Gamate (超級小子)

In early 1990, Taiwan’s Bit Corporation (百加電子) released Gamate, also known by its Chinese name 超級小子. The thing most people remember is not the specs but the form factor: instead of Game Boy-style chunky cartridges, Gamate ran on flat plastic cards roughly 7 × 5 cm — thin enough to stack like playing cards. No other handheld of the era used that physical design.

It launched at around NT$1,500, less than half what a Game Boy cost in Taiwan at the time (NT$3,000+). Distribution went through Zhonghua Market in Taipei, electronics shops near major train stations, and night-market vendors. For many Taiwanese kids born in the late 1980s, Gamate was the first handheld they ever held — not Game Boy.

The hardware was 8-bit: a WDC 65SC02 CPU at 4 MHz (a 6502 derivative), 4 KB of RAM, and a 160×152 reflective monochrome LCD. Slightly sharper than GB’s 160×144, but reflective screens needed bright ambient light to be readable — Gamate’s biggest practical disadvantage versus GB’s superior backlit-ready ergonomics.

The software library ran to roughly 70 titles, all from Bit Corp itself or partner studios in Taiwan and Hong Kong. No mainstream Japanese third party ever licensed for Gamate. The flagship releases — Brick Blast (an Arkanoid clone), Buster Bros (a Pang clone), Coin Boy (mahjong) — were mostly simplified versions of arcade and PC originals.

Between 1991 and 1993, Bit Corp licensed Gamate for OEM distribution in Europe and North America under the name ‘Super Boy III’. After Game Boy Color arrived in 1998, Gamate disappeared. Bit Corporation pivoted to other consumer electronics in the late 1990s and exited gaming hardware entirely by the 2000s.

As a memory object, though, Gamate occupies a unique niche in Taiwanese retro: it was never as famous as Game Boy, but plenty of people owned one, played one, and stacked Gamate cards in their school pencil cases. That physical-form-factor lineage was never picked up again in handheld history.