Game Boy Color
Encyclopedia
The is Nintendo
's successor to the 8-bit Game Boy
handheld game console, and was released on October 21, 1998 in Japan, November 19, 1998 in North America, November 23, 1998 in Europe and November 27, 1998 in the United Kingdom. It features a color screen and is slightly thicker and taller than the Game Boy Pocket. As with the original Game Boy, it has an 8-bit processor. The Game Boy and Game Boy Color combined have sold 118.69 million units worldwide.
, a first for a handheld 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.
The processor, which is a Z80 workalike made by Sharp
with a few extra (bit manipulation) instructions, has a clock speed of approximately 8 MHz, twice as fast as that of the original Game Boy. The Game Boy Color also has four times as much memory as the original (32 kilobytes system RAM, 16 kilobytes video RAM). The screen resolution was the same as the original Game Boy, which is 160x144 pixels.
The Game Boy Color also featured an infrared
communications port for wireless linking. The feature was only supported in a few games, however, 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. For example, sometimes a sprite that was supposed to meld into the background would be colored separately, making it easily noticeable.
feature different-colored cartridges, although they are technically identical to the standard black ones. Game Boy Color Cartridges will function correctly when used in a Game Boy Advance or Game Boy Advance SP system. No cartridges made for any system earlier than a Game Boy Advance will function in the Nintendo DS or Nintendo DS Lite, and nothing earlier than a DS card will function in a Nintendo DSi or 3DS.
These palettes each contain up to ten colors. In most games, the four shades displayed on the original Game Boy would translate to different subsets of this 10-color palette, such as by displaying movable sprites
in one subset and backgrounds, etc. in another. The grayscale (Left + B) palette produces an appearance essentially identical to that experienced on the original Game Boy.
In addition, 93 Game Boy games 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. Notable games that do have preset palettes are Metroid II: Return of Samus
, Kirby's Dream Land 2
, Super Mario Land
, Tetris
, and the Wario Land series. The default palettes are stored in a database within the internal boot rom of the GBC, and not the game cartridge itself.
Super Game Boy titles will work too. Despite compatibility with Super Game Boy
titles, the Game Boy Color will not recognize the coloring header for Super Game Boy titles which have a color graphics system of its own.
The logo for Game Boy Color spelled out the word COLOR in the five original colors in which the unit was manufactured. They were named:
Another color released at the same time was "Atomic Purple", made of a translucent purple plastic that was also used on the color-respective Nintendo 64
controller.
Other colors were sold as limited editions or in specific countries. These included:
(1977–1992), Neo-Geo AES/MVS
(1990–2004) and the NES
(1983 - 2003). Its North American lifespan was shorter though, as the last Game Boy and Super Game Boy compatible game released there was Dragon Warrior Monsters 2
(September 2001). The last North American Game Boy Color-exclusive game, however, was Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
. Although it was released on different consoles, the Game Boy Color featured an exclusive version.
With the release of the Nintendo 3DS
, Nintendo
has announced that the Virtual Console
service will also be available for the 3DS and will allow players to play games from the Game Boy and Game Boy Color.
and Game Boy Color combined have sold 118.69 million units worldwide, with 32.47 million units in Japan, 44.06 million in the Americas
, and 42.16 million in other regions.
Nintendo
is a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel....
's successor to the 8-bit Game Boy
Game Boy
The , is an 8-bit handheld video game device developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on , in North America in , and in Europe on...
handheld game console, and was released on October 21, 1998 in Japan, November 19, 1998 in North America, November 23, 1998 in Europe and November 27, 1998 in the United Kingdom. It features a color screen and is slightly thicker and taller than the Game Boy Pocket. As with the original Game Boy, it has an 8-bit processor. The Game Boy and Game Boy Color combined have sold 118.69 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 compatibleBackward compatibility
In the context of telecommunications and computing, a device or technology is said to be backward or downward compatible if it can work with input generated by an older device...
, a first for a handheld 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
Game Boy line
The line is a line of battery-powered handheld game console sold by Nintendo. It is one of the world's best-selling game system lines with a combined 200+ million units sold worldwide....
, since it allowed each new launch to begin with a significantly larger library than any of its competitors.
