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Why are Game Boy and Game Boy Color hardware sales combined so often?

Marker007

Marker007

Member
It's kind of the same situation as the 3DS family and the New 3DS family. It's basically the same hardware with a few improvements and the new iteration has a tiny fraction of games that are exclusive.
 
D

Dr. Feel Good

Banned
There were ~50 games that were exclusive to Game Boy Color within a library of 1,500+ games. Only 3 games published by Nintendo were exclusive. Why would the be considered separate systems?
 
B

Branduil

Member
Dr. Feel Good said:
There were ~50 games that were exclusive to Game Boy Color within a library of 1,500+ games. Why would the be considered separate systems?
Click to expand...

It's different hardware with different exclusive games and a dramatically different display. It's like counting the PS2 and PS1 together since the PS2 can play all PS1 games.
 
I

iidesuyo

Member
There were games that used a compatible mode to run on both the Game Boy and Game Boy Color (like Harvest Moon), but most would only run on the Game Boy Color.

should new 3ds be counted as a new system?
Click to expand...

No, because new 3ds games all run on 3ds systems afaik?
 
Z

ZeoVGM

Banned
Game Boy / Game Boy Color
DS / DSi
3DS / New 3DS

All the same basic idea, though there's a better argument for GBC to be counted on its own than DSi or N3DS.
 
S

ScientificPizza

Banned
the same reason with the DSi and n3DS aren't considered their own systems. gameboy color is more successful than those systems, but it's still an extension of the system that came before it
 
B

Bobo Dakes

Member
I grew up under the impression the Gameboy Color was a new successor handheld, but no they're definitely in the same family.
 
O

Ogodei

Member
I count it as its own generation because it had its own competitors (Neo Geo Pocket Color and Wonder Swan) compared to the black and white Game Boy (which fought Game Gear and Atari Lynx).

Also i'm pretty sure it was in its own class in terms of hardware power versus the original Game Boy. Something like Wario Land 3 is pretty elaborate compared to 2 (which was cross-compatible with original GB).
 
G

ggx2ac

Member
Gameboy Color and Gameboy are like 3DS and N3DS.

Gameboy specs, Gameboy Color specs.

Same CPU but GBC had two clockspeeds, 4.19MHz and 8.38MHz.

Both have the same screen resolution of 160x144 pixels.

GBC has more RAM and VRAM than the Gameboy.

So just like how there's a 3DS family of systems that sales are combined. It's the same thing for the Gameboy and Gameboy Color because GBC because GBC was only a revision like N3DS.
 
N

nickgia

Member
iidesuyo said:
There were games that used a compatible mode to run on both the Game Boy and Game Boy Color (like Harvest Moon), but most would only run on the Game Boy Color.



No, because new 3ds games all run on 3ds systems afaik?
Click to expand...

Xenoblade doesn't work on (old) 3DS.
 
J

jwhit28

Member
Quadraphonic said:
There was a shitload more than 50. Especially when you include the black-carts.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure a lot of games that said Gameboy Color on the front also worked with Gameboy. Finding a definitive list is hard though.
Pokemon Gold
Lj1lM5k.jpg
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Pokemon Crystal (GBC Exclusive)
6xTjIxJ.jpg
iL3tbRq.jpg
Click to expand...
 
I

iidesuyo

Member
jwhit28 said:
I'm pretty sure a lot of games that said Gameboy Color on the front also worked with Gameboy. Finding a definitive list is hard though.
Click to expand...

There were also some games like Zelda DX that featured a Super Game Boy border, though that was never advertised.
 
K

KojiKnight

Member
GBC is nothing more than an enhanced hardware revision of the GB, that's why.

The real head scratcher is why people often add the GBA to that number.
 
Marker007

Marker007

Member
Bunch of games that are coming out this year and next on the 3DS are going to run exclusively on the N3DS and N2DS models. So it's comparatively the same situation. I know Fire Emblem Warriors was confirmed to run on N3DS/N2DS only and then there's Xenoblade and a bunch of SNES VC games as well.
 
Pokemaniac

Pokemaniac

Member
Counting the GBC separately would be like counting the DSi or New 3DS separately. It's the same platform, just with a minor spec bump and some exclusive games.
 
D.Lo

D.Lo

Member
Nintendo counts them together for business reasons. They are not correct for any reasonable definition of what is a distinct platform.

There are over 400 GBC exclusive games.

jwhit28 said:
Wikipedia says only 59 Gameboy Color only games were made? Counting it as it's own generation would be like counting a CD add-on or the 32x as it's own generation.
Click to expand...
There are over 400 GBC exclusive games.

