SNK Neo Geo Pocket Color

Neo Geo Pocket Color is a handheld 16-bit colorful console released by SNK in 1999, shortly after its predecessor Neo Geo Pocket. The reason of this small time gap was the launch of Nintendo Game Boy Color. Neo Geo Pocket didn't have a colored screen so with the launch of Game Boy Color, Neo Geo Pocket was behind of Nintendo in terms of display quality, which is maybe the most important tech spec of a handheld console. However, Nintendo strong brand name made the Neo Geo Pocket Color an unsuccessful console like its predecessor.

The game library of Neo Geo Pocket Color counts 82 games. A lot of them were quite popular like SNK vs. Capcom: The Match of the Millennium and King of Fighters R-2. The console is backward compatible with Neo Geo Pocket games also. Neo Geo Pocket Color had good reviews mainly because of the very nice display quality and the 40 hours battery life with only two AA batteries as a power source. Also, the joystick that it has for directional movement is similar to the one used in arcades and considered quite comfortable for fighting games.

Even if the console launched quite successfully, with 14 game titles, a record for that time, the demise came quite soon. Some of the reasons are the lack of strong support in N. America, the increase of popularity of Pokemon games for Nintendo Game Boy Color, the competition with Bandai's WonderSwan also in the Japanese market and the financial troubles of SNK since it was purchased by Azure company in January of 2000. Azure discontinued Neo Geo Pocket Color in the N. America and European markets in 13 of June, 2000, restricting Neo Geo Pocket Color only to the Asian market.

A smaller version of this console, New Neo Geo Pocket Color released only in Japan in October of 1999.