Q751719

The Game Gear is a handheld game console developed and marketed by Sega. It was released in Japan on October 6, 1990, in North America and Europe in April 1991, and in Australia in 1992. The Game Gear was Sega's first handheld console and competed with Nintendo's Game Boy, Atari's Lynx, and NEC's TurboExpress in the fourth generation of video game consoles.

Sega rushed the 8-bit Game Gear to market to compete with the Game Boy. It shares much of its hardware with the Master System, and can play Master System games with an adapter. Its hardware is superior to the Game Boy's, with a full-color backlit screen and a Z80 CPU. However, it resulted in a much shorter battery life, running for three to five hours on six AA batteries. Sega based the landscape design on the Sega Genesis controller and sought to repeat the Genesis's success by positioning the Game Gear as a more mature and attractive alternative to the Game Boy.