Talk:Game Boy Color/Archive 1

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Why did this system last so long
Why did this system last so long? Nintendo was still releasing 8-bit games in 2000 when 10 years earlier there were better games for Atari Lynx. &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.193.83.171 (talk • contribs) 08:33, 22 January 2005 (UTC).


 * So? Most of Nintendo's released games were great. It was third parties who mostly milked it dry. -- A Link to the Past 02:17, July 16, 2005 (UTC)


 * I can field the question. A lack of competition.  Nintendo had no reason to improve its handheld product, because it held a monopoly over the whole market.  It was making good money with the gameboy and gameboy color, so why waste money and take a risk with a new product?  But look at the PSP.  With that entry, Nintendo got scared and stepped it up, which resulted in the Nintendo DS.  Competition brings about better products because they compete with each other for better quality. Malamockq 16:21, 19 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Actually, the Game Boy Advance was a 32-bit handheld. But people were still buying it, and after the failed Virtual Boy experiment, Nintendo was probably a little relunctant to try anything different for a few years. Also, Malamockq answered the other part of the question. Besides, Atari by then had lost a lot of their popularity by then. Also, it lasted because it was great. Travishayes89 (talk) 03:37, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

gamegear
How did this handheld compare to the gamegear in terms of technical specs? Which was superior (not counting battery life and software support)? &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lengis (talk • contribs) 20:06, 6 February 2006 (UTC).

eBay
I put a cleanup banner on this article to mark it.. the use of an eBay url to indicate an example of a game boy color isn't recommended, since eBay takes auctions down after too long. Let's get this page looking great Kether83 06:55, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

The eBay url was added by an anonymous user and actually provides no information beyond what is already in the article (just some out of focus pictures of the GBC). I have removed it and the cleanup banner. Kether83: was there any other reason for the cleanup? If so, feel free to re-add the banner. Ben 21:17, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Games with unchangeable pallets
I remember not being able to change the color pallet in Pokemon Yellow. I tested this by attempting to switch to every pallet and none of them worked. Then I tested them on another gameboy game it they worked. If this can be found to happen in other games we should get a list going. --Brieeyeball 05:07, 22 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Changed it (a while ago). Pokémon Yellow was fully Color-aware, even though the game appeared very 'low-tech'. I don't think it is necessary to make a list of games that re Color-aware; as long as the cover says "Gameboy Color", it knows about the palette registers. When it doesn't say "Gameboy Color" on the cover, it doesn't, and the 'BIOS' will program the palette registers for the game. At least, that's how I think it works. --Tinctorius 12:09, 27 April 2007 (UTC)


 * As a general rule, black and clear-cartridge games are Game Boy Color games (meaning you can't change the palettes). Of course, there are games that have different colors that are GBC games, such as Pokémon Yellow/Gold/Silver/Crystal, Kirby Tilt 'n Tumble, and possibly others.


 * I for one have noticed from playing Super Mario Land, Nintendo Baseball, and Wario Land (Super Mario Land 3) on my Game Boy Color, that the palletes are higher tech (but still low-tech for a Game Boy Color) than the colorization of the A/B + D-Pad provides. Proof is in Baseball, one team being black and white, the other team being blue and white. The field is green and orange. This isn't a default GBC pallete. Mainly this "feature" (if you will) exists on Nintendo made games. In SML, Mario is red, the sky is blue, the coins are yellow, and the blocks are a green. Maybe Nintendo programmed a different pallete system into their own cartridges. The three games I mentioned are the Game Boy "gray" cartridges. Super Mario Land itself is a launch title. Travishayes89 (talk) 03:31, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

i didn't knew that. Maybe they think of a color game boy, at the start. maybe it was for computer programming. the worst thing with game boy color & advance, is that they don't play the colours from the super game boy!

More specifications needed
Here is some preliminary info: http://nindb.classicgaming.gamespy.com/dmg/dmg_hard.shtml
 * What were the actual clock speed, RAM, and ROM sizes?
 * How did the specs compare to contemporary competitors (GameGear, Lynx)?
 * Why does Game Boy line say that the GBC had twice the memory, when this article says the GBC had thrice the memory of the original?
 * What was the GBC's size and weight? It'd be nice to have a picture of the GBC next to a ruler
 * What link cables could be used? Game Boy line implies the GBC must have used the same cable as the GB Pocket, but we should be clear.
 * A article here mentions a motion detector- I recently had mine open but have since given back the tri-wing screwdriver. Anyone confirm existance, and what, if any, games took advantage of it?
 * CGB-003 (GBC Game Link Cable) seems right, but does anybody actually know?
 * I believe, DMG-04 was used for the original gameboy and was too large to fit in GB Advanced, Color, or Pocket without an adapter (MGB-004 GB Pocket Game Link Cable Adapter)
 * Was the MGB-008 (Pocket Game Link Cable) the same as the CGB-003 (GBC Game Link Cable)?


