Collection essentials #433: Game Boy Color

Game Boy first launched in 1989, and was a smashing success, dominating the handheld market for years. And it was rather remarkable that it did so despite not even being a piece of cutting-edge technology when it first launched, as there was another handheld console which boasted graphics and color and a backlit screen that hit the market the very same year. And as the years went by, Game Boy was even less impressive technologically and yet still remained number one in the handheld market all the way into the late ‘90s. 

But at some point there would have to be a successor to the Game Boy featuring better technology. Sure, there were hardware revisions like the Game Boy Pocket which was smaller and used less batteries, but I’m talking a whole new Game Boy. And that wound up being today’s subject, the Game Boy Color, hitting store shelves in the fall of 1998. And it is perhaps a surprise that Game Boy Color doesn’t feel like a huge step up from the Game Boys that preceded it. The biggest difference, of course, is the fact that games can now be in color, and the hardware is better with more memory and a faster processor. But at the end of the day, the games don’t seem much more advanced than what you’d see on the NES, which seemed like primitive old tech by 1998. And there’s still not even a backlight!

In fact, it’s a little bit ambiguous as to whether the Game Boy Color is its own system or another hardware revision of the Game Boy. Nintendo actually combines regular Game Boy and Game Boy Color sales on their charts, considering them essentially the same system. Also, not only does the Game Boy Color play regular Game Boy games, but many Game Boy Color titles are fully compatible with the original Game Boy too, even without the ability to display color. But I do think Color should be considered its own system, because the hardware is legitimately different and there are many titles that only function on the Game Boy Color (easy to tell because the logo at the top of the cartridge will be convex instead of concave). Sometimes in the future there would be later models of the same system with games made that only work on specific later versions, and it would seem a little silly to consider them a full-fledged new and distinct system. But an important difference to me is that, in those future cases, it was only a scarce few games that had such a distinction. There were dozens and dozens of titles made only for the Game Boy Color, and after the first year or so the majority of games were not compatible with the old Game Boy. 

The Game Boy Color didn’t have a real long lifespan, as it was Nintendo’s prime handheld system for less than three years. But it was hugely successful during that time. It certainly helped that it launched in the United States shortly after the release of the first Pokémon games, which rekindled Game Boy interest in general. 

Like many others, I got the Game Boy Color as a kid because of Pokémon. I actually went a long time without having a Game Boy of any kind. But then in 2000 (I believe in the fall) my parents finally got me one, the yellow one you see in the photo above. I remember walking into my room and seeing it on the bed with Pokémon Yellow, a very exciting sight! The Pikachu and Pichu edition shown in the photo originally belonged to my sister Abby, and just kind of fell into my possession after she stopped caring about it.

You could argue that Nintendo should have come up with something more advanced by late 1998 than this, but the Game Boy Color was pretty good for what it was. Its library isn’t the biggest, in part due to its short lifespan. There’s also little reason to fire up the hardware nowadays since it’s mostly obsolete even for playing Game Boy Color games, though there are occasional niche use cases. Still, I got a great deal of (admittedly mostly Pokémon) enjoyment out of mine, and it’s certainly earned its spot as an essential in my collection.