Although the Game Boy dominated the laptop market for most of the 90s, some competitors did their best to ride the crest of the wave and out of Nintendo’s shadow. We especially remember Game Gear, Sega’s bet, which many remember above all for the small TV tuner that we could buy, and of course the color screen, great for the time. But now we’ve learned that the 16-bit Atari Lynx could have been Sega’s first handheld console. This was recently revealed in an interview by Sega of America veterans Tom Kalinska there Al Nilsen.
“The interesting thing and we haven’t talked about it much over the years, Tom, I’m not even sure you know this, the Game Gear was almost not our first handheld system. When we were getting ready to launch the Genesis (Mega Drive in Europe), Sega was in talks with Atari about possibly marketing the Atari Lynx under the Sega brand, so when we were building the booth for the Consumer Electronics Show in 1989, when we launched the Mega Drive , there was a separate space and display stand ready, in case the decision was made to go for the Lynx. And as we know, that never happened, and it was Atari that did.
The full interview is well worth watching and the two continue to provide a ton of wisdom, despite their age. You can see it here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdc7D-73xO8/
Do you remember the Atari Lynx? Did you get it?