Game Boy Color

By 1998 the original Game Boy was nearly a decade old, still selling but visibly aged next to color-screened rivals. Rather than launch a wholly new platform, Nintendo split the difference with the Game Boy Color, an evolutionary refresh that kept the beloved form factor and the enormous existing library while, at last, adding a color display. It was a shrewd, incremental move that extended the dynasty by years.

The hardware was modest by design, a slightly faster processor, more memory, and a reflective color screen that, like its predecessor, still needed decent lighting to read. Crucially, it was backward compatible with the entire Game Boy catalog, and many older monochrome games could even be automatically tinted with color palettes. New cartridges built specifically for the Color unlocked richer visuals, and a compact, rounded casing in a rainbow of translucent shades gave the machine a fresh, toy-like appeal.

Its timing was perfect, because it rode the crest of Pokemon mania. Pokemon Gold and Silver arrived on the Color and became one of the most acclaimed and beloved entries in the entire franchise, while The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages, Wario Land 3, Dragon Warrior, and colorized classics kept the library strong. For millions of players, the Game Boy Color was the machine that carried them from the Tetris era into the Pokemon age.

Commercially it was folded into the Game Boy's staggering combined total of roughly 118 million units, and it dominated its brief window utterly, seeing off the last gasps of the Neo Geo Pocket Color and the Japan-only WonderSwan.

The Game Boy Color's legacy is that of a masterful bridge. It bought Nintendo time to develop the far more ambitious Game Boy Advance while wringing years of extra life and profit from a proven concept. Compact, colorful, and endlessly compatible, it stands as the definitive send-off for the original Game Boy lineage before the leap to 32-bit power.