How child gaming devices have changed over the years

Over the years, children’s gaming devices have witnessed a paradigm shift, with some eventually losing their value and presence on the market. Others however, were unable to stand the competition from newer developing technologies.

From Handheld Water Games to the Tetris Brick Game down to the Nintendo Gameboy and then to the Sega television game, all through to the PlayStation and Xbox consoles, these devices have been a major part of many children’s lives, who were brought up in the 90s till date.

As today marks Universal Children’s Day, GhanaWeb takes a look at the evolution of gaming gadgets that have kept children on the fun side over the years.


Handheld Water Game




Before colouring books, this device was the obvious first gaming option which many children played with by looping small plastic rings onto tiny rods only with the push of a button. Even though it may seem easy, it was actually a difficult task to get all plastic rings onto the rods, as well as addictive.

Today, its rather a letdown such games are nowhere to be found now.


Brick Game



In the 90’s, this gaming device became the perfect favourite companion for many children and it contained a variety of a number of other games on it. The popular phone manufacturer Nokia also had versions of a Tetris Brick game on some of its phones. Till date, Tetris is still being played and downloaded on the Google Play Store and other applications.


Nintendo Gameboy



With the introduction of the Game Boy by Nintendo in 1989, the popular battery powered device was the flagship launch title to Super Mario Bros on the Nintendo Entertainment System.

With a tepid green screen and dull grey action, Nintendo stuck with the Game Boy for long and was rewarded by the industries surprising success. Its successors, the Game Boy Colour and the Game Boy Pocket, greatly improved the hardware, and soon a number of essential handheld games followed.


The Sega Saturn



The Sega Saturn was a 1995 home video game that thrilled many children with its vast selection of videos games such as Sonic the Hedgehog, Virtua Fighter, Tekken 1 amongst others. It then introduced the Sega Mega Drive cartridges soon after.

PlayStation and Xbox Consoles



From the mid-90s to the early 2000’s Sony and Microsoft launched their PlayStation and Xbox game consoles. When Microsoft introduced the original Xbox into the console market, The PlayStation was the reigning champion of the console market which had dominated since the mid-90s.

The original PlayStation was said to have sold some hundred million units, a staggering figure at the time.

Today, both consoles still dominate the gaming industry with an array of high-resolution video games.