Is There a Nokia 3310 of Video Games?

There has rarely been as much excitement in the phone world as over news that the iconic Nokia 3310 is making a comeback. Launched way back in 2000, a naïve age when people bought mobile phones in order to talk to each other, the handset is still famed for its lengthy battery life, structural solidity and Snake II.

Seventeen years later, modern smartphones are crammed with high-tech features, but you have to charge them constantly and their demands on our attention -- via endless social media alerts, updates and notifications -- are becoming tiresome. Some people yearn for a simpler age when the phone just did what it was primarily designed for and most of your text messages were from confused relatives saying ?EU?AM I USING THIS CORRECTLY?EU?.

This kind of industrial technology nostalgia is usually just that -- nostalgia. Very rarely do people actually really want to go back to primitive formats. You can yearn whimsically for the warm-toned glory days of the VHS player, but just remember when you had to program one to record Match of the Day. That?EU?s right, they called it programming -- because it was complicated and it often didn?EU?t work. But the Nokia 3310 [pictured above] was also easy to use. It provided a service that is still relevant and valid today.

So, is there a Nokia 3310 of gaming? Has there ever been a games machine that has truly outlived its technological zenith? An argument could definitely be made for the Nintendo Entertainment System (Nes), the box-like console from 1983 that brought Nintendo into the home console sector and became so ubiquitous that people all over the world started referring to ?EU?playing video games?EU? as ?EU?playing Nintendo?EU?.

That machine, with its rugged build, large game cartridges and simple flat joypads (designed specifically to withstand being...