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Where Do You Stand On The Game Boy Color Debate?

How do you feel?

  • Game Boy Color is its own system

    Votes: 138 41.4%
  • Game Boy Color is just an upgraded Game Boy

    Votes: 195 58.6%

  • Total voters
    333

01011001

Banned
I go with the facts and Nintendo, it's an upgraded GameBoy.

The hardware is clearly just a small upgrade that allows for color,
and Nintendo, the people making the thing, also categorise it as part of the original GameBoy line.

So, I mean... everyone who voted differently you are objectively wrong


It had games that wouldn’t run on a regular Gameboy so I’d classify it as a separate system.

by that standard the New 3DS and the DSi would also have been separate systems as both of these also had exclusive games that didn't work on the 3DS and DS respectively.
 
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nkarafo

Member
Didn't the DSi have it's own games that weren't compatible with the regular DS?

Does that mean the DSi is not an upgrade but a different system?

GBC should fall in the same category IMO.
 

Soodanim

Member
It's more of a Gameboy 1.5 than a Gameboy 1 or 2. Gameboy Color and its descendents are enhanced models that sit somewhere in between the given options.

Nintendo's history of doing this makes them a category of their own, not something that falls into the same or "Just an upgrade". An upgrade would be the PS4 Pro.
 

Paasei

Member
No idea there was a debate. As a kid I saw it is a seperate system from the standard Game Boy. I don't really care now, tbh. I had tons of fun with it.
 

Mattyp

Gold Member
Growing up with the system when it was new and first came out it was entirely different system. I’m wondering if people arguing it’s the same as a regular game boy or pocket had one at new.
 

ResurrectedContrarian

Suffers with mild autism
Never liked how games look on gb color, always preferred the green tint of the OG.

100% agree

For some reason, it always felt like the GBC had fewer colors than the original, because you immediately see the game and say, "oh everything on screen right now is in just a handful of base colors" -- whereas you don't feel that way with monochrome, because it's like a b&w photo with a lot of contrast and depth.

It's like looking at very early PC color graphics adapters (CGA), where suddenly everything seems so basic. Unless you have enough colors to fully colorize the scenes, monochrome feels better than an extremely limited "primary" palette feel.
 
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As a kid I was pissed that my GameBoy Pocket was devalued with the introduction of the GBC. Back then I saw the GBC as the next generation of GameBoy, and the fact that my system was getting fewer and fewer games proved that. Looking at it now though, the GBC was an obvious stop-gap. IMO its improvements are not significant enough to classify it as its own generation.
 

McCheese

Member
No, because if we say "well technically it was a new system because it had some Color only titles" then that argument would also make the DSi, which had like 4 exclusive games, a sequel to the DS; which is stupid, so let's not go there.

It goes GB/GBC > Gameboy Advance > Nintendo DS/DSi > Nintendo 3DS > Switch
 
I voted: Upgrade

It's literally a PS4 Pro of sorts. However, Nintendo treated it more as a successor then they did something like the DSi, or New 3DS.
 
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lestar

Member
The GBC is a "Gameboy Pro" or "New Gameboy Pocket" basically, it has practically the same hardware as the DMG and GBP. The cpu is the same, more power efficient, with some new registers and the posibility to overclock it by x2, it has twice vram and x8 more ram, but with trickery, because by the cpu, it has the same addressable memory map that older gameboys, you cannot use the whole vram or ram at the same time, you have to bank them like roms larger than 32kb. And for the new color screen, that alone does not justify it as new generation console, most of gbc games are playable on older gameboy.
 
game boy color is it's own handheld system. had it's own games that you cant play on game boy and color was a huge different vs no color.
 

SpiceRacz

Member
Not sure. I don't know if there's any meaningful difference in the hardware from the original.

What I do know is this game rules:

240.jpg
 
To be completely honest, it doesn't really matter to me either way.
Classifying things like this tend to be classified differently by different people and quite often people seem to classify these things into whatever benefits them. I loved both of these consoles and now have upgraded both of them although there still isn't a modern screen that doesn't have some negatives to go with the positives they bring. You still have trails on the screen with movement.
In terms of classifying these things and people using the classifications to their own end, you only have to think about the Switch and with games some can say that they look terrible for a home console while others will say that they amazing for a handheld system.
Both can be right and wrong. I think we can all be too concerned about classifying these things and all these classifications seem to really earn is what other "things" people feel they are justified in comparing them to.
With the two handhelds in question it's likely a bit of both, moving to colour games certainly felt very new, like something significant really had changed but in many ways the games themselves were largely the same as the games on the launch Game Boy. There's genuine reason to classify them as either of the two options but I loved them both and just don't think that either classification really means anything to me.
 

