171.159.64.10 (talk) No edit summary |
|||
Line 9: | Line 9: | ||
|generation = [[History of video game consoles (fifth generation)|Fifth generation]] |
|generation = [[History of video game consoles (fifth generation)|Fifth generation]] |
||
|release date={{vgrelease|JP=October 21, 1998}}{{vgrelease|NA= November 18, 1998}} {{vgrelease|PAL= November 23, 1998}}{{vgrelease|AUS= November 27, 1998}} |
|release date={{vgrelease|JP=October 21, 1998}}{{vgrelease|NA= November 18, 1998}} {{vgrelease|PAL= November 23, 1998}}{{vgrelease|AUS= November 27, 1998}} |
||
|discontinued = |
|discontinued = 2004 |
||
|CPU = Custom, [[Zilog Z80]]- |
|CPU = Custom, [[Zilog Z80]]- |
||
|media = [[ROM cartridge]] |
|media = [[ROM cartridge]] |
Revision as of 19:58, 7 October 2013
File:Game Boy Color logo.png | |
![]() Dandelion version of the Game Boy Color. | |
Manufacturer | Nintendo |
---|---|
Product family | Game Boy line |
Type | Handheld game console |
Generation | Fifth generation |
Discontinued | 2004 |
Units sold | Worldwide: 118.69 million,[1] including Game Boy units[2] |
Media | ROM cartridge |
CPU | Custom, Zilog Z80- |
Best-selling game | Pokémon Gold and Silver, approximately 14.51 million combined (in Japan and the US) (details).[3][4] |
Backward compatibility | Game Boy |
Predecessor | Game Boy[5] |
Successor | Game Boy Advance[5] |
The Game Boy Color (ゲームボーイカラー, Gēmu Bōi Karā), sometimes referred as GBC, is a handheld game console developed by Nintendo and released on October 21, 1998 in Japan, November 18, 1998 in North America, November 23, 1998 in Europe and November 27, 1998 in Australia. It is the successor of the original Game Boy.
The Game Boy Color, as suggested by the name, features a color screen. It is slightly thicker and taller than the Game Boy Pocket, which is a redesigned Game Boy released in 1996. As with the original Game Boy, it has an 8-bit processor.[6]
As part of the fifth generation of gaming (post-1997), the Game Boy Color's primary competitors were the Neo Geo Pocket and the WonderSwan (Japan only), though the Game Boy Color outsold these by a huge margin. The Game Boy and Game Boy Color combined have sold 118.69 million units worldwide.[1][2]
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.[citation needed] The resultant product was backward compatible, 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.
Launch titles
Specifications
Summary
The technical details for the console are as follows:[7]
- Main processor: Sharp Corporation LR35902 (based on the popular Zilog Z80, 8-bit)
- Processor speed: 4 or 8 MHz (two processor modes)
- Resolution: 160 x 144 pixels (same as the original Game Boy)
- Palette colors available: 32,768 (15-bit)
- Colors 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 (360~399 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 batteries, 30+ hours of gameplay
- external: 3V DC 0.6W
- indicator: Red LED
- Input:
- 8-way D-Pad
- 4 buttons (A, B, Start, Select)
- Volume potentiometer
- 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
- Dimensions:
- Metric: 75 mm x 27 mm x 133 mm
- Imperial: 2.95 in x 1.06 in x 5.24 in
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 few games, however, and the infrared port was dropped for the Game Boy Advance line, though it 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 novel method of upgrading the color count did result 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 are shaped slightly different from original Game Boy games. They will function in neither the earlier Game Boy models nor the two Super Game Boy models, the latter being cartridges that could be inserted into the Super Nintendo that allowed you to play Game Boy games on the system in limited color (even if such cartridges fit in the systems, they would 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, 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.)
Color palettes used for original Game Boy games
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 |
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.[8] 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, the inverted colors palette (Right + B) inverts the colors from the Game Boy Color's color palettes.
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/18/GBC_keypad_palettes.png/220px-GBC_keypad_palettes.png)
In addition, 93 [citation needed] 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.[9]
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.
Hi-Color Mode
A few games used a technical trick to increase the number of colors available on-screen. This "Hi-Color mode" is a mode used by the Italian company 7th Sense s.r.l. among others, and can display more than 2000 colors on the screen. Some examples of games using this trick are: The Fish Files, The New Addams Family Series, and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.[citation needed]
Colors produced
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/50/Nintendo_gameboy_colour_clear_plastic_shell_Dec2007.jpg/220px-Nintendo_gameboy_colour_clear_plastic_shell_Dec2007.jpg)
The logo for Game Boy Color spelled out the word COLOR (US spelling, see spelling differences) in the five original colors in which the unit was manufactured. They were named:
- Berry (C)
- Grape (O)
- Kiwi (L)
- Dandelion (O)
- Teal (R)
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:
- 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 pad. 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 pad 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 pad 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 (Target Limited edition Zelda version)
- Clear orange (Japan, produced for Turkish soft drink company Yedigün)
- Clear blue
- Green and Yellow (Australian Edition)
- Color-shifting gold/silver paint with Pikachu on left and Pichu on right, Power light is a red LED in Pikachu's Cheek
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). 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 and it allows players to play games from the Game Boy and Game Boy Color. More games for both systems have also been planned for release on the 3DS.
Sales
The Game Boy 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.[1][2]
See also
References
- ^ a b c "Consolidated Sales Transition by Region". Nintendo. 2010-01-27. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2010-02-14. Retrieved 2010-02-14.
- ^ a b c "A Brief History of Game Console Warfare: Game Boy". BusinessWeek. McGraw-Hill. Retrieved 2008-03-28.
- ^ "Japan Platinum Game Chart". The Magic Box. Retrieved 2007-09-27.
- ^ "US Platinum Videogame Chart". The Magic Box. Retrieved 2007-09-27.
- ^ a b Umezu; Sugino. "Nintendo 3DS (Volume 3 – Nintendo 3DS Hardware Concept)" (Transcript) (Interview). Interviewed by Satoru Iwata. Retrieved 2011-03-07.
{{cite interview}}
: Unknown parameter|callsign=
ignored (help); Unknown parameter|program=
ignored (help) - ^ "GBC Hardware Info". The Internet. Retrieved 2007-09-27.
- ^ "Nintendo GameBoy Color Console Information - Console Database". ConsoleDatabase.com. Retrieved 2011-02-19.
- ^ "Changing the Color Palette on Game Boy Advance Systems". Customer Service. Nintendo. Retrieved 2009-01-04.
- ^ Disassembling the GBC Boot ROM
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 "the original" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2006-09-03. at the Internet Archive Wayback Machine)
- Game Boy Color at Curlie