Was The Gameboy Color A Refresh Or A New Generation Handheld?
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- Опубліковано 29 вер 2024
- The Gameboy Color appeared on the scene towards the end of the 90s nearly 10 years after the initial launch of the original Gameboy handheld system. There was a conversation going on back at the start of the 2000s online about whether this was a new generation or simply a system refresh with extra features for the Gameboy line. Today we'll talk a bit about the conversation and take the system apart to learn more about what it was.
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#Gameboy #Nintendo #GameboyColor
What Gameboy games are your favorites that I should look for later this month at Too Many Games?
Driver was really fun on the gameboy
My favorites that I have: Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Super Mario Land, Tetris (duh), and Link's Awakening
Great video! There's so many great GB and GBC games. For the GB: Avenging Spirits, Kirby's Dreamland, and the final fantasy legends games (the ones that are Saga games in Japan) oh and of course Links Awakening! Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons were great games too. As a kid growing up with it, I didn't think of the GBC as just an iteration of the GB but looking back on it, feels much more like comparing a DS to a DSi as opposed to the DS vs the 3DS, the addition of shoulder buttons alone was enough to make the GBA feel like a new system. Congrats on the kid and thanks for all hard work and awesome videos.
Edit: Can't believe in forgot all the Wario Land games, oh and for a good pokemon like, Dragon Warrior Monsters is great!
A favourite of mine is Metal Gear Solid/Metal Gear: Ghost Babel (it had two different titles depending on region). An honestly fun Metal Gear game, and a sleeper hit on the system, at least in my opinion.
All the dragon quest/warrior games.
Got a purple one with Pokemon Pinball for christmas 1999,
Thanks grandma
Grandma is always the best
I like how you keep hitting ⬆️ while playing TETRIS!🤣🤣
Good ol' Tetris 99 skills ain't gonna work on your good ol' GameBoy.
I grew up with the Gameboy and got one from a foreign exchange student who was living with us in the early 90s (apparently her father actually worked at Nintendo). I played the hell out of it like most kids my age did. When I graduated high school at the end of the decade, I was packing up all my stuff with one exception: my Gameboy stuff. For the first and only time, I took all those games and put them in a Goodwill bag. I think, for the most part, the Gameboy was something you played not really for fun but to past time. In fact, my experience with the Gameboy was so negative that it put me off of handheld gaming for years. I didn’t own a handheld system until the Switch came out. After I got that, I had this epiphany that “yeah, maybe some of those later handhelds had some worthwhile games”. And yeah, there were. But yeah, my relationship with Gameboy has been a complicated one. I think it was ubiquitous in its time but for the most part, I think the games were not very good. It did puzzle games well but that’s about it. I hate love you Gameboy. Gameboy Color, I hardly knew ye.
A refresh.
A bloody good one though.
In the late-90's Nintendo pitched it as the next generation of Game Boy, but later recanted, considering it a refresh of the original, even including its sales totals of roughly 50 million in with the 70 million of Game Boy/Pocket.
IT's so funny that your conclusion was exactly was i said on twitter , even the exemple of the 3DS
The GBC was my first handled, got it on my B-day along with wario blast as my first game. Played the shit out of it as a kid. Not only did it solidify my love for gameboy, but also for bomberman style games oddly enough.
It's a new generation, because games for the original Gameboy stopped coming out; it wasn't just occasional games with enhancements for it alongside games still made for the "base system", like with the DSi or the New 3DS.
Both Mario sports games (Mario Tennis and Golf) are great! Croc 2 on the GBC was a fun puzzle-platformer that feels weirdly modern and in-line with indies in the same genre. For some reason even the Harry Potter games on Gameboy Color are far better than they have any right to be, being full-fledged turn-based RPGs with an interesting summons system! Philosopher's Stone and Chamber of Secrets are like lesser, product tie-in Final Fantasy games.
