Hartung Game Master

The Hartung Game Master was a handheld console originally released by Hartung in 1990 in Germany, made to compete with the Nintendo Game Boy. It also appeared in other countries under different names, such as the Gametronic and Super Game Master in France, Impel Game Master, Videojet Game Master and the Systema 2000 in the United Kingdom. There was also a version called the Game Plus, sold only in France, which has a more Game Boy-like design.

Why it Flopped

 * 1) Very awkward controls. The D-Pad is lopsided for some reason, and the buttons are round, making them really uncomfortable to press. The buttons are also located near the bottom of the system, as if the designers wanted the player to drop the system and break it.
 * 2) * While the Game Plus has better controls than the original Game Master model, the buttons are placed on top of each other instead of besides one another.
 * 3) The system is very unreliable and has poor build quality.
 * 4) Very low-res graphics at a 64x64 pixel resolution.
 * 5) Tiny screen where it's impossible to see the graphics, as there's lots of ghosting when they move.
 * 6) Incredibly primitive sound effects and music, sounding like something out of an Atari 2600 game.
 * 7) Most of the games are inferior versions of those available on the Game Boy, such as Falling Block and Bubble Boy (based on Tetris and Dr. Mario respectively), and some of the original titles, like Hyper Space, are terrible and incomprehensible to play.
 * 8) The packaging for the UK games is terrible, as they feature bad artwork and lousily translated instructions. Also, they were sold in clamshell packaging that requires scissors to open, as opposed to cardboard boxes of the German games.

Reception
Stuart Ashen reviewed the Systema 2000 version of the Hartung Game Master in 2016, and criticized the console for the low-res graphics, bad controls, horrible sound and poor build quality, citing it to be a terrible competitor to the original Game Boy compared to the Watara Supervision, the Gamate and the Mega Duck, which, while they also flopped, had much nicer controls, better sound and a better selection of games.

Videos
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