When it comes to handheld gaming, Nintendo’s Game Boy series of devices is perhaps the first thing thought of. However, the Game Boy wasn’t Nintendo’s first portable gaming device – that honor goes to the Game & Watch series, developed by the company and first arriving 45 years ago.

Rather than being a single console in which games could be switched out at will, the Game & Watch series was a line of different individual games. The line was created by Gunpei Yokoi, who had observed a bored commuter playing with his LCD calculator on a train and was inspired to create a miniature gaming machine. Each Game & Watch title is only able to play the one game, due to the use of segmented LCD screens that are preprinted with a graphical overlay; most titles, however, offered different modes of play that could be chosen by hitting either the “Game 1” or “Game 2” button on the system.

The very first Game & Watch released was simply called Ball, and was released on April 28, 1980. In Ball, the player is responsible for keeping multiple balls in the air at once by moving their hands left and right to catch them, without letting them hit the ground.

Further Game & Watch releases included big-name Nintendo titles such as The Legend of Zelda and Mario Bros. Notably, it was the Game & Watch version of Donkey Kong that introduced a staple of gaming that remains in place today – the D-Pad. The cross-shaped directional pad design was created by Yokoi in 1982, and later was awarded a Technology & Engineering Emmy Award; it remains a standard for gaming controllers today.

Through 1991, Nintendo released 59 different Game & Watch titles, plus one that was only made available as a contest prize for the company’s F-1 Grand Prix Tournament, for a total of 60 games. The last title produced was Mario the Juggler. The series in total sold more than 43 million units worldwide, making it one of Nintendo’s earliest video game successes.

The popularity of the Game & Watch series led to other companies imitating the product, most notably Tiger Electronics and their various licensed electronic games (such as ones based on Star Wars). Nintendo followed up on the Game & Watch with the release of the original Game Boy in 1989 (also created and developed by Gunpei Yokoi), which too went on to become a massive global success. The legacy of the Game & Watch has lived on, though, as Nintendo has released Game & Watch Gallery software that port the various games to contemporary consoles. A character called Mr. Game & Watch is a playable fighter in the Super Smash Bros. series, and makes reference to numerous games in the line through his move set.