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Nintendo has never reused the same primary display aspect ratio between Handheld families

ThereAreFourNaan

ThereAreFourNaan

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Nov 8, 2017
13,099
Note: I am operationally defining a "family" as systems with between which there is a vast majority of mutual compatibility in software terms, and they acted as, for all intents and purposes, a single "generation" of handheld, regardless of upgraded models. GB and GBC are considered the same family, DS and DSi are considered the same family, and so on. Some of their upgraded systems are a little more or a little less mutually compatible, but I don't think I'm being very controversial as defining them as a family.

  • Game Boy: 10:9 Ratio (160 x 144)
  • Virtual Boy: 12:7 Ratio (384 x 226)
  • Game Boy Advance: 3:2 Ratio (240 x 160)
  • DS: 4:3 Ratio (256 x 192)
  • 3DS: 5:3 Ratio (400 x 240)
  • Switch: 16:9 Ratio (1280 x 720)

If we include secondary displays, the DS and 3DS secondary screens are both 4:3 ratios, which is the only reuse I could find. I was unable to find data on game & watch resolutions easily, so if anyone has that info it would be appreciated, although I don't usually consider that to be a proper Handheld gaming console in the same sense the others are because it didn't have interchangeable carts.
 
OP
OP
ThereAreFourNaan

ThereAreFourNaan

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Nov 8, 2017
13,099
JustJavi said:
Can't believe I've never thought about it until now. Thanks OP!
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I was randomly thinking about how annoying it was that the GBA, DS and 3DS didn't share a common aspect ratio so that playing each one on subsequent systems (via back compat or virtual console) meant either blurry upscales or playing it with thick black borders. So I got curious and logged all the resolutions then worked out the ratios. I was pretty surprised, especially with the real slapdash aspect ratios on the GB and Virtual Boy. Even 3DS is wierd, like who uses 5:3?
 

mclem

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,449
ThereAreFourNaan said:
Note: I am operationally defining a "family" as systems with between which there is a vast majority of mutual compatibility in software terms, and they acted as, for all intents and purposes, a single "generation" of handheld, regardless of upgraded models. GB and GBC are considered the same family, DS and DSi are considered the same family, and so on. Some of their upgraded systems are a little more or a little less mutually compatible, but I don't think I'm being very controversial as defining them as a family.

  • Game Boy: 10:9 Ratio (160 x 144)
  • Virtual Boy: 12:7 Ratio (384 x 226)
  • Game Boy Advance: 3:2 Ratio (240 x 160)
  • DS: 4:3 Ratio (256 x 192)
  • 3DS: 5:3 Ratio (400 x 240)
  • Switch: 16:9 Ratio (1280 x 720)

If we include secondary displays, the DS and 3DS secondary screens are both 4:3 ratios, which is the only reuse I could find. I was unable to find data on game & watch resolutions easily, so if anyone has that info it would be appreciated, although I don't usually consider that to be a proper Handheld gaming console in the same sense the others are because it didn't have interchangeable carts.
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I'm not sure you could call the G&W's setup a 'resolution', given the 'graphics' are dependent on how the LCD was fashioned. I guess if you did want a metric you could work with you could talk in terms of the number of distinct standalone elements.

OxwzTRg.png


I guess you should count each individual element as a 'pixel' in this context, although I'm not sure if internally things like "GAME A" are one element or five distinct ones. Also this shot doesn't show the full seven-segment displays for the numbers.
 
OP
OP
ThereAreFourNaan

ThereAreFourNaan

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Nov 8, 2017
13,099
mclem said:
I'm not sure you could call the G&W's setup a 'resolution', given the 'graphics' are dependent on how the LCD was fashioned. I guess if you did want a metric you could work with you could talk in terms of the number of distinct standalone elements.



I guess you should count each individual element as a 'pixel' in this context, although I'm not sure if internally things like "GAME A" are one element or five distinct ones.
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You're absolutely right, I guess in my mind I merely am referring to the relative ratio of the width and height of the viewing element, whether or not in the case of the G&W those correspond to actual display elements. That does explain why I couldn't easily look up the resolution, haha!
 
