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Do you own any Pre-Gameboy Nintendo handhelds?

  • Thread starter Deleted member 23850
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Deleted member 23850

Oct 28, 2017
8,689
Otherwise known as the Game and Watch consoles, I believe.

I remember getting this from a game shop about 15 years ago. My mom tried to talk me out of buying it, but looking back, it was totally worth it. It's worth triple what I paid for now. Just wish I kept the box.

Donkey%20Konk%20Hockey.jpg
 

Deleted member 17210

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The only Nintendo one I still have is DK Jr. but even that's a tabletop and not so much a handheld.
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El Pescado

El Pescado

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Oct 26, 2017
1,921
I own a few Game & Watch consoles, but I wish I owned a lot more of them. I actually have a checklist on my phone of the ones I want to grab on the off chance I ever find a lot of them.
 
Fat4all

Fat4all

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ive never had one, but i remember my sister had a Snoopy g&w back in the 80s that i played a few times
 
skeezx

skeezx

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Oct 27, 2017
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there's a few in my parent's attic. i'm afraid if i open the box my face will melt off raiders of the lost ark style (i'm sort of not kidding)
 
ThorHammerstein

ThorHammerstein

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Nov 19, 2017
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Many Game & Watch titles and some no-name LCD games of similar style (perhaps knock-offs from the day).
 
mopinks

mopinks

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Oct 27, 2017
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I have dozens of 'em

Fire was the big competitive game in the household when I was a kid
 
sir_crocodile

sir_crocodile

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Oct 25, 2017
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I have both the Zelda duo game & watch and the actual watch game and watch. I believe they're both post game boy, though the same year
 
808s & Villainy

808s & Villainy

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I was born the same year the Gameboy came out, but I did have some of those Mattel/random toy company handhelds that had a single game on them
 
Weltall Zero

Weltall Zero

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I have Octopus, Donkey Kong Junior, and Zelda. I remember the latter being much easier than most G&W games, but surprisingly good.
 

Garth2000

Member
Oct 27, 2017
711
I have a bunch from when I was a kid. Now that I have a man cave, I've decided to start collecting ones I don't have to add to my arcade. It's getting out of hand... Lol.

I just got a donkey Kong's circus panorama before social distancing kicked in.

There's still probably about 10 I'm missing, but I'll consider my collection complete once I get a Popeye and snoopy panorama and a donkey Kong 1 dual screen.

I still love to play them too.
 
Pokemaniac

Pokemaniac

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Oct 25, 2017
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I don't have any from the time, but I do have a reproduction Game & Watch: Ball from Club Nintendo lying around somewhere.
 
Duane

Duane

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Oct 27, 2017
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Yeah, I have Mario's Cement Factory. It's in really good shape. I even have the box and manual with it.
 
shoptroll

shoptroll

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May 29, 2018
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I have Donkey Kong, Mario Bros., Mario's Cement Factory, Donkey Kong Jr., and Super Mario Bros. somewhere
 
Ginger Hail

Ginger Hail

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Kind of. I own the replica of Ball they released on Club Nintendo yeeeaaars ago. Never owned one otherwise.
 
Princess Viola

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Oct 29, 2017
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No, the closest I've got is a couple of those keychains that Nintendo (or I guess a company that Nintendo has given the license to) rerelease every few years that have an old G&W game built-in but the keychains are shaped like a tiny Game Boy instead of how the original G&W looked for that game.

The Nintendo Mini Classics, I think they're called?
 
OP
OP

Deleted member 23850

Oct 28, 2017
8,689
Princess Viola said:
No, the closest I've got is a couple of those keychains that Nintendo (or I guess a company that Nintendo has given the license to) rerelease every few years that have an old G&W game built-in but the keychains are shaped like a tiny Game Boy instead of how the original G&W looked for that game.

The Nintendo Mini Classics, I think they're called?
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Didn't know they made these. Wouldn't mind picking one up.
 

