Nintendo · 1989 · Game Boy
"Now you're playing with power — portable power"
Nintendo's Game Boy launch sold the handheld on Tetris and battery life rather than hardware specifications — an approach that later beat the colour Atari Lynx and Sega Game Gear.
The Game Boy launched in Japan in April 1989 and North America in July 1989. Nintendo's marketing made a deliberate choice that determined the platform's success: rather than competing on hardware specifications, the campaign emphasised Tetris as a perfect bundled game and long battery life — around 30 hours on four AA batteries, where the colour Lynx and Game Gear that followed managed only a few hours. Print and television advertising kept the message simple: portable gaming that actually works anywhere, with the game everyone wants. The Tetris deal — negotiated directly with Soviet authorities and secured from competing offers by Sega and Atari — was as much a marketing coup as a software acquisition. Game Boy sold 40,000 units on its first day in the United States.