DC and the handhelds
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The Gameboy, with almost 60million units sold and 400+ games, is something of an anamoly in the industry. Based on archaic designs that are 10 years old, and with a library of predominantly crap titles, the Gameboy still manages to sell roughly 3 million units each year. The Gameboy was recently updated with a color LCD, a little more memory, and a little faster CPU, the facelift the Gameboy was long overdue for. | There's been many attempts to tackle Nintendo, or at least to establish some sort of foothold in an industry 100% dominated by Nintendo. NEC, with a Turbo Graphics 16-based handheld, Sega with the Game Gear, Atari with the Lynx... all of them failed. Now, in 1999, a new competitor is stepping up to the plate with a great piece of hardware and a rock-solid (albeit small) lineup of games. SNK, and their NeoGeo Pocket Color (NGPC), takes all of what made the Neo Geo what it was, and scales it down into a pocket-sized, handheld format. How does the NGPC compare with the Gameboy Color (GBC)? To sum up both the hardware capabilities and what that translates to in terms of the games, the NGPC is very similar to the Sega Genesis, and the GBC is very close to the NES. So I guess you could say 16-bit vs. 8-bit... no matter how you put it, the NGPC definately has an edge: the games look just a little more colorful, a little more detailed, and are a little bit faster. For a more detailed comparison, including specs and screenshots, look at my neato comparison. So what does this have to do with Sega and the DC? Well, earlier this year, Sega pledged their full support for the system. This means two things. First, Sega will be making games for the NGPC. One has already been released (Puyo Pop), and a few more are in the works, including a Sonic game (see some screenshots here). As for how this pertains to the DC, Sega and SNK have teamed up to produce a link cable. After plugging the thing into the DC's controller port and the NGPC's serial port, you can trade data between the two. So far, only one game uses this feature (the King of Fighter games on the DC and NGPC), but more are soon to follow. From here on, The Swirl will not only review DC games, but also NGPC games. Partly because of this Sega-SNK alliance, and also partly because I really like the NGPC's hardware, games, and the whole attitude behind the system and the marketing. Check out SNK's site for more information.
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