¶ Technical data
- Manufacturer: Sega
- Year of release: 1990
- Units sold: 10.62 millions
- Iconic game: Sonic the Hedgehog
- CPU: Zilog Z80 @ 3.58 MHz
- RAM: 8 KB
- VRAM: 16 KB
- Screen: 3.2-inch backlit LCD
- Resolution: 160x144, 32 simultaneous colors out of 4096
- Sound chip: Texas Instruments SN76489, stereo output on headphones
- Media: Cartridge
¶ Presentation
The Game Gear is Sega's handheld console, launched on October 6, 1990 in Japan and in 1991 in the rest of the world. It reuses the Master System architecture — same Z80 processor, same VDP family — in a horizontal case fitted with a backlit color screen, its headline argument against Nintendo's monochrome Game Boy.
That hardware kinship is also a gameplay asset: many Master System games were ported very quickly, and an official adapter, the Master Gear Converter, even allows playing 8-bit home cartridges. The downside is that the screen and its backlight eat through six AA batteries in three to five hours, something that durably hurt its reputation.
With 10.62 million units sold, the Game Gear stays far behind the Game Boy but stands as the best-selling non-Nintendo handheld of its era. Its library includes the portable Sonic episodes, Shinobi, Streets of Rage, Columns, Shining Force: The Sword of Hajya and Defenders of Oasis.
¶ Emulators
Emulator availability per board:
| Emulator | RPI3/RPI02W | RPI4/400 | RPI5/500 | OGA/OGS/RG351 | PC | RG353 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Libretro genesisplusgx | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Libretro gearsystem | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Libretro fbneo | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Libretro picodrive | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
The default emulator is genesisplusgx, known for its accuracy. gearsystem, dedicated to Sega's 8-bit machines, is the only one supporting softpatching. fbneo and picodrive complete the list. All four cores run on every board, with high compatibility and speed.
Netplay is only available with picodrive: the other three cores do not support it on this system. CRT output is handled by genesisplusgx and gearsystem. RetroAchievements are available; light guns make no sense on this machine and are not supported.
¶ BIOS
The Game Gear BIOS is optional: it only adds the original boot screen.
| File name | Description | MD5 | Emulators |
|---|---|---|---|
bios.gg |
Game Gear BIOS (optional) | 672e104c3be3a238301aceffc3b23fd6 | genesisplusgx, gearsystem |
Place the BIOS file like this:
/recalbox/share/bios/gamegear/
└── bios.gg
¶ Roms
Put your games in:
/recalbox/share/roms/gamegear/
Supported extensions per emulator:
| Emulator | Extensions |
|---|---|
| genesisplusgx | .gg .zip .7z |
| gearsystem | .bin .gg .zip .7z |
| fbneo | .zip .7z |
| picodrive | .gg .zip .7z |
No-Intro romsets are recommended. Be careful not to mix Game Gear (.gg) and Master System (.sms) roms: despite their hardware kinship, each system has its own folder.