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The Game Boy Color (ゲームボーイカラー Gēmu Bōi Karā^?, shortened to GBC) is Nintendo's successor to the Game Boy and was released on October 21, 1998 in Japan and in November 19, 1998 in North America and November 23, 1998 in Europe. It features a color screen and is slightly thicker and taller than the Game Boy Pocket, but smaller than the original Game Boy. As of March 31, 2006, the Game Boy and Game Boy Color combined have sold 118.7 million units worldwide.

History

The Game Boy Color was a response to pressure from game developers for a new and much more sophisticated system of playing, as they felt that the Game Boy, even in its latest incarnation, the Game Boy Pocket, was insufficient. The resultant product was backward compatible, a first for a handheld console system, and leveraged the large library of games and great installed base of the predecessor system. This became a major feature of the Game Boy line, since it allowed each new launch to begin with a significantly larger library than any of its competitors.

Specifications

The processor, which is a Z80 workalike made by Sharp with a few extra (bit manipulation) instructions, has a clock speed of approx. 8 MHz, twice as fast as that of the original Game Boy when desired, but for backwards compatibility's sake it could also run at the original Game Boy's speed while in GBC mode. The Game Boy Color also has four times as much memory as the original (32 kilobytes system RAM divided into many banks, 16 kilobytes video RAM). Additionally, the Game Boy Color could address more ROM due to superior memory banking hardware in newer cartridges, allowing games as much as eight times the maximum size of those for the original Game Boy. The largest Game Boy games such as Pokémon were 8 Megabits where the largest Game Boy Color games reached 64 Megabits. The screen resolution was the same as the original Game Boy, which is 160x128 pixels. This helped with backwards compatibility and making dual compatible games such as Megaman Xtreme which worked on both Color and monochrome systems.

The Game Boy Color also featured an infrared communications port for wireless linking. However, the feature was only supported in a few games, and the infrared port was dropped for the Game Boy Advance and later releases. The console was capable of showing up to 56 different colors simultaneously on screen from its palette of 32,768, and could add basic four-color shading to games that had been developed for the original Game Boy. It could also give the sprites and backgrounds separate colors, for a total of more than four colors. This, however, resulted in graphic artifacts in certain games; a sprite that was supposed to meld into the background was now colored separately, exposing the trick.

Cartridges

. Nintendo also made black cartridges that were compatible with the Game Boy Color, the older Super Game Boy and the original Game Boy. The black color distinguished these special cartridges from the grey Game Boy carts and the transparent Game Boy Color carts. The black cartridges had notches in the corner like old Game Boy cartridges, allowing an original Game Boy to be turned on when they were inserted, while the Game Boy Color cartridges did not. Special Game Boy Color palettes were built into the black carts, making it impossible to change their palette. Game Boy Color games also feature the different color cartridges for the European and American releases of the Pokémon games.

Color palette

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When playing an original Game Boy game on a later system, the user can choose which color palette is used. This is achieved by pressing certain button combinations, namely either A or B (both achieving different results) and an arrow key, while the Game Boy logo is displayed on the screen. It is also possible to use a monochromatic color scheme that preserves the original look of the game by pressing B+Left.

In addition, most Game Boy games published by Nintendo have a special palette that is enabled when no buttons are pressed. Any game that does not have a special palette will default to the Dark Green (Right + A) palette instead. Notable games that do have preset palettes are Metroid II: Return of Samus, Kirby's Dream Land 2, Super Mario Land, and the Wario Land series.

Games

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The last Game Boy Color game released in Japan that was also compatible with the Game Boy and Super Game Boy was From TV Animation - One Piece: Maboroshi no Grand Line Boukenhen! (June 2002). This gave the original Game Boy (1989-2002) one of the longest continuous lifespans of any console, only bested by the Atari 2600 (1977-1992), and the Neo-Geo AES/MVS (1990-2006). In the US, the last game was Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

Sales

As of March 31, 2005, the Game Boy and Game Boy Color combined has sold 32.47 million units in Japan, 44.06 million in the Americas, and 42.16 million in other regions. As of March 31, 2006, the Game Boy and Game Boy Color combined have sold 118.7 million units worldwide.

References

^ ^a ^b ^c A Brief History of Game Console Warfare: Game Boy. BusinessWeek. McGraw-Hill. Retrieved on 2008-03-28.
^ ^a ^b ^c Annual Report 2006 (PDF) 14. Nintendo. Retrieved on 2008-03-28.
^ Japan Platinum Game Chart. The Magic Box. Retrieved on 2007-09-27.
^ US Platinum Videogame Chart. The Magic Box. Retrieved on 2007-09-27.
^ Rob Parton (2004-03-31). Xenogears vs. Tetris. RPGamer. Retrieved on 2008-03-09.
^ March 25, 2004. The Magic Box (2004-03-25). Archived from the original on 2005-11-26. Retrieved on 2008-03-15.
^ http://www.romhacking.net/docs/gbchardware.html
^ http://www.romhacking.net/docs/gbspec.txt
^ 05 Nintendo Annual Report - Nintendo Co., Ltd. (PDF) 33–34. Nintendo. Retrieved on 2008-03-28.

External links

Nintendo Portal

Official website
Game Boy Color at Nintendo.com (archived versions at the Internet Archive Wayback Machine)
Game Boy Color games list at Nintendo.com (archived from the original at the Internet Archive Wayback Machine)
Game Boy Color at the Open Directory Project

v • d • e Nintendo video game hardware

Consoles	Color TV Game • NES (Famicom Disk System • NES 2 • AV Family Computer) • Super NES (Super Game Boy • Satellaview) • Virtual Boy • Nintendo 64 (64DD • iQue Player) • GameCube (WaveBird • Panasonic Q) • Wii

Handhelds	Game & Watch • Game Boy (Pocket • Light) • Game Boy Color • Game Boy Advance (SP • Micro) • Nintendo DS (Lite)

Arcade	Nintendo Classic • Vs. Series • PlayChoice-10 • Nintendo Super System • Triforce

Misc.	Nintendo Gateway • R.O.B. • Power Glove • DK Bongos • Nintendo optical discs • MultiAV

v • d • e Handheld game consoles

Early units	Microvision · Handheld electronic games

Nintendo	Game & Watch · Game Boy (Pocket) (Light) · Game Boy Color · Pokémon mini · Game Boy Advance (SP) · Game Boy Micro · Nintendo DS (Lite)

Sony	PocketStation · PlayStation Portable (Slim and Lite)

Sega	Game Gear · Nomad · Mega Jet · VMU

GamePark and GamePark Holdings	GP32 · GP2X

Bandai	WonderSwan · WonderSwan Color · SwanCrystal

SNK	Neo Geo Pocket · Neo Geo Pocket Color

Other handhelds	Atari Lynx · Gamate · Watara Supervision · Mega Duck · Game.com · Gizmondo · N-Gage · TurboExpress · Tapwave Zodiac · GameKing

Comparison

Game Boy Color

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Wayforward Interview - LIT - WiiWare World

F-14 Tomcat GBA Gameplay

Gameplay Series 51.: Jurassic Boy 2 (GBC Pirate) Playthrough 2/2

Gameplay Series 51.: Jurassic Boy 2 (GBC Pirate) Playthrough 1/2