If you are interested in a truly obscure and quite rare handheld console of the first Gameboy era, well, the Bitcorp Gamate is a must buy, despite the fact that it usually sells for more than 75$, 60 euros or 50 pounds. The Gamate you see went largely unnoticed, sported mostly dire games and only got one positive review ever, meaning it quite possibly is the rarest cheap handheld ever produced. You can find out more about it here and here.
To grab one, well, do try your luck at this BitCorp Gamate auction at eBay. Seller ships worldwide and seems to be offering a well-preserved and fully working console, complete with three games: Galaxy Invaders, Monster Pitfall and Money Maze. Nice.
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wow, that is obscure.. never even heard of it. I'd love to win it, play with it once and put it on a shelf.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a concrete plan :)
ReplyDeleteThere's a nice article on this in the latest or last Retro Gamer. Interesting handheld but only for collectors I'd say!
ReplyDeleteIndee xeer. The latest RG did feature the Gamate. And, yes, it's mainly for collectors. Having only played it once I must admit to not being particularly impressed.
ReplyDeleteTrue, but it's more playable than you might think. Under good light, it's not really THAT much different than a DMG gameboy. And as an alternative, it's interesting (and sometimes amusing) to see what Bitcorp got right and wrong. (And don't forget that many of the games remain shrouded in mystery! In many ways it's a frontier of collecting that no longer exists on more established consoles: New discoveries.)
ReplyDeleteYou are absolutely correct there!
ReplyDeleteSo much for that plan, it's up to 152 bucks! Crazy, especially since one sold like a week ago for like $60.. I'll have to wait, but Gamate, you will be mine.
ReplyDeleteOn the plus side, I did win a composite modded Colecovision with a rebuilt controller for a little over $50. I already have two broken ones, I hope to actually play the games I've been finding soon.
Well, both of them came from me. The first sold for a BIN of 60$, after only being posted for about 4 hours. The second had a BIN of 50$, but... you know how that turned out (which was a surprise to me). So perhaps the street value of a used Gamate is around 85-100. (on U.S. ebay, anyway).
ReplyDeleteRetro-gamer magazine just wrote a nice article on the Gamate, in the current issue.
Bye
@ Ion: Excellent Colecovision purchase that. And I'd try to fix the broken ones; surely the internet can help. As for this particular Gamate it's gone way too expensive.
ReplyDelete@ Anonymous: Hope you got more interesting stuff to unload on eBay :)
Everytime I say the name of this handheld, it comes out 'gay-mate' :|
ReplyDeleteIt does sound even odder in Greek. Trust me.
ReplyDeleteWow, I might have been right when I said it would be mine, I think I just bought this exact Gamate lot!
ReplyDeleteCongrats me friend!
ReplyDelete