01011001

Banned
Not sure. I don't know if there's any meaningful difference in the hardware from the original.

What I do know is this game rules:

240.jpg

it might be the best GBC game, I can't think of a better one, so damn good, and by far the best 2D Metal Gear as well
 
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by that standard the New 3DS and the DSi would also have been separate systems as both of these also had exclusive games that didn't work on the 3DS and DS respectively.
I feel the DSi and New 3DS are strange edge cases, the amount of exclusives between those two are literally a handful of games(I guess the DSi has a bunch of DSi Ware games but still), whereas the GBC easily has a library worth of exclusives.
 
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01011001

Banned
I feel the DSi and New 3DS are strange edge cases, the amount of exclusives between those two are literally a handful of games, whereas the GBC easily has a library worth of exclusives.

but the GBC also has enhaced games that work on both, like all mid gen refreshes.
also the GBC was only released because the development of Project Atlantis was very troublesome. so they needed a GB refresh in order to buy some time until the GBA was actually ready to release.

Project Atlantis was supposed to release around the time the GBC released. They simply gave the GB hardware a slight refresh to have enough juice to handle colored tiles and sprites and thought this would be enough to keep people engaged with the brand
 
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Who’s debating this? A 25 year old kid who wasn’t on this planet yet when these handhelds were on the market? Who gives a shit!
but to answer the question I say…….both lol.
 

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman


The Nintendo Game Boy Color, it's a Game Boy and it's got colour. I can't decide how to spell the word colour here. Should I go with the British spelling with the 'u' or do I need to acknowledge that Nintendo didn't ever spell it that way. I don't suppose it matters.
Anyway, did any games really push it to the limit? Were there any that were as ambitious as games on other 8-bit systems, or was it all just by the numbers stuff we've seen before? Let's find out!
There's got to be more than Mario and Zelda.

00:00 Intro
01:52 Shantae
04:27 Alone in the Dark
06:55 The Fish Files
10:21 3D Pool
12:32 Toy Story Racer
14:10 Cannon Fodder
14:48 Championship Motocross 2001
15:05 F1 Championship 2000
15:46 Tyrannosaurus Tex
 
There are ps1 games that can’t be played without a dual shock controller.

Not sure anyone makes the same argument there.

You also couldn’t play pal games on the ntsc PlayStation. And there are PAL exclusive games.
 

Dream-Knife

Banned
There are ps1 games that can’t be played without a dual shock controller.

Not sure anyone makes the same argument there.

You also couldn’t play pal games on the ntsc PlayStation. And there are PAL exclusive games.
That argument doesn't really apply here.
GB to GBC is like PS4 pro to PS5.
 

Dream-Knife

Banned
those are entirely different hardware.

The gb and gbc are the same architecture.

so the correct comparison is PS4 to PS4 pro.
Gb and gbc are different hardware as well.

No, ps4, ps4 pro, and ps5 are the same architecture, just progressively better components. Ps4 cannot play ps5 games just as GB cannot play GBC games.

I found my old purple translucent GBC. Fired it up no problems but honestly without a back light this thing is near unplayable.

Are our eyes worse, or did we just get used to backlit screens?
 
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01011001

Banned
Gb and gbc are different hardware as well.

No, ps4, ps4 pro, and ps5 are the same architecture, just progressively better components. Ps4 cannot play ps5 games just as GB cannot play GBC games.

the GB can play some GBC games. just like the New 3DS and the DSi the GBC has exclusive games and simply enhanced games.
 

01011001

Banned
The black cartridges. Those aren't GBC games but enhanced GB games. Think of those more like ps4 pro enhanced titles.

they still use the GBC hardware to improve them.
again, the GBC is literally identical to the New 3DS and DSi, and if you agree that those are just enhanced versions of the DS and 3DS then you also have to agree that the GBC is an enhanced GB and not a new platform.

New 3DS and DSi have exclusive games and games that have been enhanced in some ways for them
 

Dream-Knife

Banned
they still use the GBC hardware to improve them.
again, the GBC is literally identical to the New 3DS and DSi, and if you agree that those are just enhanced versions of the DS and 3DS then you also have to agree that the GBC is an enhanced GB and not a new platform.

New 3DS and DSi have exclusive games and games that have been enhanced in some ways for them
Of course, just like a PS5 can use its hardware to run PS4 games better.

New 3ds was a different platform. It was a gamble to see if it would take off, it didn't so nintendo abandoned it on software. The GBC did amazingly well and got a ton of exclusives.