Launch titles
- CentipedeCentipede (video game)Centipede is a vertically-oriented shoot 'em up arcade game produced by Atari, Inc. in 1980. The game was designed by Ed Logg along with Dona Bailey, one of the few female game programmers in the industry at this time. It was also the first arcade coin-operated game to have a significant female...
- Game and Watch Gallery 2
- Pocket BombermanPocket Bombermanis a platforming action game first released for the Game Boy in 1997, and later as a launch title for the Game Boy Color in 1998.Pocket Bomberman features gameplay that revolves around using bombs to box in enemies and blowing them to bits. Once all enemies are defeated, Bomberman has to go to the...
- Tetris DXTetrisTetris is a puzzle video game originally designed and programmed by Alexey Pajitnov in the Soviet Union. It was released on June 6, 1984, while he was working for the Dorodnicyn Computing Centre of the Academy of Science of the USSR in Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic...
Summary
The technical details for the console are as follows:- Main processor: Zilog Z80Zilog Z80The Zilog Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor designed by Zilog and sold from July 1976 onwards. It was widely used both in desktop and embedded computer designs as well as for military purposes...
(8-bit) - Processor speed: 4 or 8 MHz (two processor modes)
- Resolution: 160 x 144 pixels (same as the original Game BoyGame BoyThe , is an 8-bit handheld video game device developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on , in North America in , and in Europe on...
and the SegaSega, usually styled as SEGA, is a multinational video game software developer and an arcade software and hardware development company headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan, with various offices around the world...
Game Gear) - Palette colors available: 32,768 (15-bit)
- Colours on screen: Supports 10, 32 or 56
- Maximum sprites: 40 total, 10 per line, 4 colors per sprite (one of which being transparent)
- Sprite size: 8x8 or 8x16
- Tiles on screen: 512 (360 visible, the rest are drawn off screen as a scrolling buffer)
- Audio: 2 square wave channels, 1 wave channel, 1 noise channel, mono speaker, stereo headphone jack
- ROM: 8 MB maximum
- RAM: 32 KB
- VRAM: 16 KB
- Cartridge RAM: 128 KB
- Power:
- internal: 2 AA batteriesAA batteryAn AA battery is a standard size of battery. Batteries of this size are the most commonly used type of in portable electronic devices. An AA battery is composed of a single electrochemical cell...
, 30+ hours of gameplay - external: 3V DC
- indicator: Red LEDLEdLEd is a TeX/LaTeX editing software working under Microsoft Windows. It is a freeware product....
- internal: 2 AA batteries
- Input:
- 8-way D-PadD-padA D-pad is a flat, usually thumb-operated directional control with one button on each point, found on nearly all modern video game console gamepads, game controllers, on the remote control units of some television and DVD players, and smart phones...
- 4 buttons (A, B, Start, Select)
- Volume potentiometerPotentiometerA potentiometer , informally, a pot, is a three-terminal resistor with a sliding contact that forms an adjustable voltage divider. If only two terminals are used , it acts as a variable resistor or rheostat. Potentiometers are commonly used to control electrical devices such as volume controls on...
- Power switch
- Serial I/O ("Link cable"): 512 kbit/s with up to 4 connections in serial
- Infra-red I/O: Less than 2 m distance at 45°
- Cartridge I/O
- 8-way D-Pad
The processor, which is a Z80 workalike made by Sharp
Sharp Corporation
is a Japanese multinational corporation that designs and manufactures electronic products. Headquartered in Abeno-ku, Osaka, Japan, Sharp employs more than 55,580 people worldwide as of June 2011. The company was founded in September 1912 and takes its name from one of its founder's first...
with a few extra (bit manipulation) instructions, has a clock speed of approximately 8 MHz, twice as fast as that of the original Game Boy. The Game Boy Color also has four times as much memory as the original (32 kilobytes system RAM, 16 kilobytes video RAM). The screen resolution was the same as the original Game Boy, which is 160x144 pixels.
The Game Boy Color also featured an infrared
Infrared
Infrared light is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength longer than that of visible light, measured from the nominal edge of visible red light at 0.74 micrometres , and extending conventionally to 300 µm...
communications port for wireless linking. The feature was only supported in a few games, however, and the infrared port was dropped for the Game Boy Advance
Game Boy Advance
The is a 32-bit handheld video game console developed, manufactured, and marketed by Nintendo. It is the successor to the Game Boy Color. It was released in Japan on March 21, 2001; in North America on June 11, 2001; in Australia and Europe on June 22, 2001; and in the People's Republic of China...
