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SoundPulse · Sep 27, 2015

I don't know if I would call it a ~generation~, but it certainly felt like its own separate thing. Especially with the huge wait between the GB and the GBC, as well as the exclusive games the thing had.

Speaking of, I've always liked this commercial for the thing.

Seven Force · Sep 27, 2015

Dreamwriter said:
It was just checking a flag to see if it was on a GBC, and if so unlocking the levels. Legend of Zelda DX did the same thing for its secret "color" dungeon!

Ah, figured that was the case. Thanks!

PreyingShark · Sep 27, 2015

texore said:
Agreed, but I would but GBA>SP as second. I tried playing my old GBA and went right under the lampshade just like old times haha.

The ones that were released before the DS were frontlit, not backlit, and I don't consider frontlit to be significantly better than using a third-party light. In like 2005 they made backlit SPs but I don't think the Lite was too far from that.

The original GBA is also something I like to this day simply because it works amazingly well outdoors, which isn't something I can say about my 3DS and the like.

FoneBone · Sep 27, 2015

I consider it a discrete platform, even though it wasn't a generational leap in specs, for three reasons:
1. Color vs. B&W was a *much* bigger differentiator to consumers (and, looking at the subsequent increase in support, publishers as well) than the upgrades the DSi and N3DS offered over their respective predecessors
2. Nintendo branded it as its own platform from the outset (see: the "Game Boy Color" banner on the side of game boxes from day 1, replacing the old Game Boy banner)
3. Within a year or so after release, most GBC games were GBC-only, something that never happened with the DSi and 3DS. (As has already been said, I don't consider DSiWare support to be of comparable significance.)

Seven Force said:
Yeah, I recall reading that a while back. Always thought that was neat.

The Space Invaders Super Game Boy thing reminded me of something: The Rugrats Movie game on Game Boy had extra levels when played on GBC, in addition to a full color palette, though the game had neither when played on a GB/GB Pocket. Could that be a case of there possibly being two ROMs on the cart and the hardware determining which one to bootup, or is it something else a little closer to how Shantae's GBA features worked?

Conker's Pocket Tales had separate GBC and GB ROMs on the same cart; not sure if there were any others.

Emperor Bohe · Sep 27, 2015

FoneBone said:
I consider it a discrete platform, even though it wasn't a generational leap in specs, for three reasons:
1. Color vs. B&W was a *much* bigger differentiator to consumers (and, looking at the subsequent increase in support, publishers as well) than the upgrades the DSi and N3DS offered over their respective predecessors
2. Nintendo branded it as its own platform from the outset (see: the "Game Boy Color" banner on the side of game boxes from day 1, replacing the old Game Boy banner)
3. Within a year or so after release, most GBC games were GBC-only, something that never happened with the DSi and 3DS. (As has already been said, I don't consider DSiWare support to be of comparable significance.)

Conker's Pocket Tales had separate GBC and GB ROMs on the same cart; not sure if there were any others.

i believe that all of the black Game Boy games worked like this. another example of a black cross platform cart (with color) would be Wario Land II. the transparent carts were Game Boy Color exclusive games.

Cheesecakebobby · Sep 27, 2015

Remember how b&w GB game cartridges had a corner missing so that when you turned it on, the power switch also moved a piece of plastic so you couldn't remove the game while playing? And how the GBC removed this and had cartridges with intact corners for color-only games so they could not be used in an original GB?

My friend, who presumably thought that this was an anti-consumer move designed to force him to buy a GBC even though the GBC-only games were secretly compatible with original GBs, bought a GBC-only game and tried to saw the corner off the cart so it would fit in his original GB. Dummy.

dimb · Sep 27, 2015

Gameboy Color games looked substantially better than Gameboy games and had more tech behind them. Gameboy Color had its own developer scene that phased out development for the traditional Gameboy. What else really needs to be said?

