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[Eddie-Griffin]

https://www.thegamer.com/rares-abandoned-game-boy-competitor-playboy-revealed/

As reported by Time Extension, the Playboy is currently on display at the Retro Computer Museum in Leicester. Current Rare employee Pete Cox has allowed the RCM to borrow the little piece of video game history. Paul Machacek, one of the minds behind the Playboy's creation, previously revealed he believed the console was lost forever, and is amazed to see it show up all these years later.


I have no idea where you got this from but yes, this is the thing we built in 1989 to show to Nintendo,” Machacek tweeted in reply to the news that the Playboy had been discovered. That's right, Rare had been working with Nintendo a lot and the Playboy was originally supposed to be a joint effort rather than a competitor. However, at the show where Rare intended to show Nintendo the Playboy, the company unveiled the Game Boy.

The reveal that Nintendo already had a pretty great handheld console of its own in the works brought Rare's Playboy project to an end. That the console had been dubbed the Playboy was probably reason enough to believe the project might never get off the ground.

They said the cancelled hardware was based on the RAZZ board, which was scrapped also. But while the arcade hardware being scrapped is disappointing, cancelling the Playboy isn't, I mean look at how huge the the thing is, and it's clearly lacking portability.

Also why the heck is the directional pad floating above to the left with the face buttons below in a corner? how would you even play this thing? Interesting history nonetheless.

 

[Bartski]

sounds like a headline from hard-drive.net

 

[jshackles]

 

[Stitch]

Looks like these chinese LCD things that had 100 variations of Tetris on it

 

[Captain Toad]

Better late than never. You're up Microsoft.

 

[Banjo64]

Interesting piece of history and something I’d never heard of despite having a fairly in depth knowledge of Rare.

 

[chromhound]

Look like the cellphones in the 80's

 

[Putonahappyface]

Holy shit that's nasty.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Interesting piece of history and something I’d never heard of despite having a fairly in depth knowledge of Rare.

Rare brought it up many years ago in passing, but the actual device was considered lost and no one had a prototype hanging around. until someone found one and an ex-rare employee just recently yesterday verified it is indeed the handheld they were working on.

 

[Jennings]

That's just a prototype, something to highlight specific features and possibilities like portability etc. The actual end product would presumably have looked much different, smaller. It's actually cool how similar it looks to the Gameboy in layout and functionality.

 

[CamHostage]

Looks good to me...

 

[Kokoloko85]

Will buy (Hops Into timemachine)….. Day -11,927

 

[Sleepwalker]

That shit looks ultra retarded, I love it

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

That's just a prototype, something to highlight specific features and possibilities like portability etc. The actual end product would presumably have looked much different, smaller. It's actually cool how similar it looks to the Gameboy in layout and functionality.

They announced it at a trade show as it was intending for it to be produced as it was, at the same time as the Gameboy. Maybe the internals would have been adjusted and there would be cosmetic changes, but that was the style they were going for at the least.

 

[SmokedMeat]

I wonder if it was a color handheld?

 

[DispatchNinja]

Best handheld name ever.

 

[badblue]

I mean look at how huge the the thing is, and it's clearly lacking portability.

Looks smaller then the Steam Deck to me and that seems to be plenty portable.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Looks smaller then the Steam Deck to me and that seems to be plenty portable.

Portable back then meant the object actually fit in your pocket.

Best handheld name ever.

It was based on arcade hardware they were working on, at the end of the 80's so it would have had to be in color.

 

[badblue]

Portable back then meant the object actually fit in your pocket.

No, I'm pretty sure it mean the same thing it does today. Portable ("Carried or moved with ease.") meant I could take it places, like over to my friend's or on a camping trip. Just because the OG Game Boy was (barely) designed to be small enough to fit in a pocket doesn't change the meaning of the word. The game gear was portable as well and it didn't fit in pants pockets.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

No, I'm pretty sure it mean the same thing it does today. Portable ("Carried or moved with ease.") meant I could take it places, like over to my friend's or on a camping trip. Just because the OG Game Boy was (barely) designed to be small enough to fit in a pocket doesn't change the meaning of the word. The game gear was portable as well and it didn't fit in pants pockets.

No for gaming, it literally meant a gaming device that could fit in your pocket. The Gamegear did fit in pants pockets, so did the Lynx, granted it was a bit long with the first model, it rode pretty high unless you had deeper pockets but it still fit. They had articles abou this stuff back then.

There wasn't a device that was a "handheld" console or portable that couldn't fit in your pocket back then. Except the Virtual boy, but only Nintendo gave it that label, outside people repeating their PR people didn't call it portable, instead they gave that tot he GBC.