Pokemaniac said:
Counting the GBC separately would be like counting the DSi or New 3DS separately. It's the same platform, just with a minor spec bump and some exclusive games.
Click to expand...
Unlike Game Boy Color, They were not marketed as separate platforms, just new revisions, and how many DSi exclusive and 3DS exclusive games are there? If looking at retail only, it is a number that can be statistically rounded down to zero.

Dr. Feel Good said:
There were ~50 games that were exclusive to Game Boy Color within a library of 1,500+ games. Only 3 games published by Nintendo were exclusive. Why would the be considered separate systems?
Click to expand...
No. 427 is my count.

Plus at least a hundred more Black carts that had a black and white mode but were primarily developed and marketed as Game Boy Color games.
 
H

HotHamBoy

Member
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 160×144 pixels.

It could display up to 2000 colors in Hi Color mode and offered an infrared comm port for wireless linking.
 
B

Branduil

Member
ScientificPizza said:
You can say the same thing about the DSi and n3DS
Click to expand...

The difference is that the number of exclusive retail games for both of those systems is extremely small. DSi-ware is exclusive mainly because the original DS wasn't equipped to handlethe eShop, and SNES titles are exclusive to N3DS because the original 3DS doesn't have the power, but for the most part both systems are clearly just new models in the sense that they play 99% of the same retail games. They're clearly not in the same category as the Game Boy Color, which has hundreds of exclusive games and upgraded games which look dramatically different from original Game Boy games.

The original Game Boy could display 4 shades of gray(or green). Game Boy Color can display 56 colors from a palette of 32,768.
 
N

Nostremitus

Member
Branduil said:
The difference is that the number of exclusive retail games for both of those systems is extremely small. DSi-ware is exclusive mainly because the original DS wasn't equipped to handlethe eShop, and SNES titles are exclusive to N3DS because the original 3DS doesn't have the power, but for the most part both systems are clearly just new models in the sense that they play 99% of the same retail games. They're clearly not in the same category as the Game Boy Color, which has hundreds of exclusive games and upgraded games which look dramatically different from original Game Boy games.

The original Game Boy could display 4 shades of gray(or green). Game Boy Color can display 56 colors from a palette of 32,768.
Click to expand...
I like how retail is being used now so no one brings up all the DSi eShop exclusives.

Not you obviously, but I found it funny.

The DS can't use the eShop the same way the GB couldn't use those colors.

HotHamBoy said:
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 160×144 pixels.

It could display up to 2000 colors in Hi Color mode and offered an infrared comm port for wireless linking.
Click to expand...
How is any of that different than the DSi or n3DS compared to their OG counterparts?
 
G

ggx2ac

Member
Branduil said:
The difference is that the number of exclusive retail games for both of those systems is extremely small. DSi-ware is exclusive mainly because the original DS wasn't equipped to handlethe eShop, and SNES titles are exclusive to N3DS because the original 3DS doesn't have the power, but for the most part both systems are clearly just new models in the sense that they play 99% of the same retail games. They're clearly not in the same category as the Game Boy Color, which has hundreds of exclusive games and upgraded games which look dramatically different from original Game Boy games.

The original Game Boy could display 4 shades of gray(or green). Game Boy Color can display 56 colors from a palette of 32,768.
Click to expand...

That doesn't make a difference, Gameboy Color games were able to be made by a few people and sold at retail with a low budget so it's no surprise GBC has more exclusive games than DSi and N3DS.

Gameboy Color, DSi and N3DS are all hardware revisions that didn't start a new generation because you could still get new games for the original system.
 
D.Lo

D.Lo

Member
ggx2ac said:
That doesn't make a difference, Gameboy Color games were able to be made by a few people and sold at retail with a low budget so it's no surprise GBC has more exclusive games than DSi and N3DS.

Gameboy Color, DSi and N3DS are all hardware revisions that didn't start a new generation because you could still get new games for the original system.
Click to expand...
GBC really, really isn't just a hardware revision. It was launched and marketed as a full new generation, it just happened to have full backward compatibility.

Only maybe 15% of the games released after it came out worked on the old Game Boy, as far as I can tell basically zero black and white only Game Boy games were released after its introduction. And it has HUNDREDS of exclusive games including huge names like Super Mario Bros Deluxe, Metal Gear, the Zelda Oracles games, Tony Hawk games, Donkey Kong Country port...
 
B

Branduil

Member
Nostremitus said:
I like how retail is being used now so no one brings up all the DSi eShop exclusives.

Not you obviously, but I found it funny.

