Welback Holdings Mega Duck

Mega duck - History of the console

In the early '90s Nintendo Game Boy was dominating the market. A lot of competitive consoles launched that period since Atari Lynx, Sega Game Gear and Nec TurboExpress tried to upgrade the power of the handheld consoles, offering better graphics and gaming experience. On the other hand, Mega Duck by Welback Holdings, like Watara Supervision, tried another approach, offering a cheaper version of the Game Boy. It's considered a quite rear console and the cartridges, hardware and design was similar to the original Watara Supervision. The games of Mega Duck has a lot of similarities with the Game Boy's cartridges also.

Mega Duck released by a Hong Kong based company named Welback Holdings in 1993. The console distributed around the globe by many brands like Creatronic and Videojet. The plastic of the console came with white or black color. The price in Netherlands was 129 Dutch guilders or €58 nowadays, with similar prices in France and Germany. In South America, mainly in Brazil, the console released under the name Cougar Boy. Actually this name is a combination of Boy from Game Boy and Cougar from Atari Lynx! The difference between Cougar Boy and Mega Duck is that Cougar Boy came with four in one gaming cartridge and stereo earphones. It also supports an external joystick for two players game play.

Mega duck - Console details

The controls of Mega Duck is quite familiar with Game Boy's. It has an A and B button and a Start and Select button at the right side, when at the left side there are 4 different buttons to control the direction. It has a 2.7 inches LCD screen with a resolution of 160×144 pixels, which supports four levels of dark blue grayscales and a green background. It also has a 16KB RAM. The console weights about 250 gr without the batteries. With batteries is a lot heavier tough, since it takes four AA batteries like Game Boy. The system features 15 hours battery life.