Game Boy Color

The Game Boy Color (GBC or CGB) is an 8-bit handheld game console, manufactured by Nintendo, which was released in Japan on October 21, 1998, and to international markets that November. It is the successor to the Game Boy and part of its product line. Compared to the original, the Game Boy Color features a color TFT screen rather than monochrome, a processor that operates twice as fast, and four times as much memory. It retains backward compatibility with games initially developed for its predecessor. However, reviewers considered these improvements insufficient to justify Nintendo's releasing it as a separate product.

The handheld is slightly thicker and taller and has a slightly smaller screen than the Game Boy Pocket, its immediate predecessor, although significantly smaller than the original Game Boy. As with its predecessors, the Game Boy Color has a custom 8-bit processor made by Sharp. The American English spelling of the system's name, Game Boy Color, remains consistent throughout the world.

The Game Boy Color is part of the fifth generation of video game consoles. The Game Boy and the Game Boy Color combined have sold 118.69 million units worldwide, making them the fourth best-selling system of all time. Its best-selling games are Pokémon Gold and Silver, which shipped 23 million units worldwide.

History
When the original Game Boy was first introduced in 1989, many questioned why Nintendo had chosen to develop a monochrome handheld, considering competitors like the Atari Lynx and Sega Game Gear boasted color screens. However, Nintendo's gamble paid off. The rivals' color displays, while visually impressive, were criticized for their poor battery life and bulky size. The Game Boy, in contrast, offered superior portability and longevity, propelling it to immense popularity. Publicly, Nintendo pledged to develop a color Game Boy only when technology addressed the limitations of existing color handhelds.

Internally, however, a team led by Satoru Okada, who played a key role in the original Game Boy's design, was already experimenting with color displays. Their early-1990s prototype, codenamed "Project Atlantis," featured a color screen and a powerful 32-bit processor from Sharp. However, the team wasn't satisfied with the outcome and shelved further development.

Despite the lack of color, consumer interest in the Game Boy remained strong. In 1996, Nintendo released the slimmer Game Boy Pocket, and the launch of the Pokémon series that same year further boosted sales. However, developers were starting to lose interest in the aging platform.

The tide began to turn in October 1997 when news broke about Bandai's new handheld, the WonderSwan. Notably, the project was led by Gunpei Yokoi, the engineer who led the development of the Game & Watch series and the original Game Boy. Yokoi had left Nintendo in 1996 following the commercial failure of his final project, the Virtual Boy. His departure caused a stir, with investors dumping Nintendo stock, forcing a temporary halt on trading at the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Tragically, Yokoi would never see the WonderSwan's release, as he was killed in a roadside accident in 1997.

Faced with mounting pressure, Okada revisited Project Atlantis. However, prioritizing speed to market over power, he dropped the 32-bit processor for a faster version of the existing Game Boy's 8-bit processor that would allow for a quicker launch and maintain compatibility with the existing library of Game Boy games.

The Game Boy Color was officially announced in March 1998, hitting store shelves in Japan in October of that year. It received an international rollout throughout November, reaching North America on the 18th, Europe on the 23rd, and Australasia on the 27th. Launching at a price of US$79.95 1998, the Game Boy Color ultimately outsold the WonderSwan, which went on sale in March 1999.

The Game Boy Color had a relatively short lifespan, being on the market for only two and a half years before being succeeded by the Game Boy Advance in 2001. The successor finally brought the 32-bit processing power envisioned in Project Atlantis. Despite the new arrival, the Game Boy Color remained in production, serving as a budget-friendly alternative. The last units were reportedly sold by March 2003.

Hardware


The Game Boy Color uses a custom system on a chip (SoC), integrating the CPU and other major components into a single package, named the CPU CGB by Nintendo and manufactured by the Sharp Corporation. While the CPU CGB was a new design for the Game Boy Color, the technology inside was largely an evolution of the then ten-year-old DMG-CPU SoC used inside the original Game Boy, making the CPU CGB outdated when it was introduced in the late-90s.

Within the CPU CGB, the main processor is a Sharp SM83, a hybrid between two other 8-bit processors: the Intel 8080 and the Zilog Z80. The SM83 has the seven 8-bit registers of the 8080 (compared to 14 on the Z80), but uses the Z80's programming syntax and extra bit manipulation instructions, and it also adds a few new instructions to optimize the processor for certain operations related to the way the hardware was arranged. The Sharp SM83 also powered the original Game Boy, where it operated at a clock rate of 4.194304 megahertz (MHz). However, games on Game Boy Color exclusive cartridges could command the processor to operate in "dual-speed mode," overclocking it to run twice as fast at 8.388608 MHz. This gave developers the option to get more processing power out of the device while retaining backward compatibility for existing games.