FoneBone · Sep 27, 2015

Emperor Bohe said:
i believe that all of the black Game Boy games worked like this. another example of a black cross platform cart (with color) would be Wario Land II. the transparent carts were Game Boy Color exclusive games.

No, not at all. Backwards-compatible games were almost all the same game, running in separate modes and sometimes with GBC-exclusive features (like what Dreamwriter described above with Rugrats). Conker was two completely separate versions of the game on one cartridge, with various gameplay and level differences. You couldn't even keep a GBC save and a GB save on the same cartridge.

Emperor Bohe · Sep 27, 2015

FoneBone said:
No, not at all. Backwards-compatible games were almost all the same game, running in separate modes and sometimes with GBC-exclusive features (like what Dreamwriter described above with Rugrats). Conker was two completely separate versions of the game on one cartridge, with various gameplay and level differences. You couldn't even keep a GBC save and a GB save on the same cartridge.

you couldn't keep a GB and a GBC Wario Land II save on the same cartridge either... if you switched you would have to start from scratch. i remember because that shit happened to me (it deleted my Game Boy Color save) when i was a kid trying to play it on my Super Game Boy and i was salty as hell lmao. Wario Land II and the other black cartridge games may not have had gameplay or level differences but they still must have been separate ROMs because the save game incompatibility was still a thing on the other black cartridge games too.

and Conker & Rugrats Movie were also black cartridge games so that checks out too

Jigorath · Sep 27, 2015

Generations should be defined by their company. If Nintendo says the GBC is part of the GB generation, then that's how other people should look at it too.

FoneBone · Sep 27, 2015

Emperor Bohe said:
you couldn't keep a GB and a GBC Wario Land II save on the same cartridge either... if you switched you would have to start from scratch. i remember because that shit happened to me (it deleted my Game Boy Color save) when i was a kid trying to play it on my Super Game Boy and i was salty as hell lmao. Wario Land II and the other black cartridge games may not have had gameplay or level differences but they still must have been separate ROMs because the save game incompatibility was still a thing on the other black cartridge games too.

and Conker was also a black cartridge game so that checks out too

Googling, you're right about WLII GBC... I think that was the same situation as Conker. But I don't think there were many (if any) backwards-compatible (black cartridge) games that worked that way.

Pokemaniac · Sep 27, 2015

Emperor Bohe said:
you couldn't keep a GB and a GBC Wario Land II save on the same cartridge either... if you switched you would have to start from scratch. i remember because that shit happened to me (it deleted my Game Boy Color save) when i was a kid trying to play it on my Super Game Boy and i was salty as hell lmao. Wario Land II and the other black cartridge games may not have had gameplay or level differences but they still must have been separate ROMs because the save game incompatibility was still a thing on the other black cartridge games too.

and Conker & Rugrats Movie were also black cartridge games so that checks out too

That may have been the case for some games, but it certainly wasn't across the board. Most games just had Game Boy and Game Boy Color modes.

Emperor Bohe · Sep 27, 2015

FoneBone said:
Googling, you're right about WLII GBC... I think that was the same situation as Conker. But I don't think there were many (if any) backwards-compatible (black cartridge) games that worked that way.

word... i think Wario Land II was the only black cartridge game that I had growing up so that's what i'm basing this all on haha.

fake edit: I also had Pocket Bomberman... but i don't remember if that had save games at all so i couldn't really say

ReyVGM · Sep 27, 2015

Emperor Bohe said:
you couldn't keep a GB and a GBC Wario Land II save on the same cartridge either... if you switched you would have to start from scratch. i remember because that shit happened to me (it deleted my Game Boy Color save) when i was a kid trying to play it on my Super Game Boy and i was salty as hell lmao. Wario Land II and the other black cartridge games may not have had gameplay or level differences but they still must have been separate ROMs because the save game incompatibility was still a thing on the other black cartridge games too.

and Conker & Rugrats Movie were also black cartridge games so that checks out too

I think that's because WL2 was originally a Mono GB game and then re-released as a GBC game. So the GBC game probably includes both games instead of one that could also be played in black & white.

teacupcopter · Sep 27, 2015

Apart from arguing when 'generations' are being silly anyway, it's especially silly to try and apply that to the handheld space, which has been very different from the console space, which is changing anyway, and ESPECIALLY trying to apply it to the gameboy which was out forever.

