Neo Geo Pocket Color
Fighting game specialist
SNK's 1999 handheld featuring the best portable D-pad ever made and excellent fighting games, cut short by SNK's bankruptcy despite critical acclaim.
The Neo Geo Pocket Color was SNK’s 1999 handheld, the colour successor to the original Neo Geo Pocket. Famous for its micro-switched clicky joystick—considered the best portable D-pad ever—and excellent fighting games, it was critically acclaimed but SNK’s bankruptcy cut its life short.
Fast facts
- Released: 1999
- CPU: Toshiba TLCS-900H @ 6.144 MHz
- Screen: 160×152, 146 colours
- Battery life: 40 hours (2 AA), unverified; Edge gives around 25 hours for the monochrome unit
- End: 2001 (SNK bankruptcy)
Specifications
| Component | Detail |
|---|---|
| Display | Colour LCD (no backlight) |
| Resolution | 160×152 |
| Colours | 146 on-screen |
| Battery | 40 hours |
| Controls | Micro-switched joystick |
The machine it launched beside
The colour unit had a monochrome predecessor, and the predecessor arrived at the same moment as a machine almost identical to it. Edge put the two side by side at Christmas 1998: the Neo Geo Pocket and Bandai’s WonderSwan “share remarkably similar hardware specifications: both have 16bit processors, eight-shade monochrome LCDs, weigh 130 and 110 grams respectively, measure within millimetres of each other and consume batteries in around 25 hours.”
Two companies with no connection to each other had, independently, built the same handheld. What separated them was a price: ¥7,800 for SNK’s, ¥4,800 for Bandai’s.
Edge described the Neo Geo Pocket’s 160×152 screen as “not offering a particularly high resolution”, smaller than “the original Game Boy”. That last comparison does not hold. Nintendo’s own programming manual gives the Game Boy’s display as “160 x 144 dots” — the same width, eight lines shorter. The Neo Geo Pocket’s screen was the larger of the two.
The verdict that came true in four months
The unit’s British distributor gave Edge the argument against his own product, in the same feature in which he announced an order for 220,000 of them:
People are not going to go out and spend money on another monochrome system when they can buy one in colour.
He was right, and SNK evidently agreed: the Neo Geo Pocket Color reached Japan on 16 March 1999, roughly four months later. The monochrome machine’s whole life was shorter than the lead time on its own launch order.
There was a second obstacle, and it belonged to a chip that was ten years old. Western studios were slow onto the new handhelds because their portable experience was in the wrong instruction set — “the number of western programmers experienced in coding for the Game Boy’s Z80 processor”. The skill that made a developer valuable on the Game Boy was worth nothing here, and the same wall would face Game Boy Advance developers from the other direction three years later.
The Famous Joystick
| Feature | Benefit |
|---|---|
| Micro-switches | Precise, clicky feedback |
| 8 directions | Full diagonal support |
| Fighting games | Perfect for special moves |
| Still praised | Considered best portable control ever |
Notable games
| Game | Notes |
|---|---|
| SNK vs Capcom | Crossover fighting |
| King of Fighters R-2 | Premium fighter |
| Sonic Pocket Adventure | Excellent Sonic |
| Metal Slug | Series portable debut |
Why it failed
| Factor | Impact |
|---|---|
| Late to market | Game Boy dominance |
| SNK finances | Company went bankrupt |
| Game Boy Color | Nintendo’s own colour upgrade |
| Distribution | Limited outside Japan |
Legacy
The NGPC proved handheld fighting games could work with the right controls. Its joystick design remains legendary among portable gaming enthusiasts, and its library—though small—contains genuine classics.