Why was there no Game Gear TMNT game?

[CyberCubed]

I just thought of this due to the collection. Many licensed games back then appeared on NES, SNES, Genesis and then Gameboy and Game Gear.

But there never was a TMNT game on Game Gear despite getting two on Sega Genesis. We could have gotten another mostly unique TMNT beat 'em up on the Game Gear back in the 90's and we never did.

[oldmanwinters]

Konami was slow to bring anything to Sega due to their longstanding Nintendo relationship. By the time they began to support Sega’s platform, the Turtles license was starting to slip in its bankability and the Game Gear was also cooling off in the battle with the Game Boy. I’d say it was just bad timing.

[sdp]

That's a shame, in the last few years I've been discovering how the game gear has "hidden gems" when it comes to licensed titles that are entirely original and yet no one talks about them. The likes of Power Rangers and Jurassic Park have better titles exclusive to the game gear better than the GB/NES/SNES/Genesis counterparts!

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

The Turtle craze was almost over when Konami began to release TMNT titles for Sega consoles.

[oldmanwinters]

To my great surprise, I'm not sure if Konami ever published ANY titles for the Game Gear.

They were involved with the licensing of Junction in 1991 (https://www.gamesdatabase.org/game/sega-game-gear/junction) (published under the Micronet label in the US), but other than that, I can't find anything:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Game_Gear_games

[CyberCubed]

The Game Gear definitely had some unique games. Would have been cool to see what type of TMNT game they would have made for it.

[LeotheLateBloomer]

Yeah it is a shame. Truth be told, they probably could've ported the NES games to the system.

I'm also surprised there were no games based on the Red Sky seasons.

[Ninjinister]

Nobody had a ****ing Game Gear.

[oldmanwinters]

Nobody had a ****ing Game Gear.

There was always that one kid on the school field trip bus.

[Leo656]

A few of my friends had a Game Gear... but they never played it "on the go" because of the sh*tty battery life. So they only ever played it while tethered to the wall using a power adapter, thus defeating the entire point of a handheld system. I guess it made sense in the poorer households where they only had one TV; the kids could sit on the couch and play game Gear while Mom watched whatever on the TV. Otherwise seemed a bit pointless to have a handheld system you could only play at home plugged into the wall, color screen or no.

As for specifically why no TMNT Game Gear game, I'd agree it was probably a combination of Konami's Nintendo contracts plus the fact that Game Gear sales were never through the roof anyway, thus negating any financial upside of making an exclusive game for the system.

[Andrew NDB]

A few of my friends had a Game Gear... but they never played it "on the go" because of the sh*tty battery life. So they only ever played it while tethered to the wall using a power adapter, thus defeating the entire point of a handheld system. I guess it made sense in the poorer households where they only had one TV; the kids could sit on the couch and play game Gear while Mom watched whatever on the TV. Otherwise seemed a bit pointless to have a handheld system you could only play at home plugged into the wall, color screen or no.

As for specifically why no TMNT Game Gear game, I'd agree it was probably a combination of Konami's Nintendo contracts plus the fact that Game Gear sales were never through the roof anyway, thus negating any financial upside of making an exclusive game for the system.

Yeah, all of this. Bingo. And I too remember lots of stories of abysmal battery life.

[CyberCubed]

I had a Game Gear as a kid. I only ever had 5 games for it. Sonic 2 (which is different than the Genesis version, it was a new game), Alladdin, The Jungle Book, and two other games I can't even remember. My parents bought it for me because they said it looked like a portable Super Nintendo and the Gameboy was only in black and white. Which made sense, it's kinda funny how underpowered the Gameboy was at the time and it lasted for 10 years.

There was also 364 games made for Game Gear, and tons of licensed games based on cartoons:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Game_Gear_games

So we could have gotten a TMNT game if it came out the same time as HyperStone Heist or the Genesis Tournament Fighters.

[LeotheLateBloomer]

My friend from next door briefly had a Game Gear (or if not, was borrowing it) and was playing either Sonic 2 or Sonic & Tails. That was the only time I saw the system up close until college where my current best friend has one but hasn't any batteries. It's huge from what I remember but he said it was quite the battery guzzler.