I was dancin at the end of the video.
so heres My take on 'New vs Refreshed' generations...first off, Nintendo seems to Upgrade their handhelds mid-gen (GB to GBC, GBA to GBASP, 3DS to New3DS, etc) while they Downgraded their home system on the refresh of the Wii (losing Gamecube support, for example)...but in both cases, they Released games for the 'older' devices, which were playable on the 'newer' devices-- Pokemon Gold/Silver was a Game Boy game, even though the Color had been out for a while...That, to me, is the Defining characteristic of a 'New' generation vs a 'Refreshed' one...when they released the GBASP, you could still play new games on your old GBA, but the 'Refreshed' model gave you a Backlight and Folding Design...when the DS came out, you couldnt play DS games on the GBA, because it was the 'New' generation of handhelds...
Pokemom blue literally didnt leaves my lime game GB color for years
Great video man!
Revision in my opinion like the "new" 3ds and dsi same games but with slightly better hardware
Gameboy is one of the best systems ever for its games but nowadays for me is unplayable without a backlight screen, i would like to have a advance sp ags 101 but i can't find any with good price, i can also do an original advance mod i might do it one day when i have an original advance, its super easy if you have an ags 101 the ribbon cables are really cheap for it.
I love that spawn game. :)
Have you watched The-Bit-Guy's backlit screen mod for the gb-color, it was super easyyy!
It was a revision. The CPU is the same Z80 clocked higher, more ram, tft color reflective screen and double the VRAM to accommodate color.
I was that kid with the link cable........ That was my first taste of power 😈
The Color was a new system imo.
Pokemon Gold on my Color was an infinite source of distress for my family, you couldn't get it out of my hands. Out at family dinners, travelling, after school, in school. I used to get in trouble so often for having my eyes stuck to the screen everywhere I went.
And now you see my parents sitting on their phones out at dinners and family reunions. Sigh...
Lol
Karma maybe?
The irony. My mom used to get onto me for always being on my Gameboy, now you can't separate her from her phone.
@@MrSupersonic2012 accessibility and target audience
Have such a huge Game Boy collection and the color to me will always have a special place in the market. To me it was a different generation but no matter what it was certainly a bombshell at the time. :D
@@JeremySheer lol
Miss Gameboy! It's time for a Gameboy Classic! :D
I had exactly the same set of games as you: Pokémon Blue/Silver, Oracle of Ages and Link's Awakening. My brother would have the other versions
Same
Same, but throw in Oracle of seasons as well. Man, things were so mind blowing back then.
Gotta miss it
Omg you’re sooo special. Someone give this man a cookie!!!!!
I modded my GBA with a GBA SP screen. That's one of the most awesome mods for the GBA i have seen and the amp for speaker also is a plus.
It that Easy to Mod a Game Boy Color or Game Boy Advance or is it Hard?
@@zpushy633sora If you don't have good soldering skill, and/or equipment, then it can be hard, so on a scale from 1 - 10 I'm gonna say it's around a 6. Way easier to work on then a GameGear doing a full recap, and screen upgrade.
@@CommodoreFan64 I don't know how to Solder but thanks for the tip
I want to mod mine badly. But I don't have the tools. Good for you for being so awesome :)
Not really Gameboy color but in general it was
spongebob
And pokemon I think I played megaman games too
Silly Jonathan, you can't fast fall in classic Tetris! XD (9:26)
It would of been cool if the switch had a slot for ds and 3ds cartridges
That would’ve been an INSANE library to start out with
I'm still crossing my fingers for revision that adds that, even if it only played 3ds. Playing switch, ds and 3ds games would be amazing.
I’m glad you explained this, I’ve been sleeping on upgrading from my gameboy to the colour for nearly 20 years, now I can finnaly get the latest in handheld gaming
?
the spook who sat by the door. Powell Ye sarcasm doesn’t come across well when you type a message
Definitely new gen. It completely amped up the visuals and made it so you could see, the gap was significant, and specific games were supported better on this and more were exclusive to the GBC. Considering the number of games not playable on the original GB, it should be considered a new gen
Neverrr mind, I was wrong
I really enjoy tech waves. Very interesting. Keep up the amazing work.
I always thought of the GameBoy Color as a new generation. I loved my Atomic Purple GBC so much.
