Nintendo's handheld, from Gunpei Yokoi's team, chose a cheap, unlit green screen over colour, and won with battery life: about 30 hours on four AA batteries.
It was tough and simple, and together with the Game Boy Color it sold almost 119 million units.
Four shades of green-grey on a 160x144 screen, built like the NES's from 8x8 tiles. There were 40 sprites, with up to ten on a line. The screen was slow to change, so fast movement smeared.
Four channels: two square waves (one could sweep its pitch), a channel that played a tiny 32-step wave of the programmer's design, and noise. There was one speaker, but stereo through headphones.