There was demonstration one in our local Kmart in the electronics section. It had sonic the hedgehog on it. Everytime my mom would take us to the mall, I would beeline for the Game Gear and Gameboy they had and play until she got me.
Love and hate, for sure.
As a kid it was the coolest thing ever, but the thing was a battery eating machine, so it was always a struggle to get my parents to buy a new set. Eventually they got me an A/C adapter which was… somewhat compatible. It fit, but shake it a little too much and POP, game reset. And of course that always happened after beating a tough boss. 20 years later I’m still annoyed.
I hope I can find mine tucked in some old drawer at my grandma’s and give it a well-deserved overhaul.
I had a friend who had one and it looked amazing! Just like a real console attached to a TV, and indeed it was basically a portable Sega Master System in design. I only had a gray-scale GameBoy so the display on the Game Gear was incredible by comparison.
I do remember my joy, when finding out that instead of feeding it with batteries, I could even use the power adapter of the master system to play with the Gamegear. 😄
I’ve got a one that has long since died due to the leaky capacitors. Tried to resurrect it but no luck so far. May look to salvage the chips for a full mainboard replacement at some point.
Never knew anyone with one, but I always wanted one when I was a kid. Magazine coverage made them look awesome. Now I’m old and still want one! But it seems they’re a bit high maintenance…
I had a friend who had one in college my freshman year. He brought it to show off and until that point I had no idea they even existed. Mind you, this was about 2013, so it was already “retro” at the time, but me, my roommate, and a few others present thought it was awesome and were going to try to find our own on EBay…right up until it died half an hour later and he had to replace ALL SIX of its AA batteries.
I’ve emulated some of the games, but I don’t have the money to buy one at the moment. I would like to get one, though.
Bought mine in the 90’s from a high school friend. Got the car adapter and it was a lifesaver for the family road trips which we did a lot of back then. I kept it even though it stopped working years ago. Then learned how to recap it during the pandemic and got hooked to console modding. That was a slippery slope. I’ve since bought, fixed, and customized 6 game gears with custom-painted shells and installed the different variations of screen and power upgrades. Now I find broken consoles and fix/upgrade them as a hobby. There’s something so satisfying about bringing life back to gaming hardware that people have given up on.
Thank you for doing this. It’s so cool to bring new life to old systems.
