/vr/ - Retro Games

how did/does nintendo manage to maintain dominance over handhelds? i get them beating out sega and atari, the lynx and the game gear were out of their technological depth with the ridiculous size, washed out screens, and battery issues, but the wonderswan color and the neo geo pocket color were both solid competitors. like look at the feature set:

wonderswan color:
>ports of square games that were at the time definitive, and still hold up as good conversions years later
>20 hour battery life on a single AA
>mail order homebrew devkit that was used to make the best original games on the system, dicing knight and judgement silversword, as well as hobbyist gps applications and stuff
>extremely good hardware design (from gunpei yokoi), worked in horizontal and vertical orientations and feels sturdy while being incredibly easy to disassemble and reassemble
>graphical capabilities that rival the GBA
>some games even connected to the internet through a cell phone


neo geo pocket color:
>god tier stick and buttons
>40 goddamn hours of play on two AAs
>most import games will run in english on consoles set to english, something that basically no other console at that time did
>library is about 50% absurdly high quality games, 50% slot machine games for some reason
>snk bringing legitimately great fighting games to a portable that don't feel like a massive step down from arcade versions
>reflective display, but much better viewing angles and colors than competitors
>wireless peripheral allowed for 64 player multiplayer in games like dive alert
>original games like dark arms, faselei, and battle de paradise that were extremely high quality

the gameboy color was a great console, sure, but what kind of magic was nintendo using to completely obliterate the competition like they did? there's no reason that these two should've failed.