 * The motion sensor was not in the Game Boy itself. Tt was used in several games, but the sensor was built into the cartridge in those cases. Ace of Sevens 13:40, 11 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I'd also like to know the dimensions of the unit itself. --Poiuyt Man talk 21:29, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * A standard GBC is approx 77mm x 131mm x 28mm at it's widest/longest/deepest points. But what use, if I may ask, is this information? RevJohn 11:32, 11 March 2007 (UTC)


 * What was the best selling game? Articles on other game systems list the best selling game under the system's picture. TanookiMario257 04:54, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Britishising?
Who changed all the words "color" for "colour"? now saying that the five letters are the five standard colours makes no sense!

I think this needs a big change. The gameboy colour is the successor to the gameboy pocket. All comparison made in the first paragraph should compare the GBC with the Gameboy pocket.

That's not "Britishising" that's the correct spelling of the word, internationally. English is a British language and the former colonies need to accept they speak an incorrect variation.

It is not incorrect but different. The GBC name was originated in the US, so the word "color" should be used. Or will you "correct" the console logos as well? =) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.161.95.87 (talk) 18:55, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

2.1 Mhz GBC vs. 4.19 Mhz original GB?????
"The processor, which is an 8080 workalike made by Sharp with a few extra (bit manipulation) instructions, has a clock speed of 2.1MHz, twice as fast as that of the original Game Boy. The Game Boy Color also has four times as much memory as the original. Above clock speed is irrelevant. fixing it. That's too slow for the GBC. it is higher. 172.129.235.6 21:16, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Generation
Why is this device included as part of the 4th Generation, when it was introduced in 1998 and the 4th Generation is said to end in 1996? Shouldn't this device be considered part of the 5th Generation? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hwillman (talk • contribs) 20:58, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Because it's a continuation of the original Game Boy, which is Fourth Gen. Sure, the GBC has better hardware than the original GB, but then again, the most recent PS2 has better hardware than the original PS2... yet it's still a PS2. Also, if the GB and the GBC are two seperate systems, and part of two different gaming generations, why are sales numbers a mix of the two? --WishfireOmega (talk) 11:34, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

European release year was 1998, not 1999
The Game Boy Color was definitely available in Europe around the same time as the US launch - I personally bought a GBC on the first week of December 1998. --Free Socialist 22:46, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

same here!

What was the first GBC exclusive game?
Does anyone know what the first game was that would ONLY work in the GBC? - Akadewboy (talk) 16:28, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

GBC games can play on game boy advance ! you cannot put a GBC cartridge in the old big game boy because of the edges of the cartridge, but if you put it into the super game boy you get a screen wich tells there is an error.

Nor GB Pocket. The thicker part at the top of the GBC carts does not fit. About the screen, if you somehow break the cart and make it fit into a GB/GB Pocket, it will also show this screen. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.161.95.87 (talk) 18:59, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

GBC actual screen size dimensions not listed
There isn't any mention of the actual dimensions of the Game Boy Color's (GBC's) screen in the article. The GBC's screen is 59mm diagonal, width 43.5mm, height 39.5mm. I own a GBC and just measured it myself. Also for comparison, the Game Boy Pocket (GBP) has a BIGGER screen, which is 65mm diagonal, width 48.5mm, height 43.5mm. Again I own the GBP also and I just measured it. I can also provide a photo' with GBC and GBP in simultaneously to prove that GBP has the physically bigger screen.--Live Steam Mad (talk) 04:35, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Mini Classics
Should the Nintendo Mini Classics be mentioned in the Successor/Predecessor part as well as the Game Boy/Light/Advance/Pocket etc. etc. Look at the successor for the Game Boy infobox and you can see it's full of four different types of game boy, one isn't even a proper seperate type (Play It Loud!)--213.83.125.225 (talk) 09:02, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Sound hardware?
I just read the whole article and am finding no mention of any audio hardware. This article should have a hardware section like the Game Boy article has, by that I mean a list. I actually think that there needs to be a template used for the specs of all game systems on Wikipedia, but that's something for another day. Sonicjosh (talk) 01:49, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

