The American English spelling of the system's name, Game Boy Color, remains consistent throughout the world.

However, while these color displays were visually impressive, they led to criticism that the rival devices had poor battery life and were bulky.

The Game Boy, in contrast, offered superior portability and longevity, propelling it to immense popularity.

[1][2] Publicly, Nintendo pledged to develop a color Game Boy, but only when technology limitations could be addressed.

[3] Internally, a team led by Satoru Okada, who played a key role in the original Game Boy's design, was experimenting with color displays.

Their early-1990s prototype, codenamed "Project Atlantis," featured a color screen and a powerful 32-bit processor from Sharp.

In 1996, Nintendo released the slimmer Game Boy Pocket and the launch of the Pokémon series that same year further boosted sales.

[6] Additional market pressure for Nintendo came in October 1997 when news broke about Bandai's new handheld, the WonderSwan.

[8] It received an international rollout throughout November (amid the busy Christmas holiday shopping season), reaching North America on the 18th, Europe on the 23rd, and Australasia on the 27th.

Launching at a price of US$79.95 (equivalent to $150 in 2024),[9] the Game Boy Color ultimately outsold the WonderSwan, which went on sale in March 1999.

Despite the new arrival, the Game Boy Color remained in production, serving as a budget-friendly alternative.

[13][14] The Sharp SM83 also powered the original Game Boy, where it operates at a clock rate of 4.194304 megahertz (MHz).

[15]: 12 The CPU CGB incorporates the Picture Processing Unit, a basic GPU that renders visuals using 16 kilobytes (KB) banks of Video RAM, twice as much as the original Game Boy.

This feature was utilized in games such as The Fish Files, The New Addams Family Series and Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare.

[15]: 16 The Game Boy features a D-pad (directional pad), four action buttons labeled 'A,' 'B,' 'SELECT,' and 'START,' and a sliding on-off switch on the right side of the device.

Due to the limitations of the 8-bit architecture of the device, the maximum ROM size the processor could access was 32 KB.

Some cartridges include up to 128 KB of RAM to increase performance, which can be battery-backed to save progress when the handheld is off, real-time clock chips can keep track of time even when the device is off, and Rumble Pak cartridges add vibration feedback to enhance gameplay.

[3] A dedicated palette option replicates the original Game Boy's grayscale experience.

[42] One such example is Dragonhym (originally Dragonborne) which was available for release on a physical cartridge which will be playable on the Game Boy Color.

[48] Retail chains in the United States reported unexpectedly high demand for the console, with executives of FuncoLand reporting "very pleasant and unpredicted" sales and Electronics Boutique stating "the entire Game Boy Color line just exploded, including accessories" upon release.

[51] Milder reviews included those by Arcade, who said that while that the colors were "very impressive" they were "not as eyeball-popping as you might have hoped for [...] it's mostly seaweed greens, rusty browns, timid yellows and the like".

In a history of Nintendo, author Jeff Ryan noted the Game Boy Color had a reputation as a "legacy machine" that found success mostly due to its backward compatibility, as "few wanted to lose all the Dr. Mario and Pokémon cartridges they had amassed over the years.

"[56] Quoted in Retro Gamer, Blitz Games Studios developer Bob Pape acknowledged that although "backwards compatibility more or less defined (the) Game Boy Color", the handheld "ticked all the right boxes with regards to size, battery life, reliability and most importantly backwards compatibility".