That said, if you made me choose I'd say it's not a generation. Or was the Playstation with normal controller then the Dual Shock a different generation too? Or just an add on? Just seems pointless.

Virtual Boy was the clear idea of the sucessor to game boy, it just failed horribly.

Dreamwriter · Sep 27, 2015

The reasons I think of the GBC as a new generation are: when it was released the Gameboy Pocket distribution was immediately stopped (in the US at least); it was clearly more powerful than an NES and that power let developers push the system *way* beyond what you would expect from just double power/triple memory. And after a few months developers stopped making games without color support, and started transitioning towards GBC-exclusive games. Also, Nintendo put a HUGE advertising campaign behind it, much more than DSi and New 3DS (DSi Nintendo even tried to hide the extra power from consumers, only talking up the camera, digital store and form factor).

And of course, going from 4 shades of grey per screen to 52 colors per screen is as big a jump as 2D to 3D, especially when developers could use tricks to increase that to thousands of colors per screen.

Jo Shishido's Cheeks · Sep 27, 2015

dimb said:
Gameboy Color games looked substantially better than Gameboy games and had more tech behind them. Gameboy Color had its own developer scene that phased out development for the traditional Gameboy. What else really needs to be said?

Nintendo themselves say the Game Boy, Game Boy Pocket, Game Boy Light and Game Boy Color are all part of the same generation.
Why say anything else?

To Far Away Times · Sep 27, 2015

I think I've noticed something here.

People that define the GBC as a stopgap are looking at the time on the market and trying to tie it to the DSi or the expected N3DS lifetime.

People that define the GBC is a separate system are looking at the quantity and quality of the library.

Personally, there are far too many GBC exclusive retail games for it to be a stop gap system. To miss out on the system is to miss out almost entirely on a few solid years of GBC excusive retail games, I'd say that qualifies as a separate system.

Dreamwriter · Sep 27, 2015

Jo Shishido's Cheeks said:
Nintendo themselves say the Game Boy, Game Boy Pocket, Game Boy Light and Game Boy Color are all part of the same generation.
Why say anything else?

They only say that so they can advertise it as "the longest running hit in videogame history". It's a marketing ploy.

Jo Shishido's Cheeks · Sep 27, 2015

Dreamwriter said:
They only say that so they can advertise it as "the longest running hit in videogame history". It's a marketing ploy.

If that were true I'd imagine they'd include the Wii U as part of the Wii family and call it 'the worlds most popular console.'

dimb · Sep 27, 2015

Jo Shishido's Cheeks said:
Nintendo themselves say the Game Boy, Game Boy Pocket, Game Boy Light and Game Boy Color are all part of the same generation.
Why say anything else?

Okay? Go play the hundreds of Gameboy Color exclusive games on your original Gameboy then. What is this thread even attempting to assert? The Gameboy Color is a distinct system from the original Gameboy that marked a notable power increase and lead to its own exclusive library of handheld games that could arguably be noted as the early signs of handheld games growing in scale.

To Far Away Times said:
People that define the GBC as a stopgap are looking at the time on the market and trying to tie it to the DSi or the expected N3DS lifetime.

Time on the market is just a meaningless metric that doesn't analyze the bigger picture of why video game systems come and go. Even beyond that the Gameboy Color saw 31 months of uninterrupted time on the American market before the Gameboy Advance arrived. The gap between the Gameboy Advance and the Nintendo DS is 41 months in America. Is it really that big of a difference?

