GamePro (love it or hate it) has put together a list of the top 10 worst-selling handhelds of all time, which is actually pretty interesting. Sad fact of the day: the GBA Micro was outsold by the N-Gage. Ouch.
8. GBA Micro (2.5 million sold)
While beloved by many and heralded by some as the best of three GBA models, the Micro has been the lone commercial failure in Nintendo’s expansive portable portfolio. First introduced at E3 2005 along with the unveiling of the Wii, the Micro was geared towards the few “image conscious” Game Boy owners in existence. While the screen set a new standard in brightness, even outshining the PSP, the Micro didn’t support original Game Boy games like the SP did, and it forced gamers to upgrade to pesky adaptors not compatible with previous GBA hardware. Even Nintendo admitted the Micro’s defeat saying “we failed to explain its unique value to consumers.”
While the list doesn’t contain any other Nintendo handhelds, it is still worth a quick glance. Call me crazy, but I never get tired of reading about Tiger’s Game.com. I still remember going in Target around the 2007 holiday season and spotting the Game.com taking up valuable display space in the toy aisle. Heck, I even remember wanting one of the crappy handhelds for a little while (it had Resident Evil!). Shame on me.