Jodast

Jodast

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Oct 25, 2017
165
ThereAreFourNaan said:
Even 3DS is wierd, like who uses 5:3?
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Not a lot these days, but back around when the 3DS was released it was pretty common for mid to high end Android smartphones to have 5:3 aspect ratio screens, typically running at 800x480.

Edit: Funny enough, I just remembered the first few iPhones also had the same 3:2 aspect ratio the GBA used, albeit at 480x320.
 
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OP
ThereAreFourNaan

ThereAreFourNaan

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Nov 8, 2017
13,099
Jodast said:
Not a lot these days, but back around when the 3DS was released it was pretty common for mid to high end Android smartphones to have 5:3 aspect ratio screens, typically running at 800x480.

Edit: Funny enough, I just remembered the first few iPhones also had the same 3:2 aspect ratio the GBA used, albeit at 480x320.
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Oh interesting. 3:2 is a ratio I recognize these days from Surface products that made the switch to 3:2 starting with the Surface Pro 3.
 
OP
OP
ThereAreFourNaan

ThereAreFourNaan

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Nov 8, 2017
13,099
Comparison to some other historical handhelds:

Atari Lynx: 80:51 (160 x 102)
TurboExpress: 40:27 (400 x 270)
Game Gear: 10:9 (160 x 144)
Genesis Nomad: 80:61 (320 x 244, so it could basically do 320x240 with a few extra lines)
WonderSwan: 14:9 (224 x 144)
N-Gage: 13:11 (176 x 208)
Playstation Portable: 30:17 (480 x 272; as with Nomad this is basically a normal ratio with a few extra lines. Content was "basically 16:9")
Playstation Vita: 30:17 (960 x 544; see above)
 
KRBM

KRBM

Banned
Jan 9, 2018
684
Meanwhile every MacBook in history apart from the 11" Air has had a 16:10 ratio.
 
chanunnaki

chanunnaki

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Oct 25, 2017
1,783
ThereAreFourNaan said:
Note: I am operationally defining a "family" as systems with between which there is a vast majority of mutual compatibility in software terms, and they acted as, for all intents and purposes, a single "generation" of handheld, regardless of upgraded models. GB and GBC are considered the same family, DS and DSi are considered the same family, and so on. Some of their upgraded systems are a little more or a little less mutually compatible, but I don't think I'm being very controversial as defining them as a family.

  • Game Boy: 10:9 Ratio (160 x 144)
  • Virtual Boy: 12:7 Ratio (384 x 226)
  • Game Boy Advance: 3:2 Ratio (240 x 160)
  • DS: 4:3 Ratio (256 x 192)
  • 3DS: 5:3 Ratio (400 x 240)
  • Switch: 16:9 Ratio (1280 x 720)

If we include secondary displays, the DS and 3DS secondary screens are both 4:3 ratios, which is the only reuse I could find. I was unable to find data on game & watch resolutions easily, so if anyone has that info it would be appreciated, although I don't usually consider that to be a proper Handheld gaming console in the same sense the others are because it didn't have interchangeable carts.
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Game and watch were mostly LCD, were they not? That other type of LCD, like a calculator screen. So don't have resolutions as such.
 
chanunnaki

chanunnaki

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Oct 25, 2017
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What's interesting about this data is that for handheld emulators, like the soon-to-be released GPi by Retroflag, there really is no "perfect resolution". Many complain about the screen not being ideal for Gameboy, but if it was perfect for the GB, then it wouldn't be ideal for other systems. Very interesting. I guess PSP really might possibly be the best overall portable retro emulation machine.

Good info OP, thanks for sharing.
 
Unknownlight

Unknownlight

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Nov 2, 2017
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If you want to be weird about it, you could also claim that the 3DS has a 10:3 ratio (800 x 240).
 
OP
OP
ThereAreFourNaan

ThereAreFourNaan

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Nov 8, 2017
13,099
Unknownlight said:
If you want to be weird about it, you could also claim that the 3DS has a 10:3 ratio (800 x 240).
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Yeah, that's the number of pixels in the display but it never gives the sharpness benefits of something with 2x the pixel count so I consider it to be 400x240 (which it is in 2D mode from a rendering perspective). You percieve it as 5:3 whether in 2d or 3d mode.

