- Hey, y'all Scott here. I've rediscovered. One of my core talents, owning a Sharpie Should have patented this
when I had the chance. Poortable video games allowing you to play games
and inappropriate situations. They make loitering a
whole lot less obvious and give you something to do a funerals Take God for their existence what would I do on the bus
without them human (beep)? No, they didn't make Warioland 4 for me to talk to people. I have to play it. Portable gaming seems like it
was only a possibility long after gaming in general
started to gain traction. But in reality while video games started
to become a consumer product in the late sixties, early seventies and portable electronic game
devices started appearing by the mid seventies with
stuff like Mattel auto race. Every timeline starts
with Mattel auto race. Ever since the idea of playing video games on the go has been just as prevalent as playing video games in general portability definitely
forces graphical capabilities to take a hit but that doesn't make
handheld gaming any less amazing these devices. Let me not talk to people
and a company most known for portable gaming is
without a doubt Nintendo did you think I was going to say Folgers? the Game Boy, Game Boy Color Game Boy Advance Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo Switch all have been leaders of the
dedicated handheld market and have cemented Nintendo as the portable game company
for the past three decades whenever a new company enters the ring all they say is that's cute. They strike a balance between
affordability and horsepower they deem as good enough they may not put out the most technologically
advanced systems but they more than make up for it with their library of games
and asking price alone It's weird to think
Nintendo's best successes come from their portable business and whenever they dangled
nostalgia in front of our faces it's mostly for their home console stuff you don't see them talk about
super Mario Land 2, as much as Super Mario Brothers 2 even when Land 2 was
actually more successful I assume it's because home
console games aged better than handheld ones I just find it odd because
when you look at their history Nintendo's bread and butter
has always been portable games evidenced by the fact that
their first big success in the video game market was just that the Game & Watch wasn't Nintendo's first
foray into video games but it was the first major
success in video games And it all started back in 1980 humanity must have been really
(beep) bored before that. Game & Watch was a series
of handheld games produced by Nintendo, but you
already know that what was my last paragraph about Prior to the mid sixties Nintendo was primarily into (Whirring) Playing cards it is starting out as a playing card company Then moving on to taxis justifiably Nintendo dipped their toes into various markets
until settling on toys due to the ingenious of one of their employees Gunpei Yokoi he designed the Ultra Hand
toy where the fun lies with what you can grab with it. This toy success led Nintendo to focusing mostly on fun and games from 1966 onward and with
the inception of video games being a thing that they obviously
had to take a whack at it in 1975, they released
EVR Race into arcades I've spit games more iconic than that. While EVR Race might not
have lit the world on fire but that's okay Nintendo followed it up with Shooting Trainer we're overdue at this point. That's where Skyhawk
comes into the picture I would tell you the impact it left but I got a letter from everybody the best way to put it in Nintendo's video game ventures in the 1970s weren't all failures some of them did pretty well for example, the color
TV game systems were released fundamentally
dedicated pong machine selling a couple million units combined some arcade games did
pretty well, but at the end of the day, and none them
were really runaway successes and nothing left much of an impact But Gunpei Yokoi struck again as one day, he noticed a
businessman fiddling around with a calculator on the
train out of sheer boredom. Surely more could be done
than just spelling words on a display like this
because of this very moment Yokoi devised a pocket sized
device that could play a game while also being useful in other ways like acting as a clock And with that, he would design
the next video game product of Nintendo's it's name? Well I know one Nintendo
would named bread now. First Game & Watch unit hit store shelves on April 28th, 1980 titled Ball in Japan, but here in north America, it
was labeled as Toss-Up in fact the initial north American release wasn't called Game & Watch at all This was before Nintendo had much of a presence outside of Japan so they worked with a distributor who labeled
the units as Timeout Games see, I give this name (beep) but at least it's upfront
about what you're getting What kid wants to play a timeout? Ball is a pretty basic game and set the standard for
what you could expect out of a typical Game & Watch release but first off, the build
quality is phenomenal this thing that feels like
a fine piece of jewelry like an antique pocket
watch there's this feeling of elegance with them and I'm not really hyperbolizing here. They never felt cheap or just like little games
to keep the kids busy you can tell they design these with that businessman on the train in mind and these don't look at a
place in a grown man's hand comparative to a child's. Game & Watch games were
truly made for everybody a couple of watch batteries
later and we're in business we have game A and game B to choose from game A is all about
juggling two balls at once this is lame hell Game B is much faster with one ball thrown in the picture This is neat hell it was pretty obvious Game B is way more fun now, fun enough to never turn off That's tricky these games don't have an on and off switch and they last quite a long time you could go anywhere
from six months to a year on just one set of batteries
from light to heavy use this is obviously because of
the watch portion of the unit you don't really turn off clocks, but just because I can see this game
in standby mode all the time I feel like I'm doing something
wrong by not turning it off. It's just puzzling they went "the battery life is
