Game Boy Color

History

The Game Boy Color was a response to pressure from game developers for a more sophisticated handheld platform, 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 system, and leveraged the large library of games and 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.

Launch titles

Summary

The technical details for the console are as follows:

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 three 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 small number of games, so the infrared port was dropped from the Game Boy Advance line, to be later reintroduced with the Nintendo 3DS, though wireless linking (using Wi-Fi) would return in the Nintendo DS line. The console was capable of showing up to 56 different colors simultaneously on screen from its palette of 32,768 (8x4 color background palettes, 8x3+transparent sprite palettes), and could add basic four-, seven- or ten-color shading to games that had been developed for the original 4-shades-of-grey Game Boy. In the 7-color modes, the sprites and backgrounds were given separate color schemes, and in the 10-color modes the sprites were further split into two differently-colored groups; however, as flat black (or white) was a shared fourth color in all but one (7-color) palette, the overall effect was that of 4, 6 or 8 colors. This method of upgrading the color count resulted in graphic artifacts in certain games; for example, a sprite that was supposed to meld into the background would sometimes be colored separately, making it easily noticeable.

Hi-Color Mode

A few games used "Hi-Color mode" to increase the number of colors available on-screen. This is a mode used most notably by the Italian company 7th Sense s.r.l., and can display more than 2000 different colors on the screen. Some examples of games using this method are The Fish Files, The New Addams Family Series and Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare.

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.

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 identical to that experienced on the original Game Boy; the inverted colors palette (Right + B) inverts the colors from the Game Boy Color's color palettes.

In addition, some 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 palette. The default palettes are stored in a database within the internal boot ROM of the system, and not the game cartridge itself.

Titles that have color palettes on Super Game Boy will usually default to a similar palette when played on a Game Boy Color.

Partial List of games with special palettes

Cartridges

Game Boy Color games are housed in clear-colored cartridges and are shaped differently from original Game Boy games. These games would display a warning message and refuse to play if used in older Game Boy models. Games that are designed for the Game Boy Color, but which also include backward compatibility with the previous Game Boy systems, are shaped like original Game Boy games, but usually have black colored cartridges. Pokémon Gold and Silver are also examples of Game Boy Color games that work on an original Game Boy system. The clear-colored Game Boy Color cartridges will function correctly only when used in a Game Boy Color or a later model (a Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Advance SP, or Game Boy Player).

Colors produced

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 transparent purple plastic that was also used on the color-respective Nintendo 64 controller.

Other colors were sold as limited editions or in specific countries.

Games

The last Game Boy Color game released in Japan (which was also compatible with the Game Boy and Super Game Boy) was From TV Animation – One Piece: Maboroshi no Grand Line Boukenhen! (July 2002). 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, the Virtual Console service is also available for the 3DS. This allows players to play games from the Game Boy and Game Boy Color. More games for both systems are planned for release.

Sales

Combined, the Game Boy and Game Boy Color were both commercially successful, with 32.47 million units in Japan, 44.06 million in the Americas, and 42.16 million in other regions.