Jo Shishido's Cheeks · Sep 27, 2015

dimb said:
Okay? Go play the hundreds of Gameboy Color exclusive games on your original Gameboy then. What is this thread even attempting to assert? The Gameboy Color is a distinct system from the original Gameboy that marked a notable power increase and lead to its own exclusive library of handheld games that could arguably be noted as the early signs of handheld games growing in scale.

I'm too busy playing the hundreds of exclusive DSi games on my original DS.
Everything you said is attributable to the DSi, sans 'game scale' which we can substitute for digital distribution which is a similarly significant handheld development.
Is the DSi an entirely new handheld generation?

SolarMystic · Sep 27, 2015

I started with a Gameboy Pocket, but I still consider the GBC it's own gen outside of sales and analysis talk.

Had a ton of exclusive games, and going from black and white to color was a generational leap in my eyes, whether it was a bump in specs or not.

Zalman · Sep 27, 2015

Someone needs to interview Miyamoto about this.

co1onel · Sep 27, 2015

I always considered the game boy color to be its own thing. I remember having lots of games that didn't work on an original gameboy. I felt less inclined to play the original gameboy games because it felt like I was playing old games from the previous generation. But I was 2 when the color came out, and didn't even get one till I was like 5 so what do I know.

dimb · Sep 27, 2015

Jo Shishido's Cheeks said:
I'm too busy playing the hundreds of exclusive DSi games on my original DS.
Everything you said is attributable to the DSi, sans 'game scale' which we can substitute for digital distribution which is a similarly significant handheld development.
Is the DSi an entirely new handheld generation?

If the argument is simple semantics why bother? The DSi is a unique piece of hardware but it didn't cue a shift for Nintendo DS development and ultimately has no presence when it comes to the top selling titles for the DS. The Gameboy Color changed the handheld landscape at the time for consumers and developers.

To Far Away Times · Sep 27, 2015

dimb said:
Time on the market is just a meaningless metric that doesn't analyze the bigger picture of why video game systems come and go. Even beyond that the Gameboy Color saw 31 months of uninterrupted time on the American market before the Gameboy Advance arrived. The gap between the Gameboy Advance and the Nintendo DS is 41 months in America. Is it really that big of a difference?

Well, I don't agree with them. For me the library is clearly the deciding factor, and the GBC is very, very different from the DSi and n3DS in that regard.

Jo Shishido's Cheeks · Sep 27, 2015

dimb said:
If the argument is simple semantics why bother?

Jo Shishido's Cheeks said:
Nintendo themselves say the Game Boy, Game Boy Pocket, Game Boy Light and Game Boy Color are all part of the same generation.
Why say anything else?

Hmmmm...

Megatron · Sep 27, 2015

morikaze said:
For me, the time between the release of Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance felt like a much longer amount of time than it actually was. I think the age some people were when the GBC released could be the reason for this perception of it belonging to it's own generation.

Yeah, and the people who didn't really care about the gbc didn't consider it a full generation. I certainly didn't. But looking back I think it is now.

SURGEdude · Sep 27, 2015

Lots of really interesting trivia in here. I've never been a handheld gamer until Vita/3DS so a lot of this is really interesting. I guess I did own an OG GameBoy way back in the day, but I didn't play it much.

Rich! · Sep 27, 2015

SURGEdude said:
Lots of really interesting trivia in here. I've never been a handheld gamer until Vita/3DS so a lot of this is really interesting. I guess I did own an OG GameBoy way back in the day, but I didn't play it much.

I have so much nostalgia for the DMG

First ever console, back in 1994. First ever game was Wario Land.

What a good choice my parents made for that birthday. Every single part of my gaming experiences from that point on went the way they did due to that.

Wonder how different things would be if they had got me the alternative instead, the game gear. They almost did.

SoulUnison · Sep 27, 2015

I think it's easy to consider it its own generation in the "Game Boy Family" since it had exclusive games and lasted as long as its successors did with its approximately 3 year run.
Color was on the market about 3 years before the GBA came out and GBA was around about 3 years before the DS came out.