great and it has a clock we don't need an off switch" We can set the time there it is I'm done surprisingly, there's not
much to a video game made out of a calculator screen pretty much all Game &
Watch games were simple high score based romps these were games of endurance see how long you can go for I, for one, find it interesting
how much they can get out of such simple technology there's only so much you can
do with these LCD screens in terms of making interactive
video game experiences they truly thought outside the box with these games and made
very enjoyable time killers. Now Nintendo kept releasing new Game & Watch units
consistently for the next few years and would regularly release
them in new waves and series. The first series was the Silver Series the games inside were all different but the shell containing
them looked pretty similar across all of them. Some may have had
different control layouts but they were all pretty
much the same shtick as the game Ball. The series to follow was the Gold Series guess what the difference was? after the gold series was
the Wide Screen Series again, take a shot in the dark. All of the games produced
under the first three series had nearly identical builds though they were all rectangles with rectangles in the rectangles and that wasn't until the next
series, the Multi-Screen series all right, first one to answer wins what does this remind you of? a clam! This is pretty obvious the multi-screen Game & Watch units were the inspiration for what would become the Nintendo DS and not only because of the dual screens but the clamshell design on top of that, these
units were the first time Nintendo utilized their
traditional D pad to move a character in
one of eight directions and if we want to extend
these plagiarism allegations even further, various DS
games utilize the system on its side, like a book and what do we have here? You son of a bitch plagiarists what if they notice? A revised widescreen
lineup was released later and Tabletop Game & Watches
where the hot new thing in 1983 these are obviously responses
to Calico's table top line of mini arcades and to me, they sort of missed the point of the original Game & Watch units they're so bulky and not nearly
as classy as the other ones you whip this out at a funeral you're going to be the life of the party By this point Nintendo
was trying to innovate with the Game & Watch brand. And with each new series,
they were trying to one up the last evident by the Panorama series it uses a mirror to project color overlays onto the LCD graphics so you get more detailed visuals. The Super Color Series followed and had just straight up color visuals the Micro Vs Series were
multiplayer Game & Watch units with two detachable controllers the Crystal Screen
Series had a see through transparent screen if the Game & Watch kept going after this I'm sure we would've seen one
that told us we were pretty and there were a lot more types of Game & Watch than I initially thought but the older series would
still get new releases even when new series were announced I mean the final, original Game & Watch release in 1991, Mario,
the juggler was a part of the new widescreen series,
which got it started in 1982 watching these games being played doesn't do them justice because this looks really (beeping) lame you really have to get these in your hands to fully appreciate them I have a couple of them in my
collection and they're great I of course have Ball the first one ever released though this was the 2011
reissue club Nintendo offered to its members. It's very close to the original,
but has some altered info on the back and the option
to turn the sound off that same businessman on the train would be blaring this
for everyone to hear. Mario's Cement Factory with the original box. Yeah, this looks like the last owner had more fun stepping on the
box than playing the game. Once Nintendo actually
started releasing character based video games that were hits they were sure to release Game & Watch units starring
those same characters. Of course, we got some Donkey Kong ones here I have Donkey Kong II What? This is the only
game called Donkey Kong II Of course, the sequel to the original Donkey
Kong was Donkey Kong, Jr and then they moved right on over to Donkey Kong III the Game & Watch game
decided to cut the (beep) because this is by all accounts heavily
inspired by Donkey Kong Jr in the arcades this is pretty much just a renamed version of Donkey Kong Jr. But they already made a Donkey Kong Jr Game & Watch before this,
what the hell is this thing? You know, I had to own, at
least one multi-screen unit and yeah, the resemblance is uncanny. It has a soft lock lid to
it that stops the screen from flopping out at random,
I guess, which does remind me of the official Game Boy cartridge cases I never knew there were
so many different ways to rip yourself off and finally Boxing one of the Micro Vs units this is cool it comes in a chunky box
and you play by yourself or another player by
extracting the control pads. Come on. This is amazing. Now this was re-released as
Punch Out in North America after the NES title experienced
tons of success, but boxing and punch out Game & Watches
are the exact same outside of the title being changed. Nintendo released roughly 60 unique Game & Watch games from 1980 to 1991 and while they vary in
terms of themes and gameplay they all have that Game
& Watch feel to them. There were a ton of LCD games throughout the years from
companies like Mattel and Tiger and on the surface,
there's not much difference between a Game & Watch game and any other LCD game,
but it's the re playability and weirdly enough, the graphical style these things that make them stand out. I know some might be asking
"what graphical style?" There's something oddly
charming about the graphics here they have such a distinct style to them you barely see any detail
on these characters but their expressions, the way they move and how they would convey so
much in such little graphics it honestly impresses
me how much character Nintendo was able to inject into single screen games that have more in common with a calculator
than anything else. Nintendo create a lot
