10 'Revolutionary' Gaming Features That Already Happened 20 Years Ago

4. Handheld Networking

Getting more than four players into a game was always a problem before the advent of online play. The issue was even more pronounced for handhelds as they usually had to be linked by a cable, which pretty much limited gamers to one-on-one sessions and certainly didn't allow for networked gaming Finally, with the advent of the Nintendo DS gamers were able to experience networked play. As many as 16 players are able to take part in compatible DS or 3DS games, with Nintendo being heralded for bringing more players together with yet another innovation. But, hang on a minute... Long before the technology existed to make networking consoles without wires was an option, Atari were busy creating a solution of their own to be used with the company's Atari Lynx. Demonstrating their penchant for completely overestimating the popularity of their products, Atari produced the Comlynx cable, which was capable of linking as many as 18 of the consoles together for enormous multiplayer sessions. Even more impressively, if the company had their way they would have used infrared rather than an enormous cable to allow handhelds to network without wires.