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

Nobody had a ****ing Game Gear.

My only experiences with the Sega Game Gear, and the Nintendo Game Boy, was playing in toy stores and shopping malls.

[member_removed]

The Turtle craze was almost over when Konami began to release TMNT titles for Sega consoles.

Pretty much this.

There was no TMNT content produced for the PS1 or N64 either.

Nothing between Tournament Fighters (1993) and the 2K3 series tie in games in 2003. Vast wasteland of years for the Turtles on home consoles.

[CyberCubed]

Yep, 10 years of no new TMNT games. I remember that as a kid, always wanting another new TMNT game and it never happened. I knew we would never get one during the N64/PS1 era, but I always hoped.

It really took until the next cartoon came out in 2003 that we started getting games again. But I remember the feeling as a kid, "why no new TMNT games" and fantasizing what a TMNT game on the N64 would be like.

[Ninja Tiptup]

I really wish there was a TMNT game on N64 and PlayStation and a GameGear game would have been neat. They might have been able to make something similar to the NES games for GameGear / Master System.

It always felt like a very missed opportunity for Konami not to release the arcade games on N64 where 4 player was built into the console but a new 4 player TMNT beat 'em up could have been even cooler. Granted if they tried to do a 3D polygon based game for N64 that might have turned out badly.

It's at least a bit of a shame that The Next Mutation never got a console game.

[Leo656]

Yeah, I don't think a polygon 4-player fighter for the N64 would have come out great, or at least probably wouldn't have aged incredibly well.

A port of the TMNT arcade games to the N64 (or PS1 for that matter) wouldn't have even been discussed because most companies were in a staunch "No 2D" mindset at that time. Even porting older games to newer hardware in any case was considered "radical" at that time, and when it happened it was like, Atari-age stuff that hadn't been seen in decades. There was a lot of legitimate debate about "Who'd wanna play old games?" and "Is there actually money in that? They're old."

Sounds crazy now since retro gaming and nostalgia gaming are all the rage and a huge chunk of the market all to themselves. In 1996 and 1997, few gamers were looking in the rear-view mirror and had little time for nostalgia. I was different, but then I was always "unconventional". But point is, companies were only barely porting any retro games at all during that time and there was serious conversation that there was no market for that kind of thing.

Obviously, they smartened up but it took them a couple of years. Hindsight being 20/20, I'm sure a PS1 port of the TMNT arcade games would have done well - better than on the N64, because even though the N64 had the four controller inputs the music and voices of the games would have been ruined by the N64's wimpy sound chip - but it wouldn't have even been discussed back then. Times were tough for anything "old-fashioned" or "retro".

[CyberCubed]

The N64 came out in 1996 and went on through 2001, at that point TMNT was "dead" in the general public, as Next Mutation aired in 1997 and got canceled in 1 season. The late 90's and early 2000's were when TMNT was completely out of the publics eye until the 2003 cartoon revived it somewhat, so of course we were never going to get any games at the time.

As said even the 2003 cartoon 4kids games on PS2/Gamecube didn't turn out too well, so any N64/PS1 game would likely have been and aged horribly had it existed. So I don't think we missed anything.

TMNT is just lucky enough it debuted when the NES, SNES, Gameboy, Genesis and Arcade games were all huge in the 80's and 90's, so it came out at just the right time when fun short 2D games are what peopel expected out of games back then.

[Sumac]

Game Gear was not popular compared to Game Boy, so it didn't warrant a port.

[Prowler]

Nobody had a ****ing Game Gear.

I did.

The Mega Drive outsold the SNES in Europe, in general. So several gamers in the Old Continent definitely got a Game Gear. But sure, the original Game Boy was more popular overall since it was a better system overall. Especially once Pokémon came out and every kid had one.

People mostly remember the Game Gear for needing 6 goddamn batteries.