of Game & Watch games with generic names and setups and the themes in style reminds me a lot of animation from the 1920s and 30's Fire bounced the people from
the burning building to safety Manhole cover up the holes for people to walk over Greenhouse, exterminate the bugs before they get to your plants. Many of these games have the same shtick you have to juggle multiple things at once until you screw up but they're still kind of addictive once you start playing a Game & Watch game yeah, you're not going to
play it for hours on end but I guarantee you you'll keep playing until you lose. Nintendo repurpose many of their IP's that were successful throughout the 80's as Game & Watch units Donkey Kong, Mario, Zelda got
the license to do games based on Disney properties Snoopy, Popeye pretty much did everything they could with this brand back then. Over 43 million combined were sold it's obvious to say the Game
& Watch did pretty well. But of course, when was the
last Game & Watch released? That's right not yesterday So why did they stop making them? I always (beep) hated that thing it didn't have Snoopy Tennis whilst these did well they obviously had their limitations there's only so much you can
do with this type of screen pretty much all the
graphics that could possibly be displayed needed to
fit on this one screen you couldn't make different types of games outside of endurance routes. Nintendo released the Game Boy in 1989 that use different game cartridges and weren't limited to this they were full video game experiences the screen could scroll the Game & Watch didn't
serve much of a purpose with the Game Boy taking off that is you're buying one
was cheaper than a Game Boy it was obvious the Game Boy was the better investment. Now other companies
specifically Tiger Electronics carried on the LCD game
legacy throughout the 90's these were (beep) terrible Nintendo knew what LCD
games were capable of and for sure what they weren't they never really tried to make Game & Watch
games, something they weren't they tailor made them to be fun Even with the limitations of this screen Tiger just kind of barfed
out whatever they could there wasn't as much love or attention put into these things most of their games consisted
of defeat this enemy until you get bored Game & Watch games were made with so much more care
and so much more love and you can tell that with how much Nintendo
cares about its legacy in 1997 Nintendo released Game &
Watch gallery on the Game Boy starting a series of four titles each one contained multiple
remakes of Game & Watch games both in their original forms just remade on a Game Boy screen and in modern forms this time
utilizing Mario characters and some new mechanics here and there these modern versions do a great job contextualizing what the
originals were trying to convey even if most were fairly understandable some games you just said alright whenever you say Nintendo the Gallery Games are great and I recommend them to anybody who wants
to try these things out I think the modern
remakes make it easier to appreciate how they were
able to do these exact games with such garbage hardware Some Game & Watch games
were later re-released as mini key chain games in 1998 the Nintendo mini classics now these are Game & Watch games Mr Game & Watch has been a staple of the Super Smash Brothers series ever since Melee in 2001 and each of his moves references an old school
Game & Watch title. The game Manhole was released as a card for the Game Boy Advances' E-reader just swipe the card to play Manhole two volumes of Game & Watch collection for the Nintendo DS were released through the club Nintendo loyalty program and included some of
the multi-screen games. Not remade like in the Gallery titles just the originals it's kinda lame but whatever various standard games were made available on the Nintendo DSI shop and let's not even get
into all the references Nintendo crams into their games So much of Nintendo's core
modern T & A is derived from the Game & Watch the D-pad dual screens the kickstand instant two player multiplayer and weirdly enough, when you sit down and play these old Game & Watch games you can get a whiff of that Nintendo charm in taking a simple concept and turning into a fun
and charming experience. Of course, with that being said, I don't think anybody nowadays
would answer the question of "Hey do you want to play a Nintendo game?" with "(beep) yeah Donkey Kong II!"
Man, every time I see a Scott video posted here, the comments are just filled with people insulting him. What'd he do to make you all hate him so much, /r/Games?
I feel like since quarantine started he's been cranking out a new video every 3 days (and I am not complaining about that at all)
I had one of the "game and watch gallery" games for the gameboy that had a bunch of them, it was pretty great. I think this is the first time I've thought about it in years.
One of my most Prized Possessions is a Mint Condition Mario Bros. Game & Watch from 1983. While the box is a bit beat up the unit itself is flawless as it was never taken out and played with. Its never even had batteries in it and has all the original documentation. I hope someday to have an opportunity to get it signed my Miyamoto.
I've still got a few LCD games from my childhood from a few different brands; some Tiger (The Sonic game was alright), some Konami (which I remember were better than Tiger - Some classics like Top Gun, Skate or Die, and Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles), and two of the dual-screen G&W games: Donkey Kong 2 and The Legend of Zelda.
Zelda was good enough that young me actually completed it after gitting gud. It was just a neat little action game, which was probably helped by the sense of progression you got by earning Triforce pieces for each level. Just having that big ol' triangle filling up with every level reset was good motivation to keep going, and that's something that a lot of the LCD games (Nintendo's included) never had. The successive levels still had the same "more, faster enemies" progression of LCD games, but at least there was a goshdanged goal.
Kinda want to go through my grandmother's stuff to see if she had any batteries that fit. At least I made sure the contacts were clean a few years ago.