I’ve had so many great memories with the GameBoy Color I love it so much.
The real question: Why didn't nintendo give the Wii U built-in GameCube support (even though it can play it perfectly) and the 3ds a full GBA slot like the DS Lite?
Pretty much all the system is missing is the controller ports. With some homebrew you can flawlessly run GC games on Wii U, since it's basically just two wiis taped together, and the wii is basically just 2 Gamecubes taped together. They all have very similar chip architecture.
For your Game Boy collection:
Pokémon.
Pokémon, pokémon, and more pokémon.
Every single one is worth your time.
I'm going to personally recommend Crystal and Yellow in particular.
A backward-compatible half-step generation? Although, the Gameboy Color did have exclusive games that were only playable with the GBC, so . . . new generation? Syntax Error: historical discrepancies - Forge Onward.
Confirming integrity of Source-Code, Dr. Blacksmith. Commencing Reboot sequence.
Loved my GBC, and I had the purple one, although I remember being embarrassed to take it outside b/c I thought purple was too girly. I definitely put more hours into my original model. Sold it a long time ago, but I recently ordered the GB Boy Colour to relive some of that nostalgia and play some games I missed.
Its basically a gameboy pro
Oh I remember first schoolday after xmas. Everyone came up with the green or purple gameboy color. Happy memories😁
6:53 PSH! The Wii U/Switch/PS4/XBox One will be a longer generation, because the Switch will last longer than 2026 (it'll easily last 10 years), the 14th year of this current generation which began in 2012! This current generation is going to easily span 2012-2027 (or more depending how long Switch goes), the longest generation ever!!
The Color was definitely a new gen but it wasn't made clear. When it came out, based on the name, I thought the GBC just colorized gameboy games. Which is does but in a simple way with only a few colors. Gameboy color games were full color, but some could be played in the original gameboy like Pokemon gold & silver, while Crystal could only be played on a gbc. So it got confusing. Plus the jump in original gameboy vs color games wasn't that big to make a huge noticeable difference besides the color.
I didn't know some people thought the GBC was a new generation console...
Generation are definied with game libraries. Today there's a lot of overlap and it's less clear than before, but you still can't play a Wii U Mario Kart 8 on a Switch that's why the Switch is no matter what some people think a 9th gen console.
would be cool if Nintendo released a switch mini in clear purple.
Except there likely won’t be a switch mini, at least not for a good while
It was a refresh. Next question.
Your opinion is objectively false
@@prowlingtiger2226 Shit!
compare it.. it was a new generation, it could handle way more than an original gameboy. It even got its own games to play that gameboy couldnt.
Goes like this::
Gameboy
Gameboy pocket/light refresh.
Gameboy color
(new system all its own with power boost and color. No refresh.)
Gameboy advance
Gameboy advance sp frontlight and with backlight revision and refresh
Gameboy advance micro a small was a revision and refresh, akin to the original gba
DS
DS lite was a refresh
DSi & XL was a revision and refresh (removes b/c with gba)
3ds
3ds XL was refresh
2ds revision and no 3d
New 3ds/XL revision and refresh
2ds xl revision of a revision kinda like gba micro. Not really a refresh though.
It was completely uneccssry, same gors for regular "new 3ds" they put out waaaaay too many systems and revisions/refreshes for 3ds, its fucking insane what they did with it. dsi and new 3ds each got barely a couple games specific for them meanwhile gameboy had its own library maybe couple hundred titles or more.
originally, Nintendo pitched it as the next generation of Game Boy, but the Advance came out, and suddenly Nintendo was like no, THIS is the next generation Game Boy, the Color was just a refresh of the original, despite being nearly twice as powerful, a step that originally was considered another generation!
Yes
yes
yes
thank
you
for
that
tetris
theme
I feel you!! XD tetris will always have a place in our hearts, one of my 2 first games for the GB classic
I was already an adult when the GBC was launched in 1998.
Everybody and their mum regarded it as a refresh/overhaul of the original Game Boy. Definitely not as the 'next-gen Nintendo handheld'.
