Sixth Generation Handheld Consoles

The sixth generation era of handheld game consoles began in 1998 with the release of the Neo Geo Pocket Colour, followed by Bandai's WonderSwan Colour, which launched in Japan in 1999. However, the majority of the market share was held by Nintendo with its 2001 handheld console the Game Boy Advance, and its updated version, the Game Boy Advance SP in 2003. A smaller, sleeker version of the console, the Game Boy Micro was also launched in 2005.

Other consoles released during this period included the South Korean GP32, which was one of the first open-source handheld consoles. Another new trend of this era was the inclusion of non-gaming features into consoles, such as the Tapwave Zodiac, which combined a PDA based on the Palm OS with specialised gaming-oriented video and sound capabilities.

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