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. For example, sometimes a sprite that was supposed to meld into the background would be colored separately, making it easily noticeable.
Cartridges
Games that are designed specifically for the Game Boy Color are housed in clear-colored cartridges, and will not function in an earlier Game Boy or the Super Game Boy (or will simply display a warning message and refuse to play). Games that are designed for the Game Boy Color, but which also include backwards-compatibility with the previous Game Boy systems, have a similar design to the original grey Game Boy cartridges, but are colored black for identification. The European and American releases of Pokémon Yellow and Pokémon Gold and SilverPokémon Gold and Silver
are the second installments of the Pokémon series of role-playing video games developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo for the Game Boy Color. The games have dual-mode capabilities allowing them to also be played on earlier Game Boy models. They were first released in Japan in 1999 and to...
feature different-colored cartridges, although they are technically identical to the standard black ones. Game Boy Color Cartridges will function correctly when used in a Game Boy Advance or Game Boy Advance SP system. No cartridges made for any system earlier than a Game Boy Advance will function in the Nintendo DS or Nintendo DS Lite, and nothing earlier than a DS card will function in a Nintendo DSi or 3DS.
Color palettes used for original Game Boy games
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 (or neither) and a direction key while the Game Boy logo is displayed on the screen.| Directional pad | Action button | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| None | A | B | |
| Up | Brown | Red | Dark brown |
| Down | Pastel mix | Orange | Yellow |
| Left | Blue | Dark blue | Grayscale |
| Right | Green | Dark green | Inverted |
These palettes each contain up to ten colors. In most games, the four shades displayed on the original Game Boy would translate to different subsets of this 10-color palette, such as by displaying movable sprites
Sprite (computer graphics)
In computer graphics, a sprite is a two-dimensional image or animation that is integrated into a larger scene...
in one subset and backgrounds, etc. in another. The grayscale (Left + B) palette produces an appearance essentially identical to that experienced on the original Game Boy.
In addition, 93 Game Boy games 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. Notable games that do have preset palettes are Metroid II: Return of Samus
Metroid II: Return of Samus
is an action-adventure video game, the second game in the Metroid series, and the only one developed for the Nintendo Game Boy. The sixth installment in the overall series story, the game was developed by Nintendo Research & Development 1 , and published by Nintendo in North America in November...
, Kirby's Dream Land 2
Kirby's Dream Land 2
Kirby's Dream Land 2, known as in Japan, is a platforming video game developed by HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo for the Game Boy handheld video game console...
, Super Mario Land
Super Mario Land
is a platforming video game developed by Nintendo for the Game Boy handheld game console. It and the Game Boy debuted in Japan on April 21, 1989, in the United States on July 31, 1989, and in Europe on September 28, 1990...
, Tetris
Tetris
Tetris is a puzzle video game originally designed and programmed by Alexey Pajitnov in the Soviet Union. It was released on June 6, 1984, while he was working for the Dorodnicyn Computing Centre of the Academy of Science of the USSR in Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic...
, and the Wario Land series. The default palettes are stored in a database within the internal boot rom of the GBC, and not the game cartridge itself.
Super Game Boy titles will work too. Despite compatibility with Super Game Boy
Super Game Boy
The is a 16-bit adapter cartridge for Nintendo's Super Nintendo Entertainment System, as well as the Super Famicom in Japan. The Super Game Boy allows game cartridges designed for use on the Game Boy to be played on a TV display using the SNES/Super Famicom controllers. When it was released in...
titles, the Game Boy Color will not recognize the coloring header for Super Game Boy titles which have a color graphics system of its own.
Colors produced
- Berry
- Grape
- Kiwi
- Dandelion
- Teal
Another color released at the same time was "Atomic Purple", made of a translucent purple plastic that was also used on the color-respective Nintendo 64
Nintendo 64
The , often referred to as N64, was Nintendo′s third home video game console for the international market. Named for its 64-bit CPU, it was released in June 1996 in Japan, September 1996 in North America, March 1997 in Europe and Australia, September 1997 in France and December 1997 in Brazil...
controller.
