ROM cartridge in the context of "Light Phaser"

A handheld game console, or simply handheld console, is a small, portable self-contained video game console with a built-in screen, game controls and speakers. Handheld game consoles are smaller than home video game consoles and contain the console, screen, speakers, and controls in one unit, allowing players to carry them and play them at any time or place.

In 1976, Mattel introduced the first handheld electronic game with the release of Auto Race. Later, several companies—including Coleco and Milton Bradley—made their own single-game, lightweight table-top or handheld electronic game devices. The first commercially successful handheld console was Merlin from 1978, which sold more than 5 million units. The first handheld game console with interchangeable cartridges is the Milton Bradley Microvision in 1979.

The Super Nintendo Entertainment System, commonly shortened to Super Nintendo, Super NES or SNES, is a 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan, 1991 in North America, 1992 in Europe and Oceania and 1993 in South America. In Japan, it is called the Super Famicom (SFC). In South Korea, it is called the Super Comboy and was distributed by Hyundai Electronics. The system was released in Brazil on August 30, 1993, by Playtronic. In Russia and CIS, the system was distributed by Steepler from 1994 until 1996. Although each version is essentially the same, several forms of regional lockout prevent cartridges for one version from being used in other versions.

The Super NES is Nintendo's second programmable home console, following the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The console introduced advanced graphics and sound capabilities compared with other systems at the time. It was designed to accommodate the ongoing development of a variety of enhancement chips integrated into game cartridges to be more competitive into the next generation.

The history of video games began in the 1950s and 1960s as computer scientists began designing simple games and simulations on minicomputers and mainframes. Spacewar! was developed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) student hobbyists in 1962 as one of the first such games on a video display. The first consumer video game hardware was released in the early 1970s. The first home video game console was the Magnavox Odyssey, and the first arcade video games were Computer Space and Pong. After its home console conversions, numerous companies sprang up to capture Pong's success in both the arcade and the home by cloning the game, causing a series of boom and bust cycles due to oversaturation and lack of innovation.

By the mid-1970s, low-cost programmable microprocessors replaced the discrete transistor–transistor logic circuitry of early hardware, and the first ROM cartridge-based home consoles arrived, including the Atari Video Computer System (VCS). Coupled with rapid growth in the golden age of arcade video games, including Space Invaders and Pac-Man, the home console market also flourished. The 1983 video game crash in the United States was characterized by a flood of too many games, often of poor or cloned qualities, and the sector saw competition from inexpensive personal computers and new types of games being developed for them. The crash prompted Japan's video game industry to take leadership of the market, which had only suffered minor impacts from the crash. Nintendo released its Nintendo Entertainment System in the United States in 1985, helping to rebound the failing video games sector. The latter part of the 1980s and early 1990s included video games driven by improvements and standardization in personal computers and the console war competition between Nintendo and Sega as they fought for market share in the United States. The first major handheld video game consoles appeared in the 1990s, led by Nintendo's Game Boy platform.

Magnavox Odyssey is the general brand name of Magnavox's complete line of home video game consoles released from 1972 through 1978. The line includes the original Magnavox Odyssey console, the Magnavox Odyssey series of dedicated home video game consoles, and the Magnavox Odyssey 2, a ROM cartridge-based video game console released in 1978. Philips Odyssey is the brand name that includes the Philips Odyssey series of dedicated home video game consoles.

Magnavox sold a total of 1,773,918 units across the entire Odyssey brand between 1972 and 1981 with a total sales value of around $71,300,000.00. Nearly half of those sales occurred between August 1972 and September 1976 with total sales at that time being around $45,000,000.00 selling 800,000 units.

In the history of video games, the second-generation era refers to computer and video games, video game consoles, and handheld video game consoles available from 1976 to 1992. Notable platforms of the second generation include the Fairchild Channel F, Atari 2600, Intellivision, Odyssey 2, and ColecoVision. The generation began in November 1976 with the release of the Fairchild Channel F. This was followed by the Atari 2600 in 1977, Magnavox Odyssey² in 1978, Intellivision in 1979 and then the Emerson Arcadia 2001, ColecoVision, Atari 5200, and Vectrex, all in 1982. By the end of the era, there were over 15 different consoles. It coincided with, and was partly fueled by, the golden age of arcade video games. The generation also included the entry of handheld consoles, chiefly led by Nintendo’s foray into gaming led by the Blue Ocean philosophy of Gunpei Yokoi and the release of the Game & Watch in 1980. This peak era of popularity and innovation for the medium resulted in many games for second generation home consoles being ports of arcade games. Space Invaders, the first "killer app" arcade game to be ported, was released in 1980 for the Atari 2600, though earlier Atari-published arcade games were ported to the 2600 previously. Coleco packaged Nintendo's Donkey Kong with the ColecoVision when it was released in August 1982.

Built-in games, like those from the first generation, saw limited use during this era. Though the first generation Magnavox Odyssey had put games on cartridge-like circuit cards, the games had limited functionality and required TV screen overlays and other accessories to be fully functional. More advanced cartridges, which contained the entire game experience, were developed for the Fairchild Channel F, and most video game systems adopted similar technology. The first system of the generation and some others, such as the RCA Studio II, still came with built-in games while also being able to use cartridges. The popularity of game cartridges grew after the release of the Atari 2600. From the late 1970s to the mid-1990s, most home video game systems used cartridges until the technology was replaced by optical discs. The Fairchild Channel F was also the first console to use a microprocessor, which was the driving technology that allowed the consoles to use cartridges. Other technology such as screen resolution, color graphics, audio, and AI simulation was also improved during this era. The generation also saw the first handheld game cartridge system, the Microvision, which was released by toy company Milton Bradley in 1979.

Street Fighter II: The World Warrior is a 1991 fighting game developed and published by Capcom for arcades. It is the second installment in the Street Fighter series and the sequel to 1987's Street Fighter. Designed by Yoshiki Okamoto and Akira Yasuda, who had previously worked on the game Final Fight, it is the fourteenth game to use Capcom's CP System arcade system board. Street Fighter II vastly improved many of the concepts introduced in the first game, including the use of special command-based moves, a combo system, a six-button configuration, and a wider selection of playable characters, each with a unique fighting style.

Street Fighter II became the best-selling game since the golden age of arcade video games. By 1994, it had been played by an estimated 25 million people in the United States alone. More than 200,000 arcade cabinets and 15 million software units of every version of Street Fighter II have been sold worldwide, earning an estimated $10 billion in total revenue, making it one of the top three highest-grossing video games of all time as of 2017 and the best-selling fighting game until 2019. More than 6.3 million SNES cartridges of Street Fighter II were sold, making it Capcom's best-selling single software game for the next two decades, its best-selling game on a single platform, and the highest-selling third-party game on the SNES.

The Nintendo 64 (N64) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on June 23, 1996, in North America on September 29, 1996, in Europe and Australia on March 1, 1997. As the successor to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), the N64 was the last major home console to use ROM cartridges as its primary storage medium. As a fifth-generation console, the Nintendo 64 primarily competed with Sony's PlayStation and the Sega Saturn.

Development of the N64 began in 1993 in collaboration with Silicon Graphics, initially codenamed Project Reality and later tested as the Ultra 64 arcade platform. The console was named for its 64-bit CPU. Although its design was largely finalized by mid-1995, the console’s release was delayed until 1996 to allow for the completion of the console's launch titles, Super Mario 64, Pilotwings 64, and the Japan-exclusive Saikyō Habu Shōgi.

The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on July 15, 1983, as the Family Computer (Famicom), and released as the redesigned NES in test markets in the United States on October 18, 1985, followed by a nationwide launch on September 27, 1986. The NES was distributed in Europe, Australia, and parts of Asia throughout the 1980s under various names. As a third-generation console, it mainly competed with Sega's Master System.

Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi called for a simple, cheap console that could run arcade games on cartridges. The Famicom was designed by Masayuki Uemura, with its controller design reused from Nintendo's portable Game & Watch hardware. The western NES model was designed by Lance Barr and Don James to resemble a video cassette recorder. To aid the console's acceptance in stores, Nintendo released add-ons such as the Zapper, a light gun for shooting games, and R.O.B., a toy robot.

The Sega Genesis, known as the Mega Drive outside North America, is a 16-bit fourth generation home video game console developed and sold by Sega. It was Sega's third console and the successor to the Master System. Sega released it in 1988 in Japan as the Mega Drive, and in 1989 in North America as the Genesis. In 1990, it was distributed as the Mega Drive by Virgin Mastertronic in Europe, Ozisoft in Australasia, and Tectoy in Brazil. In South Korea, it was distributed by Samsung Electronics as the Super Gam*Boy and later the Super Aladdin Boy.

Designed by an R&D team supervised by Hideki Sato and Masami Ishikawa, the Genesis was adapted from Sega's System 16 arcade board, centered on a Motorola 68000 processor as the CPU, a Zilog Z80 as a sound controller, and a video system supporting hardware sprites, tiles, and scrolling. It plays a library of more than 900 games on ROM-based cartridges. Several add-ons were released, including a Power Base Converter to play Master System games. It was released in several different versions, some created by third parties. Sega created two network services to support the Genesis: Sega Meganet and Sega Channel.

The Microvision (aka Milton Bradley Microvision or MB Microvision) is the first handheld game console that used interchangeable cartridges and in that sense is reprogrammable. It was released by the Milton Bradley Company in November 1979 for a retail price of $49.99, equivalent to $221.00 in 2025.

The Microvision was designed by Jay Smith, the engineer who later designed the Vectrex video game console. The Microvision's combination of portability and a cartridge-based system led to moderate success, with Smith Engineering grossing $15 million in the first year of the system's release. However, its small game library, its small screen, and a lack of support from established home video game companies led to its discontinuation in 1981. According to Satoru Okada, the former head of Nintendo's R&D1 Department, the Microvision inspired the Game Boy, the follow-up to Game & Watch, after Nintendo designed around Microvision's limitations.

Game Boy Game Pak is the brand name of the ROM cartridges used to store video game data for the Game Boy family of handheld video game consoles, part of Nintendo's line of Game Pak cartridges. Early Game Boy games were limited to 32 kilobytes (KB) of read-only memory (ROM) storage due to the system's 8-bit architecture. Nintendo later incorporated a memory bank controller into cartridges to allow for more storage by switching between ROM banks. This change allowed Game Paks to reach 8 megabytes (MB) of storage, allowing for more complex games.

In addition to ROM, cartridges could also include random-access memory (RAM) chips that could be used for increased performance or to save game progress. A battery in the cartridge would keep the RAM powered when the Game Boy was off. Later cartridges could also include real-time clock functionality that could keep track of time even when the device was off or a Rumble Pak to add vibration feedback to enhance gameplay.

Read-only memory (ROM) is a type of non-volatile memory used in computers and other electronic devices. Data stored in ROM cannot be electronically modified after the manufacture of the memory device. Read-only memory is useful for storing software that is rarely changed during the life of the system, also known as firmware. Software applications, such as video games, for programmable devices can be distributed as plug-in cartridges containing ROM.

Strictly speaking, read-only memory refers to hard-wired memory, such as diode matrix or a mask ROM integrated circuit (IC), that cannot be electronically changed after manufacture. Although discrete circuits can be altered in principle, through the addition of bodge wires and the removal or replacement of components, ICs cannot. Correction of errors, or updates to the software, require new devices to be manufactured and to replace the installed device.

In the video game industry, digital distribution is the process of delivering video game content as digital information, without the exchange or purchase of new physical media such as ROM cartridges, magnetic storage, optical discs and flash memory cards. This process has existed since the early 1980s, but it was only with network advancements in bandwidth capabilities in the early 2000s that digital distribution became more prominent as a method of selling games. Currently, the process is dominated by online distribution over broadband Internet.

To facilitate the sale of games, various video game publishers and console manufacturers have created their own platforms for digital distribution. These platforms provide centralized services to purchase and download digital content for either specific video game consoles or personal computers. Some platforms may also serve as digital rights management systems, limiting the use of purchased items to one account.

A Nintendo Game Card is a physical flash storage card produced by Nintendo that contain video game software for the Nintendo DS and Nintendo 3DS line of handheld game consoles as well as the Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2 line of hybrid game consoles. They are the successor to the ROM cartridge-based Game Boy Game Paks used in Nintendo's previous handheld game consoles.

The Nintendo GameCube is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on September 14, 2001, in North America on November 18, 2001, in Europe on May 3, 2002, in Australia on May 17, 2002, in Brazil on August 23, 2002, and in South Korea on December 14, 2002. It is the successor to the Nintendo 64. As a sixth-generation console, the GameCube primarily competed with Sony's PlayStation 2, Sega's Dreamcast, and Microsoft's Xbox.

Nintendo began developing the GameCube in 1998 after entering a partnership with ArtX to design a graphics processing unit. The console was formally announced under the codename "Dolphin" the following year and was released in 2001 as the GameCube. It is based on PowerPC. It is Nintendo's first console to use its own optical discs instead of ROM cartridges, supplemented by writable memory cards for saved games. Unlike its competitors, it is solely focused on gaming and does not play mass media like DVD or CD. The console supports limited online gaming for a few games via a GameCube broadband or modem adapter and can connect to a Game Boy Advance with a link cable for exclusive in-game features using the handheld as a second screen and controller. The GameCube supports e-Reader cards to unlock special features in a few games. The Game Boy Player add-on runs Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance cartridge games.

In the history of video games, the fourth generation of video game consoles, more commonly referred to as the 16-bit era, began on October 30, 1987, with the Japanese release of NEC Home Electronics' PC Engine (known as the TurboGrafx-16 in North America). Though NEC released the first console of this era, sales were mostly dominated by the rivalry between Sega and Nintendo across most markets: the Mega Drive (known as the Genesis in North America) and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (known as the Super Famicom in Japan). Cartridge-based handheld game consoles became prominent during this time, such as the Game Boy, Lynx, Game Gear, and TurboExpress.

Nintendo was able to capitalize on its success in the third generation, and managed to win the largest worldwide market share in the fourth generation as well. However, particularly in the lucrative North American market, there was a fierce console war in the early 1990s, which eventually saw Sega taking a market share lead over Nintendo in North America by 1993. Sega's success in this era stemmed largely from its launch of its popular Sonic the Hedgehog franchise to compete with Nintendo's Super Mario series, as well as a very stylized marketing campaign aimed at American teenagers. Several other companies released consoles in this generation, but none of them were widely successful. Nevertheless, there were other companies that started to take notice of the maturing video game industry and begin making plans to release consoles of their own in the future. As with prior generations, game media still continued to be distributed primarily on ROM cartridges, though the first optical disc systems, such as the Philips CD-i, were released to limited success. There was additionally competition with games on home computers such as the Amiga, Atari ST, Apple IIGS, and IBM PC compatibles, especially in markets like Europe. As games became more complex, concerns over violence in games like Mortal Kombat and Night Trap led to the creation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board.