Nintendo has been producing handheld games for almost 30 years. It has been producing handheld consoles for 20 years. This is the story of how they evolved from the original Game Boy DSi.

Nintendo began manufacturing single-game portable electronic gaming devices in the form of Game and Watch in 1980. 9 years later, they released the first true handheld console.

Game Boy was released in 1989 and it was a huge success. Its screen could show only four shades of gray and no other colors, which even then seemed a bit disappointing since handheld consoles released within a year by Atari and Sega had full color displays. Despite this, it still featured some classic games, including the legendary Tetris, which gave the Game Boy its first big hit. In the end, it was the quality of the Game Boy games that kept it ahead of its competition.

After 7 years, as with all game consoles, the Game Boy seemed to have had its time in the sun and was ready to be put away with all the other old toys in the attic. Then a new phenomenon revived the almost dead console. At a time when most publishers had moved on from a console, the Game Boy surprised everyone by releasing the best-selling game ever. It was none other than Pokémon.

Unlike current game systems that have variations available from launch and updates every few years, it took Nintendo 6 years to release a variety of Game Boy colors. It took just two years for the DS to be updated with the DS Lite and another two for the DSi to launch. It took the Game Boy 7 years to get a small hardware redesign that reduced its size. This version was named Game Boy Pocket.

After 6 years with no updates for the Game Boy console itself, Nintendo began releasing updates every year to make up for lost time. The Game Boy Light was released in 1998. It was roughly the same size as the Game Boy Pocket but with a backlit display.

The last update to the original Game Boy was Game Boy Color. This was also the first time that some games had been released that would not work on previous versions of the console and in fact increased the processor speed and memory capacity. Of course, it also added color to the games. Surprisingly, the color palette was still lower than that of the 9-year-old Game Gear.

The Game Boy was finally replaced in 2001 by the Game Boy Advance. A completely new and updated console that finally featured full color and could play SNES quality games, whereas previous Game Boys couldn’t run games even from standard NES games.

The Game Boy Advance featured a clamshell design as it is now used in the DS and DSi. It incorporated a backlit display.

The last variation of the Game Boy Advance (actually released a little after the DS in 2005) was the Game Boy Micro. This is still the smallest portable console ever released. Its dimensions and design were inspired by the NES control panel with a full resolution screen in the middle. From this point on, Nintendo seemed to get very nostalgic, basing its Wii controller on the NES controller as well and the DS’s design is based on Game and Watch systems.

In 2004, Nintendo revolutionized the handheld game console again. Rather than designing a console with a high-end processor, the Nintendo DS focused on making creative use of other technologies that had come a long way in recent years, namely the touch screen and voice recognition. Of course, it also made use of dual displays. DS’s biggest hit is the second best-selling game ever, Nintendogs.

The DS Lite released in 2006 was a primarily cosmetic update, reducing the size and giving the console a sleeker design, as well as improving the display.