Game Boy and Nintendo DS have almost entirely steamrolled the competition, by putting the focus squarely on gaming and leaving all the peripheral stuff to other companies.

That doesn't stop would-be competitors from trying again and again, though. This week, it was Panasonic announcing Jungle, a handheld computer built for running massively multiplayer online games.

Since it seems we're about to do the same old song-and-dance again, let's walk back through the history of handheld convergence devices.

game.com (1997)

The game.com was the first full game system released by Tiger, maker of the dedicated LCD handheld games sold in toy stores.

Released in 1997, game.com was full of good ideas -- in theory. Most notably, it had a touch screen and stylus pen, which Nintendo DS would use to great effect nearly a decade later. It could connect to the Internet for text-based web browsing and email, although it required bulky extra hardware and a monthly fee to do it. Pretty advanced for 1997, so of course it really didn't work that well.

Tiger really didn't seem to know what its audience was. The grown-up functionality and games like Resident Evil seemed to be aimed at adults, but like all of Tiger's products game.com was only sold in the toy sections of department stores. It fizzled out fast.

Photo: liftarn/Flickr

Authors: Chris Kohler

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