Handheld gaming wasn't a thrilling experience before the Game Boy. LCD toys were all the rage but lost their appeal after a few hours of play. Nintendo changed the world with their handheld, and many other companies tried to follow suit.

Bit Corporation's Gamate ("game" and "mate" jammed together) tried to meet the Game Boy's popularity by imitating its design. Of course, the Gamate suffered from an inferior screen and relative anonymity compared to Nintendo's internationally recognized portable. Curiously, it used very simple cartridges that looked a lot like the HuCards used to store TurboGrafx-16 games. Because of this strange design, retro wizards haven't programmed an emulator for it.

After you see this brief video review, it's unlikely that anyone really cares.

The truly interesting aspect to the Gamate is that it could have worked. It's a functional device with enough similarity to the Game Boy to support fairly detailed and interesting games. Unlike other Nintendo competitors, Bit Corporation put time and effort into the Gamate's design. It had a similar build quality as the Game Boy, but ultimately, pure anonymity was its downfall.