When I was a kid, I wanted a Game Boy. Bad.
A lot of my friends had one. They played it on the school bus, at recess, after class, on road trips—it wasn’t just a toy, it was social currency. Owning one meant being part of the conversation. So, naturally, I asked my parents for one. But instead of the beloved Game Boy, my dad got me what he thought was the obvious choice: the Sega Game Gear.
Classic dad move. He was a specs guy, through and through. The kind of guy who read the back of the box and actually cared about things like screen resolution and sound quality. We had a VCR with a remote control when everyone else was still walking up to the TV to hit play, and a 32-inch screen in the 90s—a monster at the time. We were that house.
On paper, the Game Gear looked like the smarter choice. Full-colour backlit screen, better sound, and it came bundled with Sonic the Hedgehog—a game that, by most standards, looked way cooler than Tetris. I even got the “Deluxe Edition” extras: a carrying case, a baseball game, and a giant magnifier attachment to blow up that already-bigger screen. It was peak ‘Sega does what Nintendon’t’ energy—the tagline at the heart of Sega’s North American marketing playbook in the ‘90s. They positioned themselves as the rebellious, high-powered alternative to Nintendo’s clean-cut image. Faster, cooler, louder. The Game Gear was part of that strategy. It screamed performance and flash.
But what Nintendo did—and what Sega didn’t—was understand the tradeoffs that actually mattered.
The Game Gear chewed through batteries like it had a grudge. I’m talking 3 to 4 hours on six AA batteries. That made it effectively a home console with a handle, because taking it anywhere—to school, on the bus, to the park—meant risking a dead device before your first recess.
Although the Game Boy only had a monochrome (green!) screen and basic sound, it ran forever. Four AAs could last you 30 hours which meant it fit into kids’ lives. It was reliable, practical, and it was everywhere. The specs didn’t matter; what mattered was that it worked when and where kids wanted it to. Even the bundled game, Tetris, was genius: simple, accessible, and way easier for new players (and your non-gamer friend) to get into than Sonic or Mario.
How The Right Tradeoffs Made the Game Boy a Legend
What’s wild is that this whole Game Boy vs. Game Gear contrast wasn’t just playing out in store aisles or schoolyards—it was happening inside Nintendo itself. Nintendo had two major internal hardware teams at the time: Research & Development 1 and Research & Development 2, and they operated almost like rival studios under the same roof.
R&D2 was the team behind the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)—a technical leap forward in home gaming. They chased fidelity, performance, and arcade-level experiences in the living room. They were the ones who made consoles that looked good on spec sheets. That team got to market first and helped Nintendo dominate the home console space in the ‘80s.
R&D1 took a very different approach. They believed in what they called “lateral thinking with withered technology”—a philosophy that prioritized accessible, proven tech used in creative ways over bleeding-edge innovation. Basically, don’t build the flashiest thing—build the right thing. When the handheld space started heating up, R&D1 didn’t rush to outdo the competition. They studied the market, leaned on affordable components, and built the Game Boy to be durable, portable, and practical. It ran on modest hardware—nothing flashy, nothing bleeding-edge—but it was engineered for real life. It wasn’t a powerhouse by any technical standard, but it worked—consistently, portably, and practically. And in the end, that’s what mattered.
Meanwhile, Sega came out swinging with the Game Gear—a bold attempt to show what handheld gaming could look like with no compromises. It had a vibrant colour screen, amazing sound, and enough horsepower to run a scaled-down Sega Master System. It looked and felt cutting-edge—a true tech flex—but all that power came at a cost. The Game Gear was bulky and devoured six AA batteries in just a few hours. Unless you were plugged into a wall or carrying spare batteries like a doomsday prepper, it just wasn’t built for the way kids actually played. It was a marvel in theory—but one that couldn’t even survive a bus ride.
R&D1 didn’t win by winning on paper—they won by winning in the real world.
Even though they weren’t technically first to market with a handheld that supported interchangeable cartridges (that was Milton Bradley’s Microvision, if you’re curious), and even though the Game Boy didn’t “wow” in the spec wars, R&D1 nailed something fundamental: how real kids would actually use their product. They knew kids weren’t playing based on screen resolution; kids were playing in the backseat of cars, in the cafeteria, and under the covers with a flashlight. They needed something that could go anywhere, not just look good in a commercial.
And that philosophy—prioritizing context, constraints, and actual user behavior—is why the Game Boy crushed not just the Game Gear, but pretty much every handheld competitor for the next decade.
Great Design Starts with What You Leave Out
My dad meant well. He wasn’t trying to zig when the world zagged—he genuinely thought he was getting us the best thing. And if you lined them up side by side, he probably was. The Game Gear looked superior in every way except the one thing that mattered most: usability.
It was a classic specs-first decision, and honestly, a very understandable one. He was the kind of guy who paid attention to detail, who appreciated new tech, and who wanted to give us something impressive. But in this case, the context got lost because he was buying a portable system that wasn’t really portable. Not in a kid’s world, anyway. And while I played in my bedroom from time to time (usually plugged into a wall outlet), every other kid at school was swapping Game Boy cartridges on the bus, at recess, and during lunch. They had the less powerful device—but they actually got to use it.
This is exactly what Nintendo’s R&D1 team understood better than anyone. It’s not that they couldn’t match Sega on specs—they probably could’ve. But they knew that chasing raw power would come at the expense of usability, affordability, and battery life. And they made a conscious choice: prioritize the experience, not just the hardware. So instead, they leaned into smart, user-centered tradeoffs. They gave up the better screen, better sound, and horsepower in exchange for something more valuable: battery life, durability, and real-world portability. They didn’t just build a better device—they built a better experience rooted in how kids actually played.
That’s the key: Great design means letting go of what looks good on paper and focusing on what makes something useful, usable, and used. It’s not about maxing out specs—it’s about picking the right constraints and nailing the tradeoffs that matter to your audience. The Kindle isn’t more powerful than an iPad, but it’s better at what its users actually want: reading without distractions. The Switch 2 doesn’t lead on specs, but it leads where it counts: how people actually live and play. Great products succeed not because they do everything, but because they do the right things in the right context.
So whether you’re building hardware, software, or anything in between, stop thinking like a comparison chart. Step outside the conference room. Talk to your users. Watch how they live. You might be falling in love with features no one will ever benefit from.
You might be designing a Game Gear… when the world really needs a Game Boy.