The DS can't use the eShop the same way the GB couldn't use those colors.
Click to expand...

Retail is still extremely important, and even moreso back then, because it reflects the marketing of the system. Virtually no one is or was confused into thinking the DSi or N3DS were brand new systems, they didn't have massive retail displays promoting the eShop or a Xenoblade port. The Game Boy Color was marketed and sold as a new system, no one at the time thought "Oh this is just a minor revision to the existing Game Boy line." They thought "Wow Nintendo is making a full-color handheld finally!"

ggx2ac said:
That doesn't make a difference, Gameboy Color games were able to be made by a few people and sold at retail with a low budget so it's no surprise GBC has more exclusive games than DSi and N3DS.

Gameboy Color, DSi and N3DS are all hardware revisions that didn't start a new generation because you could still get new games for the original system.
Click to expand...

The PS2 is a hardware revision that didn't start a new generation because you could still get new games for the original system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PlayStation_games
 
N

Nostremitus

Member
D.Lo said:
GBC really, really isn't just a hardware revision. It was launched and marketed as a full new generation, it just happened to have full backward compatibility. And it has HUNDREDS of exclusive games including huge names like Super Mario Bros Deluxe, Metal Gear, the Zelda Oracles games, Tony Hawk games, Donkey Kong Country port...
Click to expand...
Those games only came because of how well it sold. Let's not kid ourselves. Its sales and consequent exclusives are the only thing that differentiates it from DSi or n3DS. Last I checked, sales didn't affect which generation something is. If the n3DS had completely eclipsed the 3DS and the exclusives had sold like hotcakes and warranted more exclusives being made it would be in the same situation as the GBC... ie, a massively successful revision.
 
Tal Shiar Agent

Tal Shiar Agent

Member
Branduil said:
It's different hardware with different exclusive games and a dramatically different display. It's like counting the PS2 and PS1 together since the PS2 can play all PS1 games.
Click to expand...

Except there aren't PS2 games that can be played on the PS1. More apt would be to compare to games that only worked with the Dual Analog/Dual Shock controller on the PS1.
 
D.Lo

D.Lo

Member
So apparently, despite having over 400 exclusive games, the GBC is not a new generation to some because there were cross-gen games released for it that also worked on the original Game Boy, just with less features.

Okay, well, the Zelda Oracles games came out after the GBA was out, and have an extra feature (a shop) if played on a GBA. Much like how you got extra features on a cross-gen Black cart GBC game.

So I guess that is proof the GBA was a GBC revision?

Nostremitus said:
Those games only came because of how well it sold. Let's not kid ourselves. Its sales and consequent exclusives are the only thing that differentiates it from DSi or n3DS. Last I checked, sales didn't affect which generation something is. If the n3DS had completely eclipsed the 3DS and the exclusives had sold like hotcakes and warranted more exclusives being made it would be in the same situation as the GBC... ie, a massively successful revision.
Click to expand...
New 3DS consoles have sold millions, maybe even tens of millions. Yet only one retail exclusive has been released, plus some SNES games on the eshop. Apart from that one retail release, every single 3DS game released post-N3DS still works on the original 3DS.

The distinction is not sales, but age. The Game Boy was 9 years old when the GBC was released. GBC sales took off, but did not eclipse original Game Boy sales. The GBC's backward compatibility was done purely to support the success of Pokemon, as the GB had seen a very late sales uptick because of it.

But 3DS was only 3.5 years old when the N3DS was released. It was just a new model to spur sales. The extra power is used (and was most likely added) primarily to make the UI run better.

At the very least, GBC is a special case. A 1.6 generational leap. It is certainly much closer to a new gen than DSi and N3DS were.
 
I

iidesuyo

Member
Nostremitus said:
If the n3DS had completely eclipsed the 3DS and the exclusives had sold like hotcakes and warranted more exclusives being made it would be in the same situation as the GBC... ie, a massively successful revision.
Click to expand...

I disagree, the GBC was in a different league. It had a 56 color mode to make it backward compatible but it was clear from the start that it was to eclipse the b/w Game Boy and make it obsolete.
 
J

jwhit28

Member
D.Lo said:
So apparently, despite having over 400 exclusive games, the GBC s not a new generation to some because there were cross-gen games released for it that also worked on the original Game Boy, just with less features.

Okay, well, the Zelda Oracles games came out after the GBA was out, and have an extra feature (a shop) if played on a GBA. Much like how you got extra features on a cross-gen Black cart GBC game.

So I guess that is proof the GBA was a GBC revision?
Click to expand...

How many GBA cartridges did you play on your GBC?
 
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