Game Gear

Template:ConsoleInfoboxThe **Game Gear** (**ゲームギア** *Gēmu Gia*) is an 8-bit handheld game console released by Sega on October 6th, 1990, in Japan, 1991 in North America and Europe, and Australia in 1992.

The Game Gear's main selling point was its full-colored backlit screen, compared to the Game Boy's grayscale unlit screen.

## Why It Rocks

1. The Japanese counterpart to the Atari Lynx (despite the Lynx being sold in Japan, but by Mumin Japan rather than Atari themselves).
2. Most of the games are actually good. For example, as mentioned above, a lot of good *Sonic the Hedgehog* games were made for the system, with a few exceptions. Many are available in Nintendo 3DS's eShop.
3. You can play cartridge games from the Sega Master System using an adapter since the Game Gear is an updated Master System.
4. Sega was kind enough to release a separate rechargeable battery accessory to improve the battery life.
	* That being said however, the Game Gear Micro had a rechargeable battery right away, unlike it's original counterpart.
5. Related to the previous pointer, if you don't have that accessory, you can, of course use Ni-MH batteries, preferably the ones from Eneloop, or mod the Game Gear to have a rechargeable battery.
6. You can play it on your TV with a modification.
7. The console is region-free. In fact, an English version of Puyo Puyo and Ronald no Magical World can be played by inserting their Japanese cartridges into a Game Gear from other region.
8. You can mod the console to replace the backlight screen with a different one that makes the battery life a lot better.
9. The Majesco re-released version of the Game Gear improved screen resolution and battery life.
10. With a cable you can play multiplayer Game Gear games with another Game Gear.
11. The system's size is ideal for gamers with large hands.
12. As mentioned above, it actually had a backlit screen.
13. Speaking of modding, you can improve the quality of the screen by using McWill's LCD mod.
14. Due to its similarities with Master System hardware, Game Gear games are constantly converted to Master System with the intention of being playable on real hardware through the use of flashcarts. They can also be playable in Genesis through flashcarts or slapped as an EEPROM into a Genesis cart PCB.
15. While new games was stopping being released in 1996 for Japan, 1997 for Europe and 2001 for North America, M2 made *GG Aleste 3*, that was specifically released on *Aleste Collection* and Game Gear Micro in 2020. In one livestream, it was shown by Naoki Horii himself that it could run in a real Game Gear.
	* Despite never being an physical run of the game, the game is licensed by Sega, making it the true last Game Gear game released after *Super Battletank*.
16. While the TV Tuner is useless for watching TV nowdays due to most countries in the world already switched to digital TV signals rather than analog TV, it still can be used to connect any device with an standard RCA input into the TV Tuner, including RCA input converters.
	* Similar Analog TV Tuner clones existed for GBA and DS was released as well, albeit none of them was licensed by Nintendo.

## Bad Qualities

Although it was a decent console, the console was a flop, so it qualifies for an article on Crappy Games Wiki.