CPU
This info is completely wrong. It does not have a Zilog Z80, it has the same Sharp CPU as the original Game Boy but with an option to run in double speed (8.38 MHz). This CPU is not Z80 with "a few extra (bit manipulation) instructions", rather it is as stated on the Game Boy page "similar to an Intel 8080 in that all of the registers introduced in the Z80 are not present. However, some of the Z80's instruction set enhancements over the stock 8080, particularly bit manipulation, are present. Still other instructions are unique to this particular flavor of Z80 CPU." Skogssvinet (talk) 12:58, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Backwards compatibility
I'm 99% sure that game boy color cartridges work on the original DS. Because I remember when getting a DS lite I was pissed because I couldn't play Pokemon Red on it. --Reed501 (talk) 20:05, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi Color Mode
The article mentions Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (GBC) as a hi-color game and I can confirm this as its lead developer to help out with the citation note.

The way to achieve this effect was on every scanline to reload up to 3/4 of the BG palette registers via an H-Blank interrupt. This took away processing time from the main game-loop, but allowed us to have much higher color density pictures. If you were to do this for the entire screen, you could achieve 6 (palettes) x 4 (colors) x 144 scanlines = 3456 colors at once in the background plus the 24 sprite colors. Doing this means that you have almost no CPU time available for anything else though, so many developers used it in a much more limited fashion. For the in-game battle sequences where the character portrait was rendered in hi-color, we only did the affect on 3 chars (24 scanlines) of colors - or 576 color images. Even this much hi colors interfered with sound playback and other in-game calculations and required quite a bit of care to work around. The chars that made up the images were still limited to 32 colors per scanline (24 dynamic and 8 static that there wasn't time to reload) and 4 colors per char within that scanline so one could not get a perfect hi color image this way. Still, it led to some very impressive images and some graphics that rivaled the GBAs at the time. --Michael Dorgan — Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.166.76.15 (talk) 18:09, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

The GBC's name
I know that the colors in the word 'COLOR' are a reference to the five launch colors (Berry, Grape, Kiwi, Dandelion, and Teal, respectively) — but I'm just curious: in countries that use extra 'u's in words (such as England), was it renamed to 'Game Boy COLOUR'?

I myself am an American, but I've just always wondered this. Kizul Emeraldfire (talk) 05:38, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Cartridge backwards compatibility with Game Boy
So some game cartridges are backwards compatible and work on the Game Boy while others do not. I wished that for all Game Boy color games on wikipedia, this fact is listed somehow. Maybe in the info boxes. What is the best place to put this info systematically? Bonomont (talk) 10:15, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Infrared I/O
I feel a list of the games compatible with this unique feature (non-present in any other Game Boy version) is missing. I can only recall Pokemon Trading Card Game supporting this feature, but I doubt it's the only one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.161.95.87 (talk) 19:05, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

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CPU Speed
I wrote the first Tombraider game on the GBC & my engine was used by the second game. The CPU is clocked at 1.05MHz but can be switched to run at 2.1MHz. The DMA of the sprites & BG meant the game ran at 30Hz. Switching back to 1.05MHz and dispatching a HALT intruction was tested and proved to increase battery-life. The clock was used by the video core & the CPU but was divided for the latter. I can assure you that it didn't run at 8MHz. If it did, I would have rendered the 3D model into an array of OBJs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.99.74.135 (talk) 21:44, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Refidea
For anyone wanting to expand and source this article, new SNK edition of Retro Gamer has a feature about Game Boy Color. Looking at it, it can help in greatly expanding this article. Sleeps-Darkly (talk) 06:39, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Number of colors in palettes for GB games
According to this page https://tcrf.net/Notes:Game_Boy_Color_Bootstrap_ROM#Assigned_Palette_Configurations there are only 12 colors in the palletes for original Gamboy games. Even in the special palletes for pre-selected games. There are 4 colors for each of the 3 layers. So, where does the information about 16 colors (4 for each of the 4 layers) in the article come from? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.195.7.209 (talk) 01:07, 7 May 2020 (UTC)