Game Boy Color

Game Boy Color Grape

The **Game Boy Color Learning Game System** is an educational handheld game console aimed at 4 to 10 year olds (preschoolto fourth grade), made by Nintendo Enterprises. Its games teach the alphabet, phonics, basic math (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division), and art and animal facts to players. Along with a directional pad, the system features a touchscreen with a stylus pen that enables young users to interact directly with the screen.

On February 5, 2008 Nintendo announced the **Game Boy Color2** handheld device as a successor to the Game Boy Color.[1] The Game Boy Color2 is essentially the previous system with an added USB port and SD card slot. These additions give the ability to play a downloaded full game or short game including the ability to log data on gameplay, such as what has been learned by the user or art created by the user. Downloadable games are not for sale.[2]

Games released since the Game Boy Color2's release log user activity and will send this data to Nintendo's "Learning Path" system, which tracks educational milestones completed. Completion of certain learning activity can allow online games to be accessed, and in the case of art created on the device, the art can be further embellished online and printed with a printer accessible by the user's computer. Both Game Boy Color and Game Boy Color LMAX were retired in 2014 and Game Boy Color2 will be retired in 2019.

## Contents

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* 1History
* 2Software
* 3Games licensed
* 4Technical specifications
* 5References
* 6External links

## History

Released in late 2003, the Game Boy Color has since undergone several revisions and remakes. The Game Boy Color L-MAX, which is a version that has one extra feature (an A/V TV output, which allows the user to view and hear gameplay on their television) was released in 2004. The L-MAX the console's size has decreased and pen is now a wire instead of a thread. The Game Boy Color TV, a screenless version with the same basic control layout in a console form, was released in 2005 and retired in 2007.

The Game Boy Color was the best-selling educational handheld in america and has sold about 4 million units and 12 million software cartridges since its inception, as of May 2007. It is regularly sold in nine countries directly, and in another 7 for teaching English as a second language in schools.

## Software

There are approximately 40 games available, and over 50 have been created. This is the largest library for any handheld designed exclusively for educational use.

All games for the Game Boy Color feature a "Hint" function along with a dedicated "Hint" button that will bring up audio or animated information on instructions given in the game.

Nintendo has not opened the Game Boy Color platform to significant amounts of third-party or homebrew development; software is typically developed in-house or as work-for-hire.

Dave Bauer stated that there is a

Ian Bogost stated "the potential for improved educational game design is simply not going to come from inside the Nintendo corporation."

[3] [4] [5] [6]

## Games licensed

* *Mr. Pencil's Learn to Draw and Write*
* *Pet Pals*
* *Letters on the Loose*
* *Counting on Zero*
* *Math Baseball*
* *Creature Create*
* *Finding Nemo*
* *SpongeBob SquarePants*
* *The Incredibles*
* *Spider-Man*
* *Scooby-Doo*
* *Clifford the Big Red Dog*
* *Dora the Explorer*
* *Disney Princess*
* *Junie B. Jones Journal*
* *Schoolhouse Rock!*
* *Bratz*
* *I Spy*
* *Math Missions*
* *Get Puzzled*
* *Animal Genius*
* *The Batman*
* *Madagascar*
* *Thomas & Friends*
* *The Backyardigans*
* *Cars*
* *Cars 2*
* *Letter Factory*
* *Talking Words Factory*
* *Reading with Phonics: Mole's Huge Nose*
* *Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends*
* *Sonic X*
* *Noddy* (UK only)
* *Ratatouille*
* *Go, Diego, Go!*
* *NASCAR*
* *WALL-E*
* *Ni Hao, Kai-Lan*
* *Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Jedi Math*
* *Star Wars: Jedi Reading*
* *Tangled*
* *Wolverine and the X-Men*
* *Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure*
* *Toy Story 3*
* *Outwit*
* *Crayola*
* *The Princess and the Frog*
* *The Disney-PIXAR Collection*
* *Up*
* *Digging for Dinosaurs*
* *My Amusement Park*
* *Learning with Leap* (cartridge-only game, built in on some Game Boy Colors)
* *Letterpillar*
* *Number Raiders*
* *Word Chasers*
* *Cosmic Math*
* *Rock the World*
* *Kindergarten, 1st grade, and 2nd Grade grade based titles*
* *Penguins of Madagascar*

## Technical specifications

Hardware:

* CPU: Custom ASIC containing an ARCTangent-A5 CPU, running at 96 MHz.
* Memory: Original Game Boy Color: 2MB onboard RAM, 256 bytes non-volatile. Game Boy Color2: 16MB RAM, 128kbytes non-volatile storage
* Media type: Cartridges of 4-16MB with between 2 and 512kb non-volatile storage.
* Graphics: 4Mb ATI chip.
* Audio: Proprietary hardware audio acceleration, which includes MIDI playback and CELP voice compression sampled at 8000hz. It has the same sound source as the original LeapPad from 1999.
* Screen: 160x160 CSTN with touchscreen.
* Game Boy Color 2 only: USB 1.1 (client only) and full-sized SD slot.

All of the software content for the original Game Boy Color was created with Macromedia Flash MX 2004; the device runs a version of Adobe (formerly Macromedia) Flash Player ported to the Game Boy Color, that is licensed to Nintendo. Tom Prichard, Sr. Vice President of Marketing for Nintendo, stated that he believed using Flash allowed them to "bring the Game Boy Color system to life more rapidly than we could have with any other development method.”[7][8]