Gosh it's ugly whatever it is though, haha!
 
AndTAR

AndTAR

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Oct 28, 2017
124
.. Really interesting - from what I remember, NoE actually marketed the GBA as "widescreen". I have literally been constantly brainwashed, since 2001, thinking the image was 16:9 - despite almost two decades of looking at it. Wtf. :D

Either "widescreen" simply did not carry the legal obligation to cover 16:9, or they might have used some PR-spun expression, "wide format" perhaps? (They did that with DS - but that one is even narrower format, obviously.)
 
Unknownlight

Unknownlight

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AndTAR said:
.. Really interesting - from what I remember, NoE actually marketed the GBA as "widescreen". I have literally been constantly brainwashed, since 2001, thinking the image was 16:9 - despite almost two decades of looking at it. Wtf. :D
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It's not that weird. Anything would look widescreen if you were mentally comparing it against the original Game Boy.

game-boy-OG__29683.1472745024.jpg

640px-Nintendo-Game-Boy-Advance-Purple-FL.jpg
 
mutantmagnet

mutantmagnet

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Oct 28, 2017
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16:9 is such a questionable standard that I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo changes it again with the next family. Even moreso because that family will be built with vr in mind.
 

Imitatio

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Feb 19, 2018
14,560
I honestly liked the 3DS's display ratio. The XL's top screen is quite big without being too wide. The Switch on the other hand oftentimes feels somewhat too wide for my liking.
 
dock

dock

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I'm a big fan of the 3:2 ratio my Surface Pro devices use. I should play some Game Boy Advance games on there.

Outside of 16:9 and 4:3, I always find it hard to read aspect ratios as anything but 1.33:1, 1.5:1 1.77:1 etc
 
AztecComplex

AztecComplex

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Oct 25, 2017
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I can't believe the GBA has a wider aspect ratio than the DS.

The worst culprit was the 3DS. That thing launched smack dab in the middle of the HD era and they still stubbornly went with that 5:3 aspect ratio (or as I like to informally call it "15:9"). It's the worse because so many games that are made with 3DS in mind and then ported over end up having small but very noticeable black pillars on the sides of a regular 16:9 display. Case in point every version of Bloodstained Curse of the Moon (PC, PS4, XB1, switch, Vita) has to suffer from black pillar sbecause of the 3DS aspect ratio.
 
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OP
ThereAreFourNaan

ThereAreFourNaan

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Nov 8, 2017
13,099
Kapryov said:
Virtual Boy was higher res than both GBA and DS?
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Yes and the TurboExpress from 1991 has a higher effective resolution than the 3DS main screen as well, haha. I think the price difference explains a lot of this though. The GB / GBC / GBA / DS were all quite cheap for their time of release in comparison to something like the TurboExpress, and the 3DS would have had a higher resolution except that it was designed around the 3D display.
 
WhiteRabbitEXE

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Oct 25, 2017
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AndTAR said:
.. Really interesting - from what I remember, NoE actually marketed the GBA as "widescreen". I have literally been constantly brainwashed, since 2001, thinking the image was 16:9 - despite almost two decades of looking at it. Wtf. :D

Either "widescreen" simply did not carry the legal obligation to cover 16:9, or they might have used some PR-spun expression, "wide format" perhaps? (They did that with DS - but that one is even narrower format, obviously.)
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While the term "widescreen" is popularly associated with 16:9 due to that ratio's common use in consumer media and TVs, widescreen can refer to numerous ratios. Generally speaking, outside of the film industry itself "widescreen" doesn't even have a definition. The Academy defines it as any resolution wider than the Academy ratio, which itself is slightly wider than 4:3. So 3:2 would be "widescreen" under their definition, but then they're really not defining the marketing terms for a low cost gaming device, *just* film frames.
 

