It obviously wasn’t possible to carry a full-fledged console such as a PlayStation around, so that is when console companies came up with the idea of creating handheld consoles, the kind that you could carry around wherever you went. This revolutionized the gaming industry and the units that these consoles sold were insane. Even today, we miss those times when we would carry our favorite handheld consoles around and indulge in all our favorite video games.
Some of these consoles also allowed you to connect to the internet and browse your favorite social media apps such as Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) which would make things a lot more exciting. The same is with the consoles you would get these days such as a PlayStation 5 or an Xbox One Series that allows you to connect to the internet so that you could download all your favorite games. However, you would have to make sure that you are connected to a reliable internet service so it would be a smart idea to look into Xfinity Internet Packages to make sure that you download all your favorite games as quickly as possible.
Coming back to handheld consoles, today we will be talking about some of the most iconic portable consoles that we have seen to date. This is going to be an interesting one so make sure that you stick around all the way to the end. So without any further ado, let’s get into it!
Gameboy Advance SP
The Gameboy came out in the early 2000s and it was definitely one of Nintendo’s best creations. It featured a plethora of games that you could play which included iconic series such as Mario and even featured games such as Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories which was later remastered to Kingdom Hearts RE: Chain of Memories. The thing that set the Gameboy apart was the colored screen that it offered, which made gaming a lot more interesting.
The console was also pretty compact in size and the screen flipped open, which made it fairly easier to carry it around with you. The console was a game changer since it eliminated the need for you to carry a whole console and its wires around, all you needed was the Gameboy and some of its game cartridges.
PlayStation Portable
A couple of years later, Sony came out with the brilliant idea of inventing the PlayStation Portable (which was commonly known as the PSP), and at the time the console seemed like something straight out of the future. The console came after the release of the PlayStation 2, which is known to be Sony’s bestselling console of all time. The PSP was compact and it gave us some of the most iconic games of all time such as Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep and Tekken 6.
This is where Sony introduced the concept of UMDs (Universal Media Discs) which were relatively smaller and compact CDs. However, you also had the option of storing video games in Sony’s own Memory Sticks called MagicGate Memory Sticks. They were also responsible for holding all your saved data, eliminating the need for a Memory Card as you needed back with the PSOne and PS2. You could also access other forms of media such as storing music on your PSP and even watching movies on it.
The PSP was definitely way ahead of its time and even today, we have some very fond memories with the console. Even today if we could get our hands on a PSP, it is very likely that we would put in our favorite games and play them just like we did all those years ago.
Nintendo 3DS
Just like always, Nintendo never held back when it came to handheld consoles. The same was the case with the 3DS which was rectangular in shape and featured not just one but two interactive touchscreens. It featured some pretty cool games such as Cooking Mama and Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance.
Though this console was relatively larger, it was still pretty easy to carry around and would keep you busy in situations that would be awfully boring. Easy to say that we miss the time when we would carry our vibrant 3DS around and set a statement just by whipping it out.
PS Vita
The Vita came out around the time of the PlayStation 3 and it was a futuristic approach to the already existing PSP. The Vita came with a touchscreen and a touchpad at the back, the kind that you would find on a PS4 or a PS5 controller. It also had some fun games that you could play, for instance, you could play Uncharted Golden Abyss on it which was a side story to the super popular game series, Uncharted.
Conclusive Note
The introduction of handheld consoles really revolutionized the gaming industry. Initially, we could only imagine a world where we could carry our consoles with us everywhere we went but the advent of handheld consoles finally made it possible for us!