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Andrew Korenchkin said:
Otherwise known as the Game and Watch consoles, I believe.

I remember getting this from a game shop about 15 years ago. My mom tried to talk me out of buying it, but looking back, it was totally worth it. It's worth triple what I paid for now. Just wish I kept the box.

Donkey%20Konk%20Hockey.jpg
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The nostalgia is real. That was literally my first "handheld". Sadly angry young me smashed it when I lost.
 
OP
OP

Deleted member 23850

Oct 28, 2017
8,689
MatthiasHjalmarsson said:
The nostalgia is real. That was literally my first "handheld". Sadly angry young me smashed it when I lost.
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Shame to hear that. I'm glad I didn't play it much, I probably would have done the same thing. I preserved it pretty well.

My best friend came close to breaking it for me, though. For some reason he hated the existence of it, he thought it was old and crappy. It was a weird hostility, ha ha.
 
OP
OP

Deleted member 23850

Oct 28, 2017
8,689
I'm also curious, how much did one of these things costs during the 80s? They had to be reasonably cheap back then.
 
shadowman16

shadowman16

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Oct 25, 2017
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I own 50 out of 60 G&W handhelds, boxed and for the most part, complete. A couple of the newest arrivals:
[/url

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2iF8ces]



The SMB handheld is a rare competition only reelease, so it never saw an actual retail release in this form. I'm still short some of the even rarer releases like DK Circus, Egg etc. but in around a decade I might actually manage to track the last 10 down!
 
ClivePwned

ClivePwned

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Oct 27, 2017
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I had a fair few in the early 80s. My Dad visited Japan in 1980 and bought the first one I ever saw in Australia. Ball and Vermin. I also had Donkey Kong, Oil Panic, Donkey Kong Jr and one or two others, plus some off brand ones. I has a watch that payed Pacman around 1983. We didn't have a home console like a 2600 but we had the Atari Home computers (first a 400 and later an 8000 great games on that system for the time) so the Game and Watch was for things like holidays and school.

I seem to remember being around $40 Australian for a double screen, which was a fair bit for kids so you played the fuck out of these. Single screens woulde have been less, plus there were knockoffs appearing pretty cheaply by 82.83. Kinda like the Tetris handhelds in Europe in the mid 90s that you'd get from fairs and flea markets.
 
Fuzzy

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Andrew Korenchkin said:
I'm also curious, how much did one of these things costs during the 80s? They had to be reasonably cheap back then.
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Old Japanese commercials for them show 5800 Yen for the first ones and 6000 Yen for multi-screen ones and the exchange rate back then would put that at about $25-30 US. I looked for some US print ads to see the price but none of them show a price.
 
OP
OP

Deleted member 23850

Oct 28, 2017
8,689
Fuzzy said:
Old Japanese commercials for them show 5800 Yen for the first ones and 6000 Yen for multi-screen ones and the exchange rate back then would put that at about $25-30 US. I looked for some US print ads to see the price but none of them show a price.
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Not as cheap as I thought they would be. I think that is the standard price for most handheld games, though. It is what we had back then, anyway.
 
Ninjadom

Ninjadom

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Oct 25, 2017
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London, UK
shadowman16 said:
I own 50 out of 60 G&W handhelds, boxed and for the most part, complete. A couple of the newest arrivals:
[/url
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2iF8ces]



The SMB handheld is a rare competition only reelease, so it never saw an actual retail release in this form. I'm still short some of the even rarer releases like DK Circus, Egg etc. but in around a decade I might actually manage to track the last 10 down!
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There you go!! Congratulations on the collection!!

My best friend has DK Circus Panorama screen but he's not letting that go. I owned it for a short while back in the late 80's. I swapped something with him for it. Somehow he ended back up with it.

Yeah that yellow SMB version was some promotional competition that somehow involved the Famicom Disk System. But Crystal Screen SMB is also pretty rare too. I like how the Crystal Screen has the original graphics. Not as rare as yellow SMB. Yellow SMB & standard SMB had "updated" graphics, more definition on Mario.

