The Game Gear is a handheld video game console created by Sega in response to Nintendo’s Game Boy. It is the third portable console with color screen in history, after the Atari Lynx and the Turbo Express. The project began in 1989 under the name “Project Mercury” and was launched in Japan on October 6, 1990. In America and Europe it was released in 1991 and in Australia in 1992. Support for this system was dropped in early 1997.