If the PS5 flopped sony would just keep making crossgen games. Same thing.

No idea on the DSi, I skipped the 7th gen.
 

01011001

Banned
Of course, just like a PS5 can use its hardware to run PS4 games better.

New 3ds was a different platform. It was a gamble to see if it would take off, it didn't so nintendo abandoned it on software. The GBC did amazingly well and got a ton of exclusives.

If the PS5 flopped sony would just keep making crossgen games. Same thing.

No idea on the DSi, I skipped the 7th gen.

so you are saying the New 3DS is not part of the 3DS generation? well, at least you are consistent, some come with weird arguments to justify their hypocrisy when they say that the New 3DS is the same platform as the 3DS but the GBC isn't the same as the GB.

still tho, both the New 3DS and the GBC are simply slightly overclocked versions of their base counterpart with some added RAM... that's it...
 

Dream-Knife

Banned
so you are saying the New 3DS is not part of the 3DS generation? well, at least you are consistent, some come with weird arguments to justify their hypocrisy when they say that the New 3DS is the same platform as the 3DS but the GBC isn't the same as the GB.

still tho, both the New 3DS and the GBC are simply slightly overclocked versions of their base counterpart with some added RAM... that's it...
They have exclusive games though. Better hardware and exclusive games is a new generation.

GBC in all honesty wasn't even supposed to be a thing, but the GBA was delayed. They should have added a light like the Japan exclusive GB Light, which was just a GBP with a front light that also took AA batteries. GBP/GBL had bigger screens too.
 

TLZ

Banned
There's over 100 games you can only play on GBC, it's very much its own system.

GBA to SP is an upgrade rather than a new system.

To me it was its own system. It came out years after the gameboy mania had died and after the pocket redesigns. Plays its' own software etc..

It had games that wouldn’t run on a regular Gameboy so I’d classify it as a separate system.

It was its own system but because it had the same form factor, same shape carts and full backwards compatibility, it comes off as being the same system.

It has different hardware and a lot of exclusive games.

Wikipedia lists 611 games on GBC that don't work on the GB. I will always view it as it's own system, it has a massive library of it's own.

(915 games released on GBC cartridges, 304 of these work on GB, 611 only work on GBC.) - List of Game Boy Color games - Wikipedia
According to these posts, I'm not sure why GB and GBC are lumped together then.
 

01011001

Banned
According to these posts, I'm not sure why GB and GBC are lumped together then.

because the GBC is in the exact same position as the New 3DS, which also gets lumped in with the normal 3DS

the amount of exclusive games is irrelevant as that's simply an indication on how successful they were not how different they are.

in fact the hardware jump from 3DS to New 3DS is a way bigger one than GB to GBC

so people imo need to be consistent here. if you argue that the GBC is its own thing then you also have to argue this for the New 3DS, as both have enhanced hardware, both have enhanced games and both have exclusive games.
 

Nautilus

Banned
Its just a Gameboy revision, obviously same gen and system as the Gameboy.

If it wasn't, we would also need to consider the New 3DS, PS4 Pro, Xbox One X, and any revision that offers more power, and even some exclusive games, as a separate system/gen and that's just wrong and stupid on many levels.
 

BlackTron

Member
Its just a Gameboy revision, obviously same gen and system as the Gameboy.

If it wasn't, we would also need to consider the New 3DS, PS4 Pro, Xbox One X, and any revision that offers more power, and even some exclusive games, as a separate system/gen and that's just wrong and stupid on many levels.

PS4 Pro, and Xbox variants don't have exclusive games. There was no "Only for PS4 Pro" branding added when the system came out.

Nintendo launched Game Boy Color with new box art that clearly indicated it was a GBC-only game, and made a new cart with a new shape mold (they were clear) that were only compatible in GBC systems. Further, it wasn't a few random instances of needing the greater power of the upgrade, it was launched like a new platform and got hundreds of its own games.

That situation is a WORLD apart from PS4 Pro or Xbox One vs One X, or even apart from the New 3DS, which while technically having a few exclusive games it comes off as a few sloppy one-offs that demanded more CPU power. I mean Game Boy didn't even have COLOR until this upgrade came along, and ended up with HUNDREDS of games that won't work on its predecessor, due to unique hardware.

If Nintendo had released GBC without much fanfare and it ended up with only a few exclusive games, everyone would see it as just a deluxe standard Game Boy instead of its own thing. The same way we see New 3DS as just a better more preferable 3DS.
 
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Robb

Gold Member
Didn’t even know this was debatable. Nintendo counts it as a revision of the original GB, so we already know the answer.
 
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