My History With Handheld Gaming!

Blogging live to you and yours! It’s your boy TWOTALL4UFOOL! For this post I wanted to discuss with you readers my history playing handhelds. It really got me to thinking about a few things. When I was doing research for the podcast this past week I came across an article stating that Sony was going to end production on the Vita. And then that got me to thinking how much longer is the 3DS going to be around. That thing is going on almost 10 years of being on the market. And then that got me to thinking how did I start with handheld gaming to begin with. I play on three handhelds now when it comes to gaming and years ago I never knew this technology would ever be possible. So I figured this is a story I got to tell so sit back relax and enjoy.

Growing up as an 80’s baby and 90’s kid my mom didn’t really want me playing that much video games. She actually wasn’t pleased that my grandparents bought me my SNES. She felt I didn’t need it since I already had an NES. But years later she learned. LOL! But during that time if I even asked for a Game Boy I knew what the answer was going to be. But when I was ever at the YMCA and if my friends were playing on their Game Boy I would sure be watching. I think the first real experience I ever had at playing a Game Boy was on the Super Game Boy for the SNES. A friend let me borrow it with a few games and I thought it was alright. I thought the games were cool since you could take it anywhere with you but not enough to the point where I would ask my mom to buy one anyway. Super Mario Land 2 was cool but getting games like Donkey Kong Land I thought why? I already have Donkey Kong Country so I don’t need that game. So let’s fast forward a few years.

My younger brother was notorious for lending stuff out to people and vice versa. So he wound up getting a Game Boy Color from a friend. This is around the time Pokemon blew up so a lot of people were into playing Pokemon Red & Blue along with Pokemon Stadium on N64 with that in game play feature you could use. I wasn’t that big into Pokemon so once again I kind of just let the Game Boy Color slide by since I was mainly into consoles during that time.

Then high school came along. My senior year I was working at a pizza place. And I was making my own money. And I was looking at the lineup of games they had for the Game Boy Advance. Then I decided one day to go out and buy it. I believe I sold all the games for it but some of the most memorable games I had for it was Mario Kart: Super Circuit and Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga. If I could go back in time I would’ve picked up Golden Sun for it. But thank god for emulators today right? LOL! Even though I had the GBA it wasn’t my main go to when it came to playing video games.

When the Nintendo DS first came out I thought it was a bit of steep price tag. But I eventually got the Nintendo DS Lite. I had to get another for my girlfriend (eventually my wife) since she fell in love with it at the time. And I can honestly say this is the thing that really got me into playing video games on handhelds. I upgraded to a Nintendo DSi. Then to a Nintendo DSi XL. Then then I got the 3DS XL (I didn’t get the original). And then just last year I got The New Nintendo 2DS XL. I like playing games on the 3DS/2DS but how much longer is this going to last especially with the Switch around?

So this gets me to thinking what the future will hold for handheld gaming. Will Nintendo’s next console also be a hybrid console you can take on the go with you? Will we see another handheld from Sony ever again? Is mobile gaming going to permanently take over the handheld market? This is going to be real interesting I think. But at the same time it all feels surreal because games I could play on my console 20+ years ago I can now play on a handheld. Only if I had a crystal ball back then.

So I gotta ask aside from the Nintendo Switch does anyone reading this play on a traditional handheld? A Nintendo 3DS/2DS? A PS Vita maybe modded? An emulator machine? Anything older? Let me know in the comments below. Until next time! Blogging live to you and yours! It’s your boy TWOTALL4UFOOL! Remember that TOGETHER EVERYONE ACHIEVES MORE! Thanks for reading folks. More great content to come.