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Grand Theft Auto and the biggest moments in video game history

Grand Theft Auto 5 (GTA V) made headlines as the biggest video game release of all time, selling more than $1 billion worth of copies in three days. But GTA V didn't get to this landmark moment by itself. Find out more moments that changed the course of video game history in this list, from most recent to the beginning of (video game) time.

8. Portable gaming hits its stride

Fezz/Wikimedia Commons/File
The Game Boy Pocket, a later version of Nintendo's original Game Boy device. Despite competition from Atari and Sega personal game consoles, the Game Boy sold nearly 120 million units over its 14-year existence.

Game Boy wasn’t the first portable game system, but it was the device that finally succeeded in putting on-the-go video games in the hands of the mass market.

Before the Game Boy, portable gaming devices didn’t have rechargeable batteries and bright graphics sucked up much of the energy in each battery. Game Boy’s designer, Nintendo's Gunpei Yokoi, made this a priority, creating monochrome graphics and a light battery that made the device more portable and longer lasting than ever before. He also knew that the device needed a signature game to bolster the brand, so he included the newly developed Tetris game with each model.

The Game Boy exploded in popularity. According to AllGame, in the United States Nintendo sold 1 million devices in 1989 and 4.4 million in 1991. Since then, the handheld gaming device has become a staple for gamers and consumers around the world, and the handheld technology has even advanced to 3-D models. Not to mention, it got millions of gamers addicted to Tetris.

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Mark Sappenfield
Editor

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