Sega Game Gear - Sales and Competition

Sales and Competition

The Game Gear was not very popular in Japan, where it was released to a generally apathetic audience, with build quality issues plaguing earlier revisions of the unit in its service life. The Game Gear was more expensive than the Game Boy ($149.99, versus $89.99 for the Game Boy). The significantly larger price tag contributed to driving away potential Game Gear buyers.

When first launched in America, a TV advertising campaign was used to promote the system as superior to the Game Boy. One advertisement was done in the style of a dystopian film, showing a world where brainwashed players mill about a dark warehouse, playing Game Boys like zombies. A figure surrounded by blinding light appears with a Game Gear, cuing the narrator's comment of "The full-color video game system that separates the men from the boys." The players return all the Game Boys in angry masses to the cult leader, themselves now liberated. Another showed a gamer, played by actor Ethan Suplee, hitting himself in the head with a rigid, dead squirrel in order to hallucinate color on his Game Boy.

Despite its backlit colored screen and ergonomic design, the Game Gear managed just a moderate share of the market. Sega's biggest problem was that it failed to enlist as many key software developers as Nintendo. Although it was the Game Boy's strongest competitor for the handheld market, it managed only a fraction of its sales. The Game Gear suffered from some of the same key problems that plagued the similar Atari Lynx: low battery life and high price in comparison to the Game Boy.

A successor to the system, intended to feature a touchscreen interface, was planned during the early 1990s, years before the Game.com. However, such technology was very expensive at the time, and the handheld itself was estimated to have cost $289 if it were to be released. Sega eventually chose to shelve the idea and instead release the Sega Nomad, a handheld version of the Mega Drive (Genesis), as the successor.