Auto Race was the first commercially available handheld electronic game, released by Mattel in 1976.
Designed by George J. Klose, Auto Race used a small red LED display and simple electronics to represent a car moving along a road. Players steered around other vehicles with a thumb-controlled wheel, making the game a compact racing simulation despite its very limited graphics.
The unit was self-contained and did not require a television or separate console. Its use of LEDs was important because affordable liquid-crystal game displays were not yet common in consumer products. Mattel followed it with Football, which became an even bigger hit and helped create the handheld electronic-game market.
Auto Race is often mixed up with Nintendo’s Game & Watch series, which began in 1980, or Milton Bradley’s Microvision, released in 1979. Those products were influential, but Mattel’s game came first commercially.