The CPU CGB also incorporates the Picture Processing Unit, essentially a basic GPU, that renders visuals using two separate 8 kilobyte (KB) banks of Video RAM, twice as much as the original Game Boy and relocated inside the SoC for faster access. Games developed exclusively for the Game Boy Color could take full advantage of the additional memory to add more effects and display up to 56 colors simultaneously out of a selection of 32,768 colors. When an Original Game Boy Game Pak is inserted into the device, the additional memory is disabled. However, these monochrome games still benefit from enhanced color palettes.

The display itself is a 2.3-inch (diagonal) thin-film transistor (TFT) color liquid-crystal display (LCD), measuring 44 mm wide by 40 mm high. The screen aspect ratio and resolution remain identical to the original Game Boy at 160 pixels wide by 144 pixels high in a 10:9 format. Like the original Game Boy and Game Boy Pocket before it and the Game Boy Advance after it, the screen is passively reflective, with a surface behind the screen that sends light back through the liquid crystal pixel elements to the viewer. Because there is no backlight, the device can be hard to use in dark environments.

The SoC also contains a 2 KB "bootstrap" ROM which is used to start up the device, 127 B of High RAM that can be accessed faster (similar to a CPU cache), and the Audio Processing Unit, a programmable sound generator with four channels: a pulse wave generation channel with frequency and volume variation, a second pulse wave generation channel with only volume variation, a wave channel than can reproduce any waveform recorded in RAM, and a white noise channel with volume variation. The motherboard of the Game Boy Color also contains a 32 KB "working" RAM chip, four times more than the 8 KB on the original Game Boy.

The Game Boy features a D-pad (directional pad), four action buttons labeled 'A,' 'B,' 'SELECT,' and 'START,' and a sliding on-off switch on the right side of the device. The volume is adjusted by a potentiometer dial on the left side of the device.

The left side also offers a Game Link Cable port for connecting to up to four Game Boy devices for multiplayer games or, notably in Pokémon series games, sharing files. This port can also be used with a Game Boy Printer. The port used on the Game Boy Color is of a smaller design first introduced on the Game Boy Pocket, and requires an adapter to link with the original Game Boy. While the original Game Boy could transfer data at 8 kilobits per second (kbit/s), the Game Boy color offered a "high-speed" mode that could reach up to 512 kbit/s, 64 times faster. The Game Boy Color also added an infrared communications port for wireless data transfer, however the feature is only supported by a small number of games and the infrared port was not included on the Game Boy Advance line.

Cartridges
Games are stored on cartridges called Game Boy Game Paks, using read-only memory (ROM) chips. Initially, due to the limitations of the 8-bit architecture of the device, ROM size was limited to 32 KB. However, Nintendo overcame this limitation with a Memory Bank Controller (MBC) inside the cartridge. This chip sits between the processor and the ROM chips. The CPU can only access 32 KB at a time, but the MBC can switch between several banks of 32 KB ROM. Using this technology, Nintendo created Game Boy Color games that used up to 8 megabytes of ROM. Game Paks could also provide additional functionality to the Game Boy system. Some cartridges included up to 128 KB of RAM to increase performance, which could also be battery-backed to save progress when the handheld was off, real-time clock chips could keep track of time even when the device was off and Rumble Pak cartridges added vibration feedback to enhance gameplay.

The Game Boy Color has backward compatibility with all original Game Boy games, and there were three main Game Pak cartridge types for the handheld:

Original Game Boy Game Pak (Gray Case): The classic Game Boy cartridges. The Game Boy Color applies a limited color palette (often dark green) using four to ten colors to enhance games originally intended to be presented in four shades of gray. Many games were programmed to call for a default color palette. However, for games without a default, users could choose from 12 different palettes using button combinations. A dedicated palette option replicates the original Game Boy's grayscale experience.

Color enhanced Game Boy Game Pak (Black Case): These cartridges can use the full color capabilities of the console, displaying up to 56 colors simultaneously out of a palette of 32,768 while use up to 56 colors out of a palette of 32,000 while remaining compatible with the original Game Boy where they were presented in four shades of gray. However, this compatibility comes at the expense of not being able to utilize the handheld's increased processing speed and memory.

Game Boy Color Game Pak (Clear Case): Designed specifically for the Game Boy Color, these cartridges exploit the system's full potential. They boast both the full color range (56 colors simultaneously out of a palette of 32,768) and benefit from the increased processing speed and memory of the Game Boy Color. However, because of this reliance on the newer hardware, these games are incompatible with the older monochrome Game Boy models.

Model colors
Nintendo had seen success selling colored variations of the Play It Loud! Game Boy and the Game Boy Pocket, so the company released the Color in several case variations.

The logo for Game Boy Color spells out the word "COLOR" in the five original colors in which the unit was manufactured: Berry (C), Grape (O), Kiwi (L), Dandelion (O), and Teal (R). Another color released at the same time was "Atomic Purple", made of a translucent purple plastic. Other colors were sold as limited editions or in specific countries.

