controller, with the idea being that the curved surfaces and longer length would make the Game Gear more comfortable to hold than the Game Boy. The console's mass was carefully considered from the beginning of the development, aiming for a total mass between that of the Game Boy and the Atari Lynx, another full-color screen competing product. Despite the similarities the Game Gear shared with the Master System, the games of the latter were not directly playable on the Game Gear, and were only able to be played on the handheld by the use of an accessory called the Master Gear. The original Game Gear pack-in game was Columns, which was similar to the Tetris cartridge that Nintendo had included when it launched the Game Boy. With a late start into the handheld console market, Sega rushed to get the Game Gear into stores quickly, having lagged behind Nintendo in sales without a handheld on the market. As one method of doing so, Sega based the hardware of the Game Gear on the Master System, albeit with a much larger color palette than its predecessor: the Game Gear supported 4096 colors, compared to the 64 colors supported by the Master System. Part of the intention of this move was to make Master System games easy to port to the Game Gear. Though the Game Gear was designed to be technologically superior to the Game Boy, its design came at a cost of battery life: whereas the Game Boy could run for more than 30 hours on four AA batteries, the Game Gear required six AA batteries and could only run for three to five hours. With its quick launch in Japan, the handheld sold 40,000 units in its first two days, 90,000 within a month, and the number of back orders for the system was over 600,000. According to Sega of America marketing director Robert Botch, "there is clearly a need for a quality portable system that provides features other systems have failed to deliver. This means easy-to-view, full-color graphics and exciting quality games that appeal to all ages." Release and marketing Before the Game Gear's launch in 1990, Sega had success marketing its 16-bit home console, the Sega Genesis, by advertising it as a "more mature" option for players. In keeping with this approach, Sega positioned the Game Gear as a "grown-up" option compared to the Game Boy. While