Do you have Ball (original 1980 or Club Nintendo reissue) and Mario the Juggler (final G&W, 1991)??

I think Fire Attack (1982) could go up in value now that people are aware of the negative stereotypes portrayed in that game.
 

Deleted member 51848

Jan 10, 2019
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shadowman16 said:
I own 50 out of 60 G&W handhelds, boxed and for the most part, complete. A couple of the newest arrivals:
[/url
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2iF8ces]



The SMB handheld is a rare competition only reelease, so it never saw an actual retail release in this form. I'm still short some of the even rarer releases like DK Circus, Egg etc. but in around a decade I might actually manage to track the last 10 down!
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Amazing collection. I owned Donkey Kong 3 and the boxing game. I also owned the orange mario game at some point. I still have a zaxxon stick handheld and a tiny 3d space blaster game somewhere.
 
shadowman16

shadowman16

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Oct 25, 2017
31,865
Ninjadom said:
There you go!! Congratulations on the collection!!

My best friend has DK Circus Panorama screen but he's not letting that go. I owned it for a short while back in the late 80's. I swapped something with him for it. Somehow he ended back up with it.

Yeah that yellow SMB version was some promotional competition that somehow involved the Famicom Disk System. But Crystal Screen SMB is also pretty rare too. I like how the Crystal Screen has the original graphics. Not as rare as yellow SMB. Yellow SMB & standard SMB had "updated" graphics, more definition on Mario.

Do you have Ball (original 1980 or Club Nintendo reissue) and Mario the Juggler (final G&W, 1991)??

I think Fire Attack (1982) could go up in value now that people are aware of the negative stereotypes portrayed in that game.
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Thanks :) Crystal Screen games are really nice, and really expensive! I have a loose Climber, but would love to get boxed copies of all 3 eventually (when I can afford to spend the cash on them).

I do have Ball:


Its the original release version, its getting a bit harder to find because of that reissue. I don't have the Mario version yet, its one of the rarer ones on my list that I'll track down eventually.
 
Ninjadom

Ninjadom

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Oct 25, 2017
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shadowman16 said:
Thanks :) Crystal Screen games are really nice, and really expensive! I have a loose Climber, but would love to get boxed copies of all 3 eventually (when I can afford to spend the cash on them).

I do have Ball:


Its the original release version, its getting a bit harder to find because of that reissue. I don't have the Mario version yet, its one of the rarer ones on my list that I'll track down eventually.
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When I was young back in 1991, Mario the Juggler was being sold at our local Argos and I got my elder cousin to buy it for me. Of course at the time I was unaware of the significance of the game, I had no idea it would be the final G&W. I was just keen because the boxart had a modern drawing of Mario on it. Luckily I've kept it in as best condition as I could.

Boxart
MB-108_Front.jpg
 
shadowman16

shadowman16

Member
Oct 25, 2017
31,865
Ninjadom said:
When I was young back in 1991, Mario the Juggler was being sold at our local Argos and I got my elder cousin to buy it for me. Of course at the time I was unaware of the significance of the game, I had no idea it would be the final G&W. I was just keen because the boxart had a modern drawing of Mario on it. Luckily I've kept it in as best condition as I could.

Boxart
MB-108_Front.jpg
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I really love this boxart for the same reason. Likewise I really loved some of the G&W handhelds based on other more popular Nintendo characters - Zelda, DK, DK Jr are excellent G&W handhelds.
Also, I really loved how Nintendo brought back Mr Game & Watch for Smash Bros (and likewise did similar with Duck Hunt Dog and ROB)
 
eddiemunstr

eddiemunstr

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Jan 20, 2019
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I had some of those Nintendo LCD watch games. Not the game and watch but the ones that were an actual wrist watch style.

1200px-SMB3-Gamewatch.jpg
 
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