but never saw it in depth until this video. Well done as usual Norman.
Did you show this video to your cousin yet
False
If some of you haven't noticed, this channel recently hit 1 million subscribers. I have been watching these videos since I was in my first year of high school. So I have seen Norman's channel grow over the past six years. Congratulations man. I love your content.
You deserve ten million subs, not just one! Gaming Historian represents pure culture and history: you're the National Geographic of video games culture!
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Homie be glazing
...
Let's give some respect to the person who prepared these beautiful photo realistic 3D animations of this device, this is really a lot of hard work to make such renderings
I lucked into getting one of those "Retro Duo Portables" and the adapters that accompany them. It really does function exactly like the NES, though it becomes a bit comical when you plug a Game Genie into the cartridge and the "portable console" gains another cartridge-length of height.
I have a portable NES player from My Arcade. It’s nice to have around for these old games. It was already relatively expensive today, I can only assume something like this would’ve been a premium item back then.
As always, exceptional work here.
The man with the killer beard during the Camerica footage is David Harding. I'm not sure what happened to him after the fall of Camerica. Same story with Terry Hickey, one of the senior folks at the company.
Was fantastic meeting the Oliver twins and the rest of the CodeMasters folks on their first US trip (to Las Vegas, no less, haha). It was a fascinating time in gaming history. Camerica always felt like the company was a bit upside down. David and the management were extremely polite, educated people, but I think it turned out about as well as if I tried to open a fashion and musical instrument shop : badly. You see, there is a debate with technology companies in their various iterations. Whether or not they should be led by developers, designers, or engineering minds for projects. Well, Camerica, they were led by managers who did not particularly care for or really *get* what made games fun, what the trends were (especially evident in the move towards 16-Bit), and how to harness their relationship with CodeMasters.
Your excellent work on the Aladdin project is emblematic of their attitude. It was not a terrible idea overall. But the timing was abominable. In 1987-88, and with decent support and building a library of games and potential partners for the device, it might have had a shot. By the time they were pushing it, all the $ was on the 16-Bit stuff, and NES titles languished in the big value bins of KayBee, Toys R Us, etc. Shame.
That would've been incredible in 1990. It looks like the console portable scene is alive and well now, people are making all sorts of portables, like portable Wiis.
Congrats on 1 million subscribers!
Back on those days, here in Brazil, what was often released were portable consoles that used small antennas to broadcast the signal to the TV wireless. We had Atari 2600 and NES versions by Dynacom and Master System's by Tec Toy.
I've owned both the Nomad in it's original form and later an upgraded Nomad with a modern LCD Screen. The Nomad with a modern screen is incredible! Not only does the screen quality infinitely better but it improves the battery life to 9 hours per charge (Yes it uses a rechargeable Lithium Battery Pack repurposed from a LED Camcorder).
I'd love to see more handhelds on this channel, like the PSP, Lynx and Vita.
the Turbo Express deserves a video for being the first (AFAIK) handheld version of a home console
This was awesome as I thought I saw everything twice before when it comes to classic nes information, but I had never heard of this thing. Nice job
Congratulations on 1 million subs man keep up the good work!!!!!!!!!!, Oh and also I really love your videos a lot you are amazing keep it up!.
Gaming Historian continue the amazing work, sir
I've enjoyed your videos from 2020 to 2023.
I have watched your fun and entertaining videos for nearly 8 years now. You have made a wonderful show here on TH-cam Norm, and will cherish the moment you hit 1 Million Subscribers! Cheers 👏
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@6:38 wait… Game Genie was available to purchase at a place called “Canadian Tire”?? What a time to be alive!
Dude invented a handheld NES and the Super Gameboy. What a boss.
That was never manufactured for mass consumption, because the battery life was "never confirmed."
@DontKnowDontCare6.9 it probably was similar to the youtube video of the guy making a CRT gameboy.
Battery life will be about a minute long and the batteries will be very hot to the touch and might even melt the contacts on the actual console
I loved handhelds that let you play the console games you already owned. I used to lug around a sega nomad and an ac adapter for it. I would find plugs and hunker down somewhere fun, and didn't need to buy a single new game.
Love this video! Thank you for doing what you do!
Congratulations on hitting 1 million subscribers!! This makes me so happy.
Fun little topic I'm glad I could help a little with! Good choice on the 3D models.
Sometimes I feel bad, for supporting Nintendo, as a kid and as a retro game collector.
This is one of those times. To be the best, sometimes you have to hurt the rest.
Cheers from Canada
P.S. BTW Just wanted to make sure I go out on a positive note! Great video. Once again you have taught me something new and interesting :)
With the Gaming historian, I always walk away with knowledge. New knowledge, about a subject I already know a ton about.
