Game Boy Color Retrospective: The Rush Job That Kept The Game Boy Alive

Nintendo had a color Game Boy on the shelf years before the Game Boy Color came out. Its early-1990s prototype, codenamed Project Atlantis, had a color screen and a powerful 32-bit processor from Sharp, but the team was not satisfied with it and shelved the project. So when news of Bandai's WonderSwan broke in October 1997, Satoru Okada pulled Atlantis back out and swapped the 32-bit chip for a faster version of the old 8-bit one, because getting a device to market quickly mattered more than raw power.

The rush paid off. The Game Boy Color still played the whole Game Boy library, and it outsold the WonderSwan, which only went on sale in March 1999. Even so, it lasted only two and a half years on the market before the Game Boy Advance took over and finally delivered the 32-bit power Atlantis had promised. (Nintendo shelved the 32-bit dream and sold a see-through purple one instead. Fair trade.)

Key facts

Released

October 21, 1998 in Japan, November 18, 1998 in North America, November 23, 1998 in EuropeSource

Launch price

US$79.95Source

Units sold

118.69 million counting every Game Boy model togetherSource

Best-selling game

Pokémon Gold and Silver, 23 million copiesSource

Best-selling exclusive

Pokémon CrystalSource

Designed by

A Nintendo team led by Satoru OkadaSource

Screen

2.3-inch color screen with no backlightSource

Colors

Up to 56 at once, out of 32,768Source

Discontinued

March 31, 2003Source

How a shelved prototype became Nintendo's quick fix

Publicly, Nintendo had promised a color Game Boy only once the technology allowed it, and in the meantime the green screen kept selling. The slimmer Game Boy Pocket arrived in 1996, and Pokémon launched that same year and pushed sales further. However, developers were losing interest in the aging platform, and then the pressure came from an old friend. The WonderSwan project was led by Gunpei Yokoi, the engineer behind the original Game Boy, who had left Nintendo in 1996.

The Color itself was a careful upgrade rather than a new machine. It kept the Sharp SM83 processor of the original Game Boy but could run it at twice the speed in games made for the Color, and it played old cartridges too, although the colors it painted onto them were always a bit off. Meanwhile Nintendo banned simple "colorized" re-releases of monochrome games, so developers had to add real changes such as new levels or characters. As a result the DX versions became some of the system's most popular games, Tetris DX and Link's Awakening DX among them. The stronger hardware also allowed faithful NES ports at last, and Super Mario Bros. Deluxe is the best-known example.

By the end the system had more than 900 games of its own, on top of the original Game Boy's catalog of over 1,000. The Game Boy Advance replaced it in 2001, yet the Color stayed in production as the budget option until the last units sold in March 2003. Still, the games did not get the memo. The very last Game Boy Color game, the Japan-only Doraemon no Study Boy: Kanji Yomikaki Master, came out on July 18, 2003.

The best Game Boy Color games

Ranked by how often players recommend them, with picks other players backed counting extra. Metal Gear: Ghost Babel takes #1, and Pokémon Crystal is second.

Every Game Boy Color list

Game Boy Color retrospectives

Handhelds for Game Boy Color games

Any handheld that plays Game Boy games well plays Game Boy Color games too, so the vertical ones that copy the original shape are the natural pick.