[Leo656]

Every single kid I knew with a Game Gear forever played it while sitting 6 inches from the wall plugged into that stupidly short power adapter. :lol:

"Merry Christmas, Timmy! Enjoy your new 'portable' handheld that you can't take anywhere, and that flickering, migraine-inducing mess of a color screen! Ya little douchebag. I'mma go upstairs and play a little Tetris on my Game Boy Pocket while I stuff your Mom's stocking. Hasta!"

"...(snif) ...I wish I lived with Dad..."

[LeotheLateBloomer]

I did.

The Mega Drive outsold the SNES in Europe, in general. So several gamers in the Old Continent definitely got a Game Gear. But sure, the original Game Boy was more popular overall since it was a better system overall. Especially once Pokémon came out and every kid had one.

People mostly remember the Game Gear for needing 6 goddamn batteries.

Sega in general was always more popular in Europe. I remember reading that the Master System also did well over there in comparison to in the US and Japan. Sonic likely has the biggest fanbase out there.

[oknazevad]

Sega in general did better in Europe because Nintendo had terrible distribution during the peak NES years, allowing Sega to get a foothold with the Master System which continued even more so with the Mega Drive (as it was known there). Even after the 16-but system was released, though, the Master System continued to get support in Europe largely because of three factors. First, Sega of Europe continued to market it as a low-cost bargain system for a few years, using the lower priced Master System II model, which meant that it actually got a fairly good installed base to sell games to. And that installed base made it worth it for third-party publishers to actually make games for it, which it never had much of in the US. And finally was the technical aspect of its relationship with the Game Gear. Namely, the Game Gear is really a portable Master System, with near-identical hardware.

The resolution of the Game Gear is lower, as it's limited to the LCD screen. Meanwhile the Master System doesn't have as large of a selection of available colors, though the number of colors on-screen at once is the same and all the available colors of the Master System palette are in the Game Gear palette. In short, putting the exact same 8-bit game on both was pretty easy, and depending on market there might be either a Master System or a Game Gear version of a game, or both, available. Oh, and a simple pass-through adapter to use Master System carts on a Game Gear was available.

So long story short, there was a market for Sega 8-bit tiles into the 90s. Not as large as other market segments, but a lot of publishers found it large enough to make an effort. But Konami never did. Literally the only Game Gear game Konami had any involvement in was the puzzle game Junction, mentioned above, and that wasn't even really them, Micronet just licensed the rights from them because it was based on Konami's earlier arcade game Loco Motion.

The one I'm sorta surprised never got anything TMNT was the PC Engine. Konami did support that in Japan (most notably with Castlevania: Rondo of Blood) and the Turtles were pretty popular in Japan.

[Sumac]

The one I'm sorta surprised never got anything TMNT was the PC Engine. Konami did support that in Japan (most notably with Castlevania: Rondo of Blood) and the Turtles were pretty popular in Japan.
Yeah, its weird they didn't do any TMNT project for PC Engine. Konami LOVED to put projects everywhere, heck, they even made Castlevania remake for Sharp 68k.

[CyberCubed]

If they did put something on PC Engine, it probably would have been another weird half port/half new game of Turtles in Time similar to HyperStone Heist. Where they would take elements of Turtles in Time and change it around a bit to make it somewhat new and somewhat a port.

[oldmanwinters]

I can see an original arcade game port to PC Engine. Would have been niche but they ported the game to much weirder hardware!

Would have been cool if they added some brief animated cutscenes like they did with the PC Engine CD port of Double Dragon II: The Revenge!

[Sumac]

If they did put something on PC Engine, it probably would have been another weird half port/half new game of Turtles in Time similar to HyperStone Heist. Where they would take elements of Turtles in Time and change it around a bit to make it somewhat new and somewhat a port.
Trust me, I'd be more than OK with it!!

[oldmanwinters]

I was inspired by thread enough to pull out my Game Gear for a little play last night. Definitely used the AC adapter instead of killing off some batteries. It probably has some loose circuitry as I had trouble holding a steady power connection, failed to turn on a couple times, and it eventually froze up on me twice, but I did enjoy my time with Tempo Jr. :tlol:

[CyberCubed]

Man, I haven't had a Game Gear since like 1996 or something. I don't even remember what I did with mine as a kid as I no longer have it.