AndreGX

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Oct 24, 2017
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AndTAR said:
.. Really interesting - from what I remember, NoE actually marketed the GBA as "widescreen". I have literally been constantly brainwashed, since 2001, thinking the image was 16:9 - despite almost two decades of looking at it. Wtf. :D

Either "widescreen" simply did not carry the legal obligation to cover 16:9, or they might have used some PR-spun expression, "wide format" perhaps? (They did that with DS - but that one is even narrower format, obviously.)
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I just remember Super Mario Advance making a big deal about the larger screen in the opening cutscene

 

Nuclear Muffin

Banned
Oct 29, 2017
4,721
It's worth noting though that the actual perceptual aspect ratio on 3DS is actually 16:9, when 3D is turned on.

The stereoscopic view widens the overall field of view to 16:9 when each image is shifted to the left and right.
 
Elfotografoalocado

Elfotografoalocado

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Oct 27, 2017
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Nuclear Muffin said:
It's worth noting though that the actual perceptual aspect ratio on 3DS is actually 16:9, when 3D is turned on.

The stereoscopic view widens the overall field of view to 16:9 when each image is shifted to the left and right.
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Yup, it widens the field of view and makes the screen look bigger.
Gosh I miss 3D. Would be incredible if the new Switch model had an option for 3D like the new 3DS has, but it will never happen.
 
ThorHammerstein

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Nov 19, 2017
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ThereAreFourNaan said:
Comparison to some other historical handhelds:

Atari Lynx: 80:51 (160 x 102)
TurboExpress: 40:27 (400 x 270)
Game Gear: 10:9 (160 x 144)
Genesis Nomad: 80:61 (320 x 244, so it could basically do 320x240 with a few extra lines)
WonderSwan: 14:9 (224 x 144)
N-Gage: 13:11 (176 x 208)
Playstation Portable: 30:17 (480 x 272; as with Nomad this is basically a normal ratio with a few extra lines. Content was "basically 16:9")
Playstation Vita: 30:17 (960 x 544; see above)
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This is great info. How about moving it to the first post? :D
 
Mr. President

Mr. President

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Oct 27, 2017
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Elfotografoalocado said:
Yup, it widens the field of view and makes the screen look bigger.
Gosh I miss 3D. Would be incredible if the new Switch model had an option for 3D like the new 3DS has, but it will never happen.
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I really wish people gave the 3D more of a chance.
It took a day or so to get used to it, but after that I had it full blast for the eight years of the 3DS' life.
 
WhiteRabbitEXE

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Oct 25, 2017
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Some fun facts about the ratios in this thread:

10:9/1.111:1 ratio - GameBoy and Game Gear - pretty much literally just used by the GameBoy and Game Gear.
13:11/1.182:1 ratio - N-Gage - also used by numerous other early smart phones from Nokia, using the same platform.
4:3/1.333:1 ratio - DS - The original 35mm silent film ratio as well as Super 35mm, the de facto standard "fullscreen" ratio, as such extremely widespread across numerous displays and pieces of media due to being the standard TV ratio for decades, though much less common among newer displays/media.
3:2/1.5:1 ratio - GBA - used for 35mm still photography, VistaVision, some standard definition video resolutions, the VMU, Pokémon Mini, early smartphones, including older iPhones, the Nomad (effectively, by display dimensions), Neo Geo AES, TurboExpress (effectively, by display dimensions), Surface, and PowerBooks, among many other devices.
14:9/1.556:1 ratio - WonderSwan - also used for the 5th gen iPod Nano. The exact mid-point between 4:3 and 16:9, and has been used specifically for that fact in broadcast.
5:3/1.667:1 ratio - Nintendo 3DS - popular widescreen ratio in Europe, frame ratio for Super 16mm, the Paramount format, Atari 8-bit consoles, tons of older smartphones, due to the highly widespread WVGA displays.
12:7/1.714:1 ratio - Virtual Boy - I couldn't find anything else that uses this ratio.
30:17/1.765:1 ratio - PSP/PSV - also used by the Zune HD and Neo Geo X, this ratio only applies to the pixel counts, not actual display dimensions. Due to slightly shorter pixels, the display's physical dimensions are still a standard 16:9. Some other devices listed here have similar disparities, but this is a rare case of the pixel ratio cropping up here across unrelated devices.
16:9/1.778:1 ratio - Switch - the de facto standard "widescreen" ratio, thus extremely common across numerous displays and pieces of media. Interestingly, the Switch is a rare example of as sub-1080p 16:9 display that actually has both a 16:9 resolution and display dimensions. Other popular 16:9 handheld devices typically have non-square pixels resulting in 16:9 screen dimensions with slightly higher or lower ratio resolutions. In fact, it's also a rare example of a handheld device (or really display in general) that's genuinely 720p, rather than 768p or a random non-standard resolution.
 