Thanks for the quality information :)
I laughed out loud at the 30-40 hour battery life. But anyway, with the GB selling 118 million units, I think they made the right call. Yes, the system was "portable." But you would have had to carry it, the controllers, and the games in a backpack. When I was a kid, I had the GB and like 12 games in a fanny pack.
That sucks, when I was a kid we had portable HotWheels but we had to use a briefcase shaped like a racing tire to carry them to go smash or bury them in our friends back yard man!
OK so I tried to guesstimate how much battery life you would actually get out of this thing. The closest comparison would be to the game gear since that is a portable master system that runs on 6 AA with an average battery life of three to five hrs. Assuming that the average C battery is about triple the capacity of a AA battery you're getting about double the battery life of a game gear on 4C with this thing. You could be a little bit generous and say that the master system/GG is more draining than thevNES so you're probably getting 7 to 11 hours give or take.
It was literally mentioned in the video that the second version of the Express had buttons on it so you didn't need external controllers.
Bruh, the fact GB advance sold so well proves there was a market for this. Also, did you even watch the video? He updated it to include a built in controller. 🤦♂️
2:32 this is a classic technique done by modders today, especially with things like portable Wii's. Unironically, this guy was way ahead of his time
A downside to the Express would be that you have to carry around full size cartridges while other handheld had much smaller carts.
There were famicom portables back in the 90s.
In fact, one of my best finds was getting a handheld famicom with a broken screen. The Redant GameAxe it's got a similar feel to the Sega Nomad. Once I had the screen fixed to a modern lcd, it's now just amazing.
It also connects to the Famicom disc system.
8:50. You gotta balance that thing while you play. It’s huge!!!!!
Congrats to the Gaming Historian channel for reaching 1Million subscribers! Hooray! Keep up the great work!
oh man, what a wild find this must have been! fascinating stuff, and I never knew that what finally nailed camerica was their 800 number. Fantastic stuff as usual, norm, keep up the incredible work!
Yeah I tried finding more info on this but came back empty handed. I wonder what that sorry was about.
I was dissapointed about how short the game genie video was back then, im glad youre adding a bit more on the subject in this video
2:49 I like your 3D model of the system. Did you do that yourself or commission a 3D artist?
God I remember having that magazine and drooling over the express
Look at how far he's come! Love the video and content. Can't wait for more.
The greatest portable was the Turbo Express. It was the first handheld system that was 100% a portable version of the main system. I was the only person I knew to this day that actually had a Turbo Grafx 16 and I always wanted one. Good luck finding one for a good price now!
those 3d renders of the express are so cool :o
Congratulations for the 1 million suscribers Mr. Norman. Thumbs up and greetings from Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Looking forward to seeing you make a million subscribers!
Always happy to see a new GH video. Thanks Norm!
Thanks for the great videos, Historian.
Thanks for another very well made research-documentary. And wow, congratulations on 1 million (!) subscribers!🎉
When a gaming historian pops up on your notifications….that’s when you know it’s going to be a good day.
Amazing work as always! This is the type of content that makes the Gaming Historian unrivaled. I have been a gamer my entire life which includes the 199X years when all this happened. I've never heard of this until today.
Portable NES really does what we wanted to play games in anytime, anywhere. This one is quite rare.
And I thought the Nomad was unique…
Lol what?
Man, this guy was thinking 25 years ahead of time before such portable console players even existed. I would love to shake this man's hand for his ingenuity!
you're soooo close to 1m!
THANK YOU! So glad you're back.
Great video! I never knew anything about this Express prototype. It looks awesome, but where's the D pad, start, and select buttons?
On a personal note, my daytime warehouse office job has been eliminated, which has forced me to take a nighttime warehouse floor job. Therefore, I will not be able to keep up with your content as I normally would have. I just wanted to personally thank you for creating quality content that is both educational and entertaining, to appease to my thoughtful mind while do mind-numbing data entry. Good job; keep up the good work.
Norm, my friend.
I can’t truly describe how much I appreciate all your hard work. I’ve been a fan of yours since the very beginning. And your videos never fail to brighten up my days.
Thank you.
Never knew about this, good job Norman
Nice surprise video! That was pretty interesting. Kind of a shame it never came to market, but I guess it was pretty bulky. Game Boy had that real portability factor where you could actually fit it in certain sized pockets.
The Express NES with built-in controller, with earphones stereo plug, and with colour! That's badass back in 1990 (8 years before Gameboy Color!)
portable nes= the P-NES
My p-nes needs new batteries.
Sounds like something FemiNazis would want to cut off, because Patriarchy.
A real TH-camr, making real good shit. Man, you always rock with such a great documentaries. Congrats