What really killed the game.com
Entry posted by atari2600land
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I propose that it wasn't that the game.com had a blurry black and white display. Nintendo's Game Boy had one in 1989 and quickly gained success not because of its black-and-white display on a puke green background. No, it became a success because it had lots of great games. Starting with the great game Tetris. (and, to a lesser extent, Super Mario Land). What is the game.com's killer app? That's right. There wasn't one. And there were only 20 games made during the 2 years it failed. Even the Atari Lynx, which many people now don't even know it exists, had more than twice that amount. Tiger made a great attempt, luring Sega, Mortal Kombat, Resident Evil, and all sorts of great franchises, but ultimately lost out because there were too few games made for the system. While it makes it easier to collect for (with the crown jewel, $200 Wheel of Fortune 2), it doesn't make it that fun to play. Just playing the same 20 games over and over again. The game.com can be a better system if there were more games made for the system. Think about it: 8 years after the game.com debuted, Nintendo borrowed some design elements from it: Two cartridge slots, touch screen, four action buttons. Look at the Virtual Boy. It can only display 4 colors, yet enjoys at least a small homebrew community. While there have been exactly 0 homebrew games for the game.com. At least Nintendo made at least one killer app for the VB out of the 14 games released for it: Wario Land. But the game.com isn't some awkward goggle system that needs a stand, it's like a Game Boy. What the game.com needs is one brave, smart soul to try to make homebrew-making software for it. If for some reason, a miracle happened and someone did, I would be one of the first to download and (try to) use it. But for now, all we can do is sit and wait. And while waiting, we can play the game.com, not because it is a bad piece of crap, but because it is a great, yet horribly misunderstood, handheld console. Yes, lack of games killed the great efforts. It killed the VB, it killed the Microvision, and it killed the game.com.
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