Other colors were sold as limited editions or in specific countries. These included:
- 3rd anniversary orange with Squirtle, Charmander, and Bulbasaur on the left side, Pikachu on the right, and Charmander's tail flame as the power LED. (3rd anniversary of Pokémon edition)
- Color-shifting gold/silver paint (Pokémon Gold/Silver edition)
- Metallic gold/silver paint with a Pikachu & a Pichu around the screen. Pikachu's cheek lights up instead of the usual power light. (Pichu/Pikachu edition)
- Yellow front, blue back with a red A button, a green B button, and a blue arrow. Has Poké Ball in place of power light. Has Pokémon logo above Start and Select buttons. Has pictures of Pikachu, Togepi, and Jigglypuff around screen (Pokémon edition)
- Yellow front, blue back with a red A button, a green B button, and a blue arrow with a Pikachu & a Pichu around the screen. Pikachu's cheek lights up instead of the usual power light. (Pichu/Pikachu PAL edition)
- Yellow or Red with one orange button, one green button, and a light blue arrow decorated in various Pokémon (Pokémon Center edition) (Japan)
- Pastel pink with Hello Kitty head in the middle (Japan - Hello Kitty edition)
- Clear (Japan)
- Clear black
- Clear green (Japan)
- Midnight blue
- Ice blue
- Clear orange (Japan, produced for Turkish soft drink company Yedigün)
- Clear blue
- Green and Yellow (Australian Edition)
Games
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! (July 2002). This gave the original Game Boy (1989–2002) one of the longest continuous lifespans of any console, only beaten by the Atari 2600Atari 2600
The Atari 2600 is a video game console released in October 1977 by Atari, Inc. It is credited with popularizing the use of microprocessor-based hardware and cartridges containing game code, instead of having non-microprocessor dedicated hardware with all games built in...
(1977–1992), Neo-Geo AES/MVS
Neo Geo (console)
The is a cartridge-based arcade and home video game system released on July 1, 1991 by Japanese game company SNK. Being in the Fourth generation of Gaming, it was the first console in the former Neo Geo family, which only lived through the 1990s...
(1990–2004) and the NES
Nintendo Entertainment System
The Nintendo Entertainment System is an 8-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America during 1985, in Europe during 1986 and Australia in 1987...
(1983 - 2003). Its North American lifespan was shorter though, as the last Game Boy and Super Game Boy compatible game released there was Dragon Warrior Monsters 2
Dragon Warrior Monsters 2
Dragon Warrior Monsters 2, known in Japan as , is a video game published by Enix for the Game Boy Color. It is the second Dragon Warrior Monsters game for the Game Boy Color and features two different versions of the same game, Cobi's Journey and Tara's Adventure Dragon Warrior Monsters 2, known...
(September 2001). The last North American Game Boy Color-exclusive game, however, was Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (video game)
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is a action-adventure game published by Electronic Arts and developed by both EA's internal development team and Eurocom for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube and Game Boy Advance systems. It was simultaneously co-developed by Amaze Entertainment for...
. Although it was released on different consoles, the Game Boy Color featured an exclusive version.
With the release of the Nintendo 3DS
Nintendo 3DS
The is a portable game console produced by Nintendo. The autostereoscopic device is able to project stereoscopic 3D effects without the use of 3D glasses or any additional accessories. The Nintendo 3DS features backward compatibility with Nintendo DS series software, including Nintendo DSi software...
, Nintendo
Nintendo
is a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel....
has announced that the Virtual Console
Virtual console
A virtual console – also known as a virtual terminal – is a conceptual combination of the keyboard and display for a computer user interface. It is a feature of some operating systems such as UnixWare, Linux, and BSD, in which the system console of the computer can be used to switch between...
service will also be available for the 3DS and will allow players to play games from the Game Boy and Game Boy Color.
Sales
The Game BoyGame Boy
The , is an 8-bit handheld video game device developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on , in North America in , and in Europe on...
and Game Boy Color combined have sold 118.69 million units worldwide, with 32.47 million units in Japan, 44.06 million in the Americas
Americas
The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...
, and 42.16 million in other regions.
See also
- List of Player's Choice games
- List of Game Boy accessories
External links
- 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 at the Internet Archive Wayback Machine)