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Mobile games are incredibly common. If you have a phone, chances are you have or had at least one mobile game installed on your phone.

What was the first mobile game?

For this question, a mobile game is any game that can be played on a small handheld device (including but not limited to modern smartphones). Games played on hand-held game consoles (such as the Gameboy or 3DS) count. If external controllers or being plugged into a display device are required, it is disqualified. The answer has to include both the game and the device it is played on.

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    Not the one who downvoted, but I'm curious if the Osborne 1 qualifies, seeing as it has its own display and controller (in the form of a keyboard).
    – Nolonar
    Commented Nov 18 at 19:43
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    @Nolonar it's beat for first game anyway. Ball Toss Up game and watch is April 1980, though on dedicated hardware.
    – user1937198
    Commented Nov 18 at 19:47
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    Is Mattel's Auto Race a valid answer?
    – pinckerman
    Commented Nov 18 at 21:57
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    what's a game? I don't read anything in the question that disqualifies games that have a physical respresentation of the state. peg solataire, 15 puzzle, a deck of cards?
    – Jasen
    Commented Nov 19 at 4:15
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    @Jasen This is a site for video games, as noted in the Tour. Board games are off-topic somewhat by default.
    – DaemonsMercy
    Commented Nov 19 at 4:24

1 Answer 1

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This is my guess, Mattel's Auto Race released in 1976:

The player controls a car on a three-lane track and moves between them with a switch. Opponent vehicles move toward the player, in an effect similar to vertical scrolling, and the player must avoid them. A second control shifts gears from 1-4, with the speed increasing for each.
The cars are represented by red LEDs on a playfield which covers only a small portion of the case. The audio consists of beeps.

enter image description here

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    Interestingly that Wikipedia article says it is the first handheld electronic game to use only solid-state electronics which implies there may have been earlier handhelds without solid state electronics ....
    – Roddy of the Frozen Peas
    Commented Nov 19 at 7:07
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    Waco's 1972 Electro Tic Tac Toe is an earlier handheld, although it's mostly mechanical. Going back earlier than this you get into purely mechanical games with no electrical components at all, which technically OP didn't disallow, but the answer to that is likely prehistoric.
    – James_pic
    Commented Nov 19 at 10:25
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    @James_pic This is a stack for video games, so it’s implied OP didn’t mean purely mechanical games.
    – Darren
    Commented Nov 19 at 11:00
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    @Darren Of course, that begs the question as to what counts as a "video game". Does it require a screen display capable of rendering some form of rasterized graphics? That would likely disqualify this answer as well (unless this counts as an extremely primitive "LED screen"), but would that also mean that the first "video games" made on vector displays don't count? Also, OP stipulated "hand-held console", which to me would imply a hand-held gaming device capable of playing multiple games, which would also disqualify this answer.
    – Abion47
    Commented Nov 19 at 20:14
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    @Abion47 if you want a device capable of playing multiple games then the first hand-held gaming console probably was 1978 Merlin, but it didn't have a LED screen
    – pinckerman
    Commented Nov 19 at 20:24

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