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Game Boy Color

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Game Boy Color
Manufacturer Nintendo
Released October 21, 1998
November 18, 1998
November 23, 1998
Generation Fifth generation
Processor Custom, Zilog Z80-alike
Media Game Boy cartridges
Units shipped 118.69 million (includes Game Boy)
Best-selling game Pokémon Gold and Silver
Backward compatibility Game Boy cartridges
Preceded by Game Boy Light
Followed by Game Boy Advance

The Nintendo Game Boy Color was the successor of the Game Boy Pocket. Slightly larger than the Pocket, but significantly smaller than the original Game Boy, its defining feature was a colour screen able to display 56 colours simultaneously. In addition it possessed more powerful hardware than the Pocket, with a processor of twice the speed and quadruple the memory. A large number of new games were released to exploit the capabilities of this new console, which was also backwards compatible with every previous Game Boy game with only a handful of exceptions.

A unique feature of the Game Boy Color was its infra-red wireless link-up port. Seldom used by any software, it was consequently dropped for future Game Boy iterations.

Some were surprised that Nintendo released such an apparently underpowered system, as the Game Boy Color was not even as powerful as the GameGear, which was released way back in 1990. However, the Color, as with its predecessors, was notably more portable, more affordable and had a greater library of games than any of its competitors, as well as many years of carefully-built brand recognition behind it. As such it dominated the market, and destroyed all competition.

[edit] Top Ten Best Selling Games

[edit] See Also