Last week we made a list of what we believed to be some of the best-designed handheld consoles the industry has ever seen. Some truly ingenious designs have made their way into the market over the decades, with some companies shattering what we thought possible with a handheld device, and others iterating on their already impeccably polished hardware. However, with every terrifically designed handheld came a few that stumbled along the way–with some outright free-falling into the abyss of terrible design choices. Here are the seven that we feel greatly missed the mark.
7. The Original Nintendo DS
Although the DS Lite made it into our “best” list, its older brother from which Nintendo iterated from was far from perfect. Its dual-touchscreen design, though innovative for the time, was housed in a body that was very much outside of what Nintendo had done in the past. Its angular, more rugged body was not particularly attractive; combine that with its dull screen and lack of backwards compatibility with original Game Boy games – a sticking point for many gamers back in the day – and you had a system that was a little more divisive. Irrespective of its strong initial sales, which some speculate wouldn’t have continued due to the system’s lack of games, it was the Lite that truly made the DS into the behemoth we now know it as.
6. Game Boy Micro
The trend for technology has always been to see how small you can make something. This was doubly true during the early 2000s. The Game Boy Micro, however, stands as an example of when such a trend shouldn’t be taken to the nth degree. Releasing a little more than two years after Nintendo’s colossal hit, the Game Boy Advance SP, the Micro retained many of the standout features of the SP like the backlit screen and condensed it into a tiny package not much bigger than the actual game cartridges it played. The result was a device that was frankly too small even for my friends in middle school at the time. Its interchangeable faceplates brought on some fun customization, and its form factor was indeed eye-catching, but its meagre two-inch screen (a size only 0.1 inches larger than an Apple Watch Ultra) was simply too small to make the handheld a practical gaming console.
5. Nintendo 2DS
“The Slab” as I like to unaffectionately call it, this iteration of Nintendo’s popular 3DS line of handhelds looked to be an entry-level product for parents to buy their least favourite child. Not only does this device get rid of the primary feature that popularized the 3DS, but it does so in a package akin to that of a Fisher Price toy. Essentially just a slab of plastic, the original 2DS did nothing from a visual standpoint to spark any sense of fun or creativity. Couple that with its subpar sound quality and inferior battery life compared to its 3DS brethren and it’s no surprise as to why this handheld is looked at with such disdain. Thankfully, Nintendo learned from their mistakes and iterated on the product with the 2DS XL, which some (us) may say is one of the best-designed handhelds ever made.
4. Nokia N-Gage
Before the dawn of the smartphone revolution with casual touch-based games like Angry Birds taking the world by storm, smartphone manufacturers were trying to find ways to get into the gaming market. One such manufacturer was none other than the biggest phone maker at the time, Nokia. Their first foray was with the N-Gage, a mobile phone released in 2003. Designed to lure gamers away from Nintendo’s original Game Boy Advance with the functionality of a cellphone, the N-Gage, as you can imagine by just looking at the device, did not go well for Nokia. From its terrible d-pad to its portrait screen that didn’t work well for most games, to its awkwardly placed numerical pad whose buttons were supposed to double as inputs for games, everything about the N-Gage was simply ill-conceived and messy.
3. Tiger Game.com
Marketed as a direct competitor to the Game Boy, Game.com was what Tiger believed would “change the gaming world as we know it.” Safe to say, that didn’t happen. Though it was fairly innovative for the time with a PDA-style touchscreen and internet capabilities, such features weren’t utilized in games in any meaningful way. Speaking of games, many titles that were supposed to come to the system eventually got cancelled, resulting in a games library that felt quite empty. It also felt like Tiger went out of their way to not appeal to gamers, from their questionable marketing to the overall design of the Game.com. Its fiddly d-pad, uninspired structure, and muted colours all made it look more like something to be used in an office than to use to play games on.
2. Atari Lynx
During the dwindling years of Atari’s time as console makers, the company shot their shot at the handheld market with the Lynx. Unfortunately for them, despite the handheld having some standout features like a backlit colour screen, the console failed to grab gamers the same way Sega and especially Nintendo did with their handhelds. Why? Well, look at the damn thing. Put it next to Nintendo’s Game Boy – which was released a few months before the Lynx – and the device looks practically prehistoric. Its bulky and unwieldy frame, boring colour, and ridiculous button placements make it look like a product still in the R&D phase.
1. Sega Nomad
At the top of our list is Sega’s sequel to their Game Gear. Releasing in the fall of 1995, this device was Sega’s attempt to bring the 16-bit wars to the handheld market. The result? Not great. The Nomad looks like something game companies would release during the industry’s formative years and before aesthetics or any kind of design maturity would take place. The fact that Nintendo’s Game Boy Pocket, a device that made it into our “best” list, came out less than a year after the Nomad puts into perspective how dated and clunky this device looks; even Sega’s Game Gear looked more appealing. From its clunky chassis that has an awkward slope, six oblong face buttons that feel like overkill, a blurry screen and terrible battery life, to the Genesis cartridges jutting out of the system like a sore thumb once inserted, nothing about this system feels right. Though the idea of having a Genesis on the go that played the actual cartridges was neat, and being able to connect the device to the TV was very much ahead of its time, all things considered, it isn’t too surprising why Sega discontinued this device only a year later.
What do you feel are some of the worst-designed handheld consoles of all time? Let us know in the comments below!