OwOtacon

OwOtacon

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Dec 18, 2018
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The next Nintendo handheld will probably keep the 16:9 ratio if it's another hybrid. That'll be the end of an era.
 

Nuclear Muffin

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Oct 29, 2017
4,721
WhiteRabbitEXE said:
Some fun facts about the ratios in this thread:

10:9/1.111:1 ratio - GameBoy and Game Gear - pretty much literally just used by the GameBoy and Game Gear.
13:11/1.182:1 ratio - N-Gage - also used by numerous other early smart phones from Nokia, using the same platform.
4:3/1.333:1 ratio - DS - The original 35mm silent film ratio as well as Super 35mm, the de facto standard "fullscreen" ratio, as such extremely widespread across numerous displays and pieces of media due to being the standard TV ratio for decades, though much less common among newer displays/media.
3:2/1.5:1 ratio - GBA - used for 35mm still photography, VistaVision, some standard definition video resolutions, the VMU, Pokémon Mini, early smartphones, including older iPhones, the Nomad (effectively, by display dimensions), Neo Geo AES, TurboExpress (effectively, by display dimensions), Surface, and PowerBooks, among many other devices.
14:9/1.556:1 ratio - WonderSwan - also used for the 5th gen iPod Nano. The exact mid-point between 4:3 and 16:9, and has been used specifically for that fact in broadcast.
5:3/1.667:1 ratio - Nintendo 3DS - popular widescreen ratio in Europe, frame ratio for Super 16mm, the Paramount format, Atari 8-bit consoles, tons of older smartphones, due to the highly widespread WVGA displays.
12:7/1.714:1 ratio - Virtual Boy - I couldn't find anything else that uses this ratio.
30:17/1.765:1 ratio - PSP/PSV - also used by the Zune HD and Neo Geo X, this ratio only applies to the pixel counts, not actual display dimensions. Due to slightly shorter pixels, the display's physical dimensions are still a standard 16:9. Some other devices listed here have similar disparities, but this is a rare case of the pixel ratio cropping up here across unrelated devices.
16:9/1.778:1 ratio - Switch - the de facto standard "widescreen" ratio, thus extremely common across numerous displays and pieces of media. Interestingly, the Switch is a rare example of as sub-1080p 16:9 display that actually has both a 16:9 resolution and display dimensions. Other popular 16:9 handheld devices typically have non-square pixels resulting in 16:9 screen dimensions with slightly higher or lower ratio resolutions. In fact, it's also a rare example of a handheld device (or really display in general) that's genuinely 720p, rather than 768p or a random non-standard resolution.
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Really interesting stuff! Cheers!

Out of the Nintendo platforms, I think the strangest choices of resolution/aspect ratio are the DS and GBA.

The original GB was probably just the minimum that Nintendo felt that they could get away with; as they probably didn't want to overload the original GB's CPU (as a result, it was actually quite performant! Very comparable to the NES; and its sound capabilities were actually superior, outside of the NES' addons and co-processor carts)

The GBA was a weird one. While I get that they probably didn't want to go too much higher than the GB/GBC, in order to not have the old games appear too small and to discourage SNES ports, the aspect ratio choice was just plain weird. Why not go wider?

The DS is probably the most baffling of all though. Why not just go ahead and make it 240p? Would've done wonders for ports from other platforms and for all 2D based games!
 
AztecComplex

AztecComplex

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Oct 25, 2017
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WhiteRabbitEXE said:
TBH I didn't even realize it was just the 3DS ratio. I figured they were emulating older games and overscan, lol
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Nope. It's 100% confirmed that it's because the game had to be considered for the aspect ratio of the lowest common denominator which is the 3DS.

Off the top of my head other than Bloodstained CotM also the HD port of Castlevania Mirror of Fate had these thin black pillars on the sides because it was made for 3DS first. Ugh
 
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