WonderSwan Color: Competition for Game Boy Color or Game Boy Advance?
In the picture above, the Wonderswan Color is powered up and you can see that it is in fact a color unit, however I was unable to get image from the screen when placed on my flatbed scanner. So, instead of trying to tweak the preview until I could get the screen's image viewable, I instead just went for the unit itself.
The new Wonderswan is far from impressive. The remarkably small dimensions and features are incredible. One battery, 20+ hours of life, and lots of potential. However, despite whatever potential a system may have, software is what ultimately decides the success and failure of a system. Bandai seems to have gotten around this problem because this system is a success in Japan. Granted, it does not have the same sales numbers of Nintendo's Game Boy in the same marketplace, but obviously Bandai is making some money from this product. Part of their success is that it is less expensive that the Game Boy Color and it has a large projected software support base with lots of companies said to be developing titles for the Wonderswan, and titles will sell for less than the price of Game Boy cartridges. For those not willing to pay what I feel are reasonable Game Boy prices, this offers a fun and enjoyable alternative to the Game Boy if the support is maintained.
Obviously people were demanding color. After all, of all the true portables, how many were in black and white? Well, there was Tiger's Game.com series of units, which was doomed to failure by a combination of bad technology, bad software and lack of wide developer support. The end result is that the Game.Com is a dead system. On the other side is the hugely successful Game Boy, Game Boy Pocket and Game Boy Light, each selling millions of units. Released shortly after the original Game Boy was Sega's Game Gear, which was in color. At the same time, the Atari Lynx was released, also in color. Some time afterwards, the NEC TurboGrafx Express was released, also in color. While the Game Gear was abandoned by Sega, the Lynx died in the hands of Atari and the NEC TurboGrafx Express faded into obscurity, the Game Boy was strong and steady in black and white gaming, easily outselling the above color systems combined. The Tiger releases their black and white Game.com and within 3 years had total failed in their venture into a portable gaming system, despite re-engineering the product twice, once as the Game.Com Pocket Pro with Backlight and a second time with the Game.Com Pocket Pro by removing the backlight to cut costs.
Neo Geo released their first portable gaming product, called the Neo Geo Pocket, which was a very impressive unit, even in black and white. Within a year, they release the Neo Geo Pocket Color, which in my mind totally blew away the black and white unit. Also, the color unit is backwards compatible with the earlier black and white cartridges. With such a short time period between the release of the black and white unit and the color unit, I personally wonder why they bothered to release the black and white model. However, I have no regrets of owning both. Unfortunately, this system appears to not have been able to hold the interest of marketing at Neo Geo and this system appears to now be non-supported. This system appeared to be capable of giving the Game Boy Color some serious competition but there was not the big enough software library to support that sort of occurance.
Nintendo has been listening to their users, and developed the Game Boy Color. A very impressive system in my opinion. This was not simply colorizing their Game Boy, this was a partial re-engineering, allowing for both backwards compatibility with older Game Boy titles and new technology that Game Boy Color and dual-mode titles can take advantage of for full color Game Boy playing. Then with the release of Game Boy Advance, Nintendo has brought portable color gaming to a new level. Again, full backwards compatibility with both Game Boy and Game Boy Color and Game Boy Dual-Mode titles and there are titles specifically for Game Boy Advance. Impressive and pretty much guaranteed success in the marketplace.
Bandai, like Nintendo and Neo Geo, re-engineers their black and white portable and releases a color version. Similar to Neo Geo, the timeline between the release of the black and white system and the color system is less than a year. Again, like the Neo Geo, with such a short timeline between product offerings, why not just release the color? Either way, Bandai now has a color version. These days I simply do not see how anyone can really compete in the portable gaming marketplace without having a solid color system.
The color and B&W Wonderswan have identical footprints, battery life(more or less) and same button layout. Both lack many features that the other portables have, such as a true variable sound output and AC adaptor port. The Color has what I consider to be a very serious flaw, and that is that the Wonderswan Color requires a lot of direct light to be viewable and playable. The screen is very dim, and even with sufficient light, it is hard to maintain that position. Once you can see the screen, it's really colorful, clear and no blurring that I noticed.
What is Bandai's intention for the Wonderswan? It's not that great of a system now, but it is not that bad of a system either. Is it their intention to release a mid-level alternate to the Game Boy Color or do they intend to serious go head to head with the Game Boy Color or even the Game Boy Advance? With the release marketplace being limited to Japan right now, it is not looking like the Wonderswan will face retail release here in the United States except via importers willing to sell the system here. Bandai seems to go back and forth in regards to releasing the Wonderswan in the United States. If this system is released here and has good developer support in the United States, it should expect to see good sales, but not at the same level of the Game Boy series.