Out of the three big "Game Boy" hardwares, it's really the original GB that's the outlier for being mostly unchanged for almost a decade.

Looking at it this way, you can almost see a hint of Nintendo's whole "third pillar" lip service almost being true, as the DS had the same unusual near-decade life span - the 3DS debuting in 2011, but the DS continuing to get game releases up until november of 2014.

It feels like the 3DS is to the DS as the Color was to the Game Boy, and we're settled into another 3-5 year refresh cycle until Nintendo reinvents the wheel again.

Brianimaniac · Sep 27, 2015

Jo Shishido's Cheeks said:
If that were true I'd imagine they'd include the Wii U as part of the Wii family and call it 'the worlds most popular console.'

Except that's the last thing they would want to do, since that kind of naming confusion was partly responsible for the Wii U's failure.

Boss Doggie · Sep 27, 2015

One thing people who compare GBC games with DSi games often forget is the latter didn't phase out NDS games. And "analog-only" games didn't phase out non-analog only games for PS1 (I think the only game that comes to my mind for it was Ape Escape).

Dreamwriter · Sep 27, 2015

Boss Doggie said:
One thing people who compare GBC games with DSi games often forget is the latter didn't phase out NDS games. And "analog-only" games didn't phase out non-analog only games for PS1 (I think the only game that comes to my mind for it was Ape Escape).

Also, DSi didn't replace DS Lite - Nintendo sold both simultaneously. The same can't be said for the Gameboy Color and the Gameboy Pocket, the very moment the Color came out, Nintendo stopped selling any black and white game system, and advertised the Color as its replacement.

Windam · Sep 27, 2015

Sesuadra said:
not the best pokemon! crystal was GBC only

Truth.

nampad · Sep 27, 2015

I always felt like the GBC was just a Gameboy with colors and not a new generation hardware. I didn't even know back then that the GBC had exclusive games. We had both devices at home but my little brother mainly used the GBC and I just used the old ass original Gameboy we had when I wanted to play our games.

chaosblade · Sep 27, 2015

I've never considered the GBC its own generation, and the fact that Nintendo internally doesn't consider it one means I'll probably never change that opinion.

flak57 · Sep 27, 2015

Boss Doggie said:
One thing people who compare GBC games with DSi games often forget is the latter didn't phase out NDS games. And "analog-only" games didn't phase out non-analog only games for PS1 (I think the only game that comes to my mind for it was Ape Escape).

Dreamwriter said:
Also, DSi didn't replace DS Lite - Nintendo sold both simultaneously. The same can't be said for the Gameboy Color and the Gameboy Pocket, the very moment the Color came out, Nintendo stopped selling any black and white game system, and advertised the Color as its replacement.

They wouldn't be trying to make the debate about the DSi if they didn't already know there were obvious differences.

Xscapist · Sep 27, 2015

Huh, I hadn't thought about that before, but I see your point, OP. It's definitely like a DSi or New 3DS thing.

Y'know what really bugs me, though, on a related note? That the people who initially wrote the Wikipedia article on console generations decided that the Atari 2600 and 5200 are part of the same generation, despite what game magazines at the time said. Everyone back then considered the 5200 and Colecovision to be a seperate generation (which ended early due to the big crash), the the NES and Atari 7800 being yet another generation.

However, so many modern game journalists have looked at the Wikipedia article when trying to remember what generation this is, that Wikipedia now cites their references to generation number to claim that their error is correct. How messed up is that?

For the record, we are actually currently in the ninth generation of consoles.

To Far Away Times · Sep 27, 2015

Xscapist said:
Huh, I hadn't thought about that before, but I see your point, OP. It's definitely like a DSi or New 3DS thing.

