While the Game Boy dominated the portable console market for much of the ’90s, there were a few challengers who did their best. Sega’s Game Gear in particular, which many people probably remember mostly for the little TV tuners you could buy, and of course the color screens that were pretty cool back then. But in fact, the 16-bit Atari Lynx could almost be Sega’s first portable game console. This was recently revealed in an interview with Sega of America veterans Tom Kalinske and Al Nilsen.
“It’s funny that we haven’t talked much about it over the years – Tom, I’m not even sure you know this – the Game Gear was hardly our first handheld system. When we were getting ready to launch the Genesis, Sega was working with Atari Discussed possibly marketing the Atari Lynx under the Sega brand. So when we built our booth for the CES in 1989 for the launch of the Genesis, I had a separate area and display stand just in case it decided we were going to carry the Lynx. But That never happened, Atari did it.
The full interview is well worth a watch, and despite their age the two are still very sharp. You can check it out here.
Do you remember the Atari Lynx, maybe you owned one back then?