Games
Due to its backward compatibility with Game Boy games, the Game Boy Color launched with a large playable library. The system amassed a library of 576 Game Boy Color games over a four-year period. While the majority of the games are Game Boy Color exclusive, approximately 30% of the games released are compatible with the original Game Boy. Most Game Boy Color games released after 1999 are not compatible with the original Game Boy.

Tetris for the original Game Boy is the best-selling game compatible with Game Boy Color, and Pokémon Gold and Silver are the best-selling games developed primarily for it. The best-selling Game Boy Color exclusive game is Pokémon Crystal.

The last Game Boy Color game ever released is the Japanese exclusive Doraemon no Study Boy: Kanji Yomikaki Master, on July 18, 2003. The last game released in North America is Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, released on November 15, 2002. In Europe, the last game released for the system is Hamtaro: Ham-Hams Unite!, on January 10, 2003.

Beyond officially released games for the platform, there is an active online community creating new games for the Game Boy and Game Boy Color through the use of tools like GB Studio. One such example is Dragonhym (originally Dragonborne) which was available for release on a physical cartridge which will be playable on the Game Boy Color.

Sales
The Game Boy and Game Boy Color were both commercially successful, selling 118.69 million units worldwide: 32.47 million in Japan, 44.06 million in the Americas, and 42.16 million in all other regions. At the time of its discontinuation in 2003, the combined sales of all Game Boy variants made it the best-selling game console of all time. In later years, its sales were surpassed by the Nintendo DS, PlayStation 2 and Nintendo Switch, making it the fourth-best-selling console the second-best-selling handheld of all time,. Sales of the device were in part driven by the success of Pokémon Gold and Silver and Pokémon Crystal, with combined sales of 29.5 million units, making them one of the best selling-video games of all time.

Sales of the Game Boy Color were strong at launch. Nintendo of America reported a sale of one million units from launch to December 1998, and two million by July 1999. Retail chains in the United States reported unexpectedly high demand for the console, with executives of FuncoLand reporting "very pleasant and unpredicted" sales and Electronics Boutique stating "the entire Game Boy Color line just exploded, including accessories" upon release. Faced with high worldwide demand and competitive retail pricing, retailers such as CompUSA sold out of Game Boy Color stock in the weeks before the 1998 Christmas season.

Critical reception
Reception of the Game Boy Color was positive, with critics praising the addition of color and improved clarity of the display.

Affiliated publications such as Total Game Boy praised the handheld for its "bright, colorful picture that can be viewed in direct light", backward compatibility features preserving the "vast catalogue of original Game Boy games", and improved technical performance. Computer and Video Games praised the Game Boy Color for making the Game Boy library of games "look better than ever – everything is crystal clear, bright and in [color]". Writing for GameSpot, Chris Johnston stated that the display was "crystal clear" and free of motion blur, stating that Tetris DX was the "killer app" of the launch titles on the platform.

Milder reviews included those by Arcade, who said that while that the colors were "very impressive" they were "not as eyeball-popping as you might have hoped for [...] it's mostly seaweed greens, rusty browns, timid yellows and the like". They concluded that "nothing about [the Game Boy Color] is very radical" but said the device was "Game Boy as it always should have been". Reviewers also pointed out other drawbacks including that the system was still using an 8-bit architecture when competitors had moved onto 16-bit handheld systems and that the backlit screen required that the user be in a well lit area.

Legacy
Commentary on the legacy of the Game Boy Color has been shaped by the perception that the handheld was as an incremental and transitional upgrade of the Game Boy rather than a completely new device, and had a relatively brief lifespan, being supplanted by the Game Boy Advance after two years, five months on the market.

In a history of Nintendo, author Jeff Ryan noted the Game Boy Color had a reputation as a "legacy machine" that found success mostly due to its backward compatibility, as "few wanted to lose all the Dr. Mario and Pokémon cartridges they had amassed over the years." Quoted in Retro Gamer, Blitz Games Studios developer Bob Pape acknowledged that although "backwards compatibility more or less defined (the) Game Boy Color", the handheld "ticked all the right boxes with regards to size, battery life, reliability and most importantly backwards compatibility".

Positive assessments of the legacy of the Game Boy Color has also focused on the merits of its game library, particularly for its third-party and import titles. Travis Fahs for IGN noted whilst "the Game Boy Color's life was relatively brief", it "built up a small library of excellent games", including Wario Land 3 and Pokémon Gold and Silver, and a "unique" and "previously unheard of" line of successful third-party games, including Dragon Warrior Monsters, Metal Gear Solid and Yu-Gi-Oh! Dark Duel Stories. Ashley Day of Retro Gamer noted that the handheld had an "overlooked" status, stating "the Game Boy Color (has) an unfair reputation as the one Nintendo handheld with few worthwhile titles, but this simply isn't the case...returning to the Game Boy Color now reveals a wealth of great games that you never knew existed, especially those available on import."