Smallball! Handheld Sports Games of the 1970s and 1980s

They were incredibly rudimentary...and eternally lovable. Herewith, a tribute.

By  |  Monday, March 30, 2009 at 12:34 am

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TouchGrove LCD Football

Touchgrove’s LED Football

2008

I was going to make a joke about TouchGrove’s amazing homages to Mattel Electronics’ handhelds being a mighty expensive way to turn an iPhone into a substitute for a cheap old game. But consider this: After you take inflation into account, today’s 8GB iPhone costs only about twice what Mattel’s handhelds once did…and it plays thousands of different games. And hey, TouchGrove’s games are only ninety-nine cents apiece, or about 29 cents in 1977 dollars. The company has released LED Football, LED Football 2, and LED Basketball, but I’m drooling over one of its upcoming releases: LED Baseball.

Anyone out there want to hazard a guess as to whether modern-day portable implementations of America’s most popular sports–such as, say, this Nintendo DS one–will be the subject of any nostalgia whatsoever come 2040 or thereabouts?

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