10 weirdest portable video game accessories ever made
Accessories. Peripheral devices. Additional modules. Are these perfectly designed add-ons for your favorite game consoles they are sold under? Usually no. More often than not, they are poorly designed, poorly constructed and rushed.
It is not limited to the internal market either. There are many add-ons for your favorite portable consoles and some of them are just weird. Some are horrible, some are useful and some are completely unnecessary but they all have one thing in common; they will leave you scratching your head, asking you why they exist.
Unsurprisingly, given that they have dominated the market practically since its inception, the majority of them are for Nintendo consoles. Good job Nintendo!
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Nintendo Wii Car Adapter and Travel Pack
While Nintendo’s popular Wii console has been a huge success, it was never intended to be a portable device. “But I want to play Wii bowling on the go!” we hear you cry! Well your prayers have been answered with this handy car adapter and travel kit.
Simply plug the console into your car’s power port using the handy car adapter (remember when that outlet was just for lighting cigarettes?), Insert your Wii console into the stylish travel – which includes a monitor and a carrying case – then mount it on the back of one of the front car seats.
It’s a perfect fix and you’ll be throwing bowling strikes, performing TKOs, and chopping fruit like a ninja in no time.
Just make sure you keep a firm grip on this Wiimote …
9
Nintendo Game Boy Pocket Sonar
Imagine the scene … you are out on the lake, fishing rod in hand, with an impatient line, desperate to catch something, anything … but no joy, not a single miserable bite. You move to another location and then again and again, but still no luck! It is totally hopeless.
If only you remembered that in 1998, only in Japan, Bandai released the Pocket Sonar for the original Game Boy … you could have accurately tracked the movement of your aquatic prey up to 20 meters deep.
And hey, if you still couldn’t catch anything, at least you could have played the fishing game that came with the Sonar or even Tetris …
Much more fun than being stuck on a lake without catching a fish.
8
The hands-free holder for the Nintendo Switch
Enduring with sore wrists and forearms from holding the console of your choice up in the air for hours on end is a common complaint among gamers. We’ve all been there and it’s an irritating barrier to, you know, continuing your session.
For Nintendo Switch fans, however, that particular problem is now solved with this sleek hands-free kit that shifts the burden to the back of your neck, effortlessly hanging your console at the perfect angle for pain-free gaming. You can even use a pro controller on the go instead of the joy-cons.
The hands-free kit at least makes it painless for your arms to play, but your neck might not thank you for this one. Neck pain aside, you’ll look like a trendy bionic person, so there you have it.
7
Solar equipment for SEGA’s play equipment
The Game Gear was known for its poor battery life of 2-3 hours on 6AA batteries. It was so notorious that many gamers started playing it on their sofas using the AC adapter (sold separately).
So what’s a natural solution to reducing battery life on the go? A solar charger of course. Enter the Solar Gear Rechargeable Solar Power Pack, a device so rare that there is hardly any information available on the internet, but it most certainly exists.
The device is basically a cradle and a rechargeable battery for the Game Gear with a large solar panel on the back which, in theory, will provide unlimited energy from the sun (if you live in a sunny country of course).
Yes it works, what you can see from this video, but portable solar chargers are quite unreliable even now, let alone in 1994 …
6
The Didget Glucose system for the Nintendo DS
A bizarre add-on with an important purpose. This blood glucose meter developed by Bayer HealthCare was designed to remind children to check their blood sugar. The device comes with several mini-games that reward players who regularly check their blood sugar.
It’s a weird but clever idea, as kids are probably much more likely to carry a device that connects to their favorite gaming device and is associated with something they enjoy, rather than a burden on the game. health.
Diabetes has never been so fun …
5
Band Hero Guitar and Drum Grips for Nintendo DS
Do you remember Guitar Hero? Of course you do. What about Band Hero, the one where you could also sing and play the drums? You know he had a huge drum kit device? Either way, they adapted it for the Nintendo DS. Who was this stupid idea from?
Of course, typing notes on a touchscreen isn’t as fun or cool as clicking on a plastic guitar or typing on a plastic battery, which is why two peripherals were developed: the battery and the grip. guitar.
The installed battery grip covered rubbery drum pads on the controls and the guitar grip allows you to hold the DS in the palm of your hand and click buttons with your fingertips.
Unsurprisingly, they’re both terrible.
4
Nintendo’s Game Boy Color sewing machine
No, it’s not a joke, there really is a sewing machine add-on for the Game Boy Color. Be honest, if you were asked to come up with an unusual concept for a Game Boy peripheral, never in a million years would you even consider a sewing machine.
So why even make such a seemingly bizarre device? Well, in truth, this is just an inexpensive way to develop a digital interface to enable automated sewing of prescribed patterns and designs.
The sewing machine itself is nothing special and just has a digital cable connection to the Game Boy Color which is then used to control what is sewn.
Embroidery has never been so fun …
3
The WonderWave for the Wonderswan of Bandai
Most of us have heard of the Game Boy, the PS Vita, and even the Game Gear, but the Wonderswan? What is a Wonderswan? Well, it’s a portable game console released in 1999 by Bandai and released only in Japan.
The console was finally discontinued in 2003, but is still very popular with connoisseurs.
The WonderWave is an add-on that allows data transfer between the Wonderswan and the Sony PocketStation … wait, what? That’s right, the Pocketstation, a rare add-on to the original PlayStation home console and yes, you guessed it, was only released in Japan.
The WonderWave – for when you absolutely have to transfer game data between two rare and obsolete consoles …
2
The Play-Yan for Nintendo’s Game Boy Advance
If you’ve always wanted to turn your Game Boy Advance or Nintendo DS into an MP3 and video player, then the Play-Yan is the perfect accessory for you.
It’s basically a GBA cartridge with a headphone jack and a standard SD card slot that can play audio and video files on your favorite console screen. It also comes with several pre-installed mini-games.
Unfortunately, for fans of the original GBA, the Play-Yan consumes a lot of power and burns console batteries quickly. If that wasn’t enough, the low-definition screen isn’t exactly suitable for viewing high-quality video files and if you want to listen to music while playing your favorite GBA games, you’ll need a player. MP3 separated from the Play -Yan uses the cartridge slot.
Unless you want to use it as a dedicated audio or video player, for which there were many better options at the time, the Play-Yan feels somewhat redundant.
1
The “accessories (sold separately)” for the Sony PS Vita
The original Sony PS Vita (the 1000 model) has an accessory port, specifically referred to in the user manual as “Accessory port for connecting accessories (sold separately)”.
This is fine until you realize that no props were released using this port and it was removed during a hardware overhaul later in the life of the console.
So what were these mysterious accessories? No one really knows for sure, but some say it’s just for bulk data transfer and development testing, some argue it’s for a supposed backward compatibility drive for the PSP’s UMD drives, from others are certain that it is for the video output to a television and some even say that it is the key to the opening of the Chamber of Secrets … well maybe not the latter …
An accessory that doesn’t actually exist and only shows up in obsessive speculation online? It doesn’t get much weirder than that.
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