WonderSwan is a Bandai handheld game console released in 1999 in Japan . It was developed by Bandai itself, with the assistance of Koto Gunpei Yokoi. WonderSwan was supposed to compete with handheld consoles such as Neo Geo Pocket Color and Game Boy Color (despite the fact that WonderSwan's developer, Gunpei Yokoi, also developed the original Game Boy for Nintendo ).
| Wonderderwan | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Manufacturer | Bandai |
| Type of | Portable gaming system |
| Generation | Fifth |
| release date | March 9, 1999 |
| Pieces sold | |
| Carrier | cartridges |
| CPU | NEC V30 MZ |
| Previous | |
| Next | WonderSwan Color |
The WonderSwan console was later replaced by WonderSwan Color . Although some games for WonderSwan Color were compatible with WonderSwan, many were designed specifically for it and generated an error message when they were tried to be used with WonderSwan. For WonderSwan, a fairly large number of games were released that could be played with a vertical or horizontal screen. However, since the console was aimed primarily at the Japanese market, only a small number of games have an English text.
Launched at the end of 2000, WonderSwan Color was more popular than its predecessor. It had a color display that was slightly larger than WonderSwan's black and white display, plenty of RAM, and was also fully compatible with games for WonderSwan. At the peak of the console’s popularity, Bandai owned about 8% of the Japanese market, which is quite a lot considering that Nintendo was the main competitor. This is partly due to the rather low price of the console (about $ 65), but the most important component of success was the contract with SquareSoft , according to which remakes of the first games of the Final Fantasy series were to be released on the console. However, with the increasing popularity of Game Boy Advance and the resumption of partnerships between Squaresoft and Nintendo, the WonderSwan Color console, as well as its successor Swan Crystal, quickly lost their competitive edge.