Y'know what really bugs me, though, on a related note? That the people who initially wrote the Wikipedia article on console generations decided that the Atari 2600 and 5200 are part of the same generation, despite what game magazines at the time said. Everyone back then considered the 5200 and Colecovision to be a seperate generation (which ended early due to the big crash), the the NES and Atari 7800 being yet another generation.

However, so many modern game journalists have looked at the Wikipedia article when trying to remember what generation this is, that Wikipedia now cites their references to generation number to claim that their error is correct. How messed up is that?

For the record, we are actually currently in the ninth generation of consoles.

Yeah, that Wikipedia thing is all wrong, so I never refer to the generations by number, only by systems.

red720 · Sep 27, 2015

Finale Fireworker said:
When I got my GBC, it was not a "Game Boy Color," it was a "Game Boy." I didn't even know there was an original Game Boy, and when I found out, I thought it was from the 80s.

The original Gameboy was from the 80s. Before Pokemon came out I don't think people had the expectation that there would be multiple generations of handhelds and they just were what they were, sort of one off products. After Pokemon the GB became relevant for the first time in a long time, and they started updating it. I was in my late teens and reading videogame websites when the GBC came out and at the time it was not considered a new generation, more like a revision similar to the Gameboy Pocket.

Wvrs · Sep 27, 2015

I'd argue that back then, the inclusion of colour to a handheld device was enough to be considered a genertional leap, if we're talking pure hardware rather than whether or not it had many contemporary next-generation games.

But to echo some of the earlier posts in this thread, it definitely seemed like a new gen device when I was a young kid; the idea of afterwards owning a b/w gameboy rather than a full colour one was an unfathomable one to me.

Aaron Strife · Sep 27, 2015

Xscapist said:
Huh, I hadn't thought about that before, but I see your point, OP. It's definitely like a DSi or New 3DS thing.

Y'know what really bugs me, though, on a related note? That the people who initially wrote the Wikipedia article on console generations decided that the Atari 2600 and 5200 are part of the same generation, despite what game magazines at the time said. Everyone back then considered the 5200 and Colecovision to be a seperate generation (which ended early due to the big crash), the the NES and Atari 7800 being yet another generation.

However, so many modern game journalists have looked at the Wikipedia article when trying to remember what generation this is, that Wikipedia now cites their references to generation number to claim that their error is correct. How messed up is that?

For the record, we are actually currently in the ninth generation of consoles.

And according to EA, we're only in the fourth! NES, SNES, Genesis, etc.? Who caaares?

Topic at hand: There are valid points for both arguments it seems... I guess I'd just consider the GBC an anomaly among consoles where the majority of its games are exclusives, but can also be played on previous models. Like if Nintendo released an N64 game that could also be played on an SNES. I dunno if I'd consider it a full upgrade for that reason. In concept it's more like DSi and N3DS, but clearly got way more support than either of those two consoles did.

At least N3DS' batting average for exclusive games is 100%.

charlequin · Sep 28, 2015

This is definitely the most ambiguous instance in probably the whole history of dedicated video game systems. If you look at it in terms of what the company says now, or when systems with shared architecture and heavy software overlap were being sold, then it's one. If you look at generations by time, or by volume of exclusive releases, or by marketing presence (the GBC was clearly positioned as the new, distinct system that you needed to play all the latest games at the time) then it's clearly a new generation.

Myself, I'd tend to lean to the latter and put the contemporaneous perception (which was absolutely that GBC was the "new" handheld from Nintendo) over everything else, but clearly there's a lot of room to debate.

Xscapist said:
Y'know what really bugs me, though, on a related note? That the people who initially wrote the Wikipedia article on console generations decided that the Atari 2600 and 5200 are part of the same generation, despite what game magazines at the time said. Everyone back then considered the 5200 and Colecovision to be a seperate generation (which ended early due to the big crash), the the NES and Atari 7800 being yet another generation.

This has always bugged me.

Sanke__ · Sep 28, 2015

All I know is I had way more gameboy color exclusive games than dsi games or n3ds games

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