This is a fake controversy. There was none. Case closed. 🕶
If the games wouldn't work on older gameboys, then surely you would have to consider it a new console all together
Dude good video . Brought me back. I had see thur purple one back then too. Still got original one too. I loved my game boy color lot of good memories
Unequivocally same generation as the original GameBoy. It's just a basic refresh.
Luv the gamboy but the 3DS is the true gem,so many great games and some neat 3D games just make it magical
That circle pad is shit though
Yeah, no. You didnt grow up with the gameboy. It was superior in terms of game quality back then compared to the 3DS.
@@coochie8670 I grew up with the ds lite, Wii, PS3 and xbox 360 typical 2000s
I want them to add a GameBoy app to the online service like they did NES.
Before GBC there was the Japan-exclusive Game Boy Light with a backlit screen. But yeah, the rest of us had to wait for the GBA.
The question on everyone's lips watching this video... Do GameBoy Color games work on the OG console if forced to fit...You know what you gotta try do Sir ^^
Awesome video by the way!
Right i remember wanting to file down the notch on the side so it would fit. Never did it though.
I think it was it’s own system because it had games specifically for game boy color. It didn’t just add color to regular game boy games.
thats like saying sega 32x isnt just a sega its something different
For those of us who lived in what I prefer to call, the golden age. These devices with all the other classics will always have a big spot in our hearts. Ahh, the nostalgia of those good old days
Every generations childhood was the "golden age"
@@Jdb63 not the kids from the 30's and 40's
@@the.littlest.toaster I'm sure they found something to reminisce about lol
@@Jdb63 hehehe well said XD.
@@Jdb63 i hope so.
A good GB Game made with Quality on every aspect? Donkey Kong
-Alot Content (over 100 different Levels)
-Great Music (specialy for GB!)
-Animation Detail all over the Place (even many many different death animations)
-A perfect example to Remake an old classic by not just copy paste porting it.
-Super GB Support
The only Reason to not play the Game is, if you don't like the Gameplay.
Gameboy Pocket ‘Light’ was out was out before the GBA & GBC I believe!
Japan Only though :-p
I still have my Gameboy Color!
Great video Jon(SW). I wasn't really into Handheld Gaming, I remember playing a ton of Tetris on the Original GB and I've played the GBC aswell but outside of afew of the usual games, I didn't really play it alot preferred Home Consoles.
I got the Gameboy Pokemon Trading Card game in 2000 with the holo Meowth promo included. Kept that card in its sealed wrap in my old beat-up binder for 21 years until I sent it to PSA in 2021. It came back a PSA 10 and when I went to look up how much it's worth, found out only about 50 of them ever graded a PSA 10 in the entire world and no PSA 10's had ever shown up on the market for the entire previous year at the time. Even today almost to 2025, only 68 total #10 Gameboy Meowth blackstar promos exist in a PSA 10. When I listed it on Ebay for $2,000 it sold in a couple hours. Pretty awesome experience.
I'm a huge fan of the Gameboy Color, owning 4 different units, and I was always under the impression the Gameboy Color was a new generation. It came out after the N64 while the original Gameboy was around the Super Nintendo, the GBC really feels like a product of the late 90s, both in style and modest technology.
Loved my Game Boy Color when I was a kid. I had a yellow one, and I still have it and it still works. However, as a 30-something my eyes just can't take the tiny screen these days. I wish we had a way to play the cartridges on a TV because there's plenty of older games I'd love to replay but I'm just not going to stare at that tiny screen for hours on end.
I agree it was a refresh, similar to how the New 3DS was a refresh that was faster with a c-stick and 2 extra shoulder buttons.
I grew up with the GBA but I agree. The whole situation just mimics the New 3DS
in my opinion since there is a great deal of Gameboy color games like I don't know what four five six hundred games for the Gameboy color that will not work on the original Gameboy it makes it next gen. sure on the new 3DS there were some games that didn't work quite right on the old 3DS or didn't work right but I always felt like there was just a handful like what for five games and those were all mistakes so I don't know maybe I'm wrong but that's my opinion
Mystery gifting worked on Gold and Silver aswