Atari Lynx -- What ever happened to the trailblazing portable?

The Atari Lynx was way ahead of its time. It was not only the world’s first 16-bit portable, it also contained the first color LCD screen. Amazingly, the Lynx released a mere two months after the venerable Nintendo Game Boy. If the Lynx was superior in almost every way to the Game Boy, how did Nintendo’s system destroy Atari in sales and relegate the Lynx to a footnote in video gaming history?.

Backstory

The Lynx, or the Handy Game as it was originally known, was the brainchild of former Amiga designers R.J Mical and Dave Needle who designed it for video game company Epyx. As it turns out Epyx could not afford to release the Handy Game and sold the rights to Atari who made some cosmetic changes to the design, like removing the thumbpad, and released it.

Tech stuff

As can be seen below Lynx is way more powerful than the Game Boy

As previously stated, The lynx had a slightly bigger screen, albeit lower resolution than the Game Boy. It was also the first console that was ambidextrous, with the push of a flip button a left hander can take part of the fun. The Lynx was also capable of linking up to 15 other systems over a daisy chain connection.

The games

The games are a pretty eclectic bunch. The system has a strong, arcade game representation, and most of them are pretty faithful to the source material. While games like Rygar and Ninja Gaiden were completely different games on the NES, the Lynx version were solid arcade ports. Chip’s Challenge a super addictive puzzler as is Klax. Shadow of the Beast and Roadblasters were great to have on the go. The library is pretty unique to the Lynx and its pretty inexpensive to collect for in the grand scheme of things.

What went wrong?

At first Lynx sold really well, and it ended up selling 3-4 million units, which is not terrible until you compare it to the Game boy ~120 million units sold. There are 3 major reasons why the Lynx wasn’t as popular as it should have been.

Price - The system debuted at a price tag that was $100 more expensive than the Game Boy. While the consumer definitely got what they paid for - however, the typical consumer just saw it as something that cost more than double the price of the GB.

Battery life - Was abysmal anywhere from 3-5 hours for 6 double AA batteries compared to the Game Boy’s 10-15 hours on 4 AA batteries

Tetris - Game Boy’s entire game library is superior, but it was Tetris that was a transcendental game. There were tons of folks that brought owned Game Boys only as a Tetris playing machine

Additionally, the battery life coupled with the size of the system took away from the portability. In 1991 Atari redesigned the Lynx, which made it smaller and also provided an hour or 2 of extra battery life, but it was evidently too little to late.

Is it worth owning today?

I believe so, for the right price of course. The Lynx actually had tons of the great ports of the arcade games of its time. Games such as Robotron 2048, Double Dragon, Battlezone, Klax, Hard Drivin’, Ms. Pac-man and many more. It also had quirky games like Chip's Challenge and Gates of Zendocon that are not in any other portable’s library. While I’m not a huge fan of the low res chunky graphics and the battery life, The games library is definitely unique enough to warrant a look. And most games can be had complete in book for dirt cheap. Happy Gaming!

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