(Gameplay - 3710) Gameboy Color, Part 4/4 (ONL - 32)
0In 1998, Nintendo basically enhanced the Game Boy parts to make a souped-up portable NES and sent out the resulting Game Boy Color into the wild.
The Game Boy Color — and for non-American tropers, yes, the American English spelling of "colour" was used in all regions — owes its existence to the WonderSwan. When Nintendo CEO Hiroshi Yamauchi caught wind that Bandai was planning to release their own handheld gaming system, he feared it could be real competition to Nintendo dominance of the handheld gaming market. It was bad enough that Bandai already had exclusive licenses to a litany of Japan's biggest Anime & Manga properties, but there was another scary problem. Gunpei Yokoi (the man who created the original Game Boy) had recently left Nintendo, taking some of his team with him. And he proceeded to found his own engineering firm called Koto Laboratory... which Bandai hired to develop the WonderSwan.
Yamauchi ordered Nintendo R&D1, Yokoi's original unit, to develop a color handheld in a record 10 months to beat the WonderSwan to market. R&D1 was already well underway on Project Atlantis, a more powerful 32-bit handheld that would have been a true successor to the Game Boy, but since they were having issues regarding manufacturing cost for that system anyway, they tabled it in favor of a much more modest upgrade of the Game Boy: same size and durability, similar cost and battery life, and, of course, backward compatible with all original Game Boy games.
The Color's biggest selling point was, naturally, its ability to display color. This made it closer to the idea of being a portable NES than the original Game Boy, though the Color's larger color palette meant it was capable of producing more detailed sprites and backgrounds than the NES ever could. The Color could also overlay a handful of 10-color palettes onto original Game Boy games to give them a hint of color, though it was unable to use the color palettes of Super Game Boy–enhanced titles.note Games made specifically with the Game Boy Color in mind would include more specific and variable color palettes — many games were released that were compatible with both the older Game Boys and GBC, but later-released games would require a GBC. Color games compatible with the original model were typically encased in cartridges in a color different from the grey used for the Game Boy (typically black), while GBC exclusive games used translucent cartridges.
One of the handheld's more interesting features was the IR port, which could allow for wireless data transfer between two systems. While more convenient than the Link Cable since it wasn't a separate peripheral, the port's functions were limited in comparison (i.e. no multiplayer) and it was utilized by very few games. As usual for the Pokémon series, Pokémon Gold and Silver and Crystal were probably the most well-known users of this feature, allowing two players to "Mystery Gift" with each other once a day, basically creating random items for both players. The games could also communicate with the Pokémon Pikachu 2 GS, which could get the player a variety of items. Additionally, a Mission: Impossible game released for the Color had a function to turn the handheld into a universal remote by using the IR sensor, while Bomberman Max used it for Mon battles and sharing version-exclusive stages.
The Color was well-supported considering it had a relatively short lifespan. Over 900 games were made specifically for it, with some being colorized re-releases of Game Boy games (often known as "DX" versions). Nintendo also made sure to publish a large number of high-profile first party titles: The Legend of Zelda, Mario, and Pokémon would all see multiple installments on the GBC, with Pokémon in particular providing the system's biggest Killer App via Pokémon Gold and Silver.
The total sales of the Game Boy Color are unclear, as Nintendo officially treats it as a revision of the original Game Boy and folds their numbers together. However, everything points to it being a huge hit; the highest-selling GBC game exceeded 23 million units.
The system lasted only a little over four years before retiring in 2003, as Nintendo had fully moved on to the Game Boy Advance and were preparing for the imminent release of the Nintendo DS in 2004. The Color is probably the most successful system ever to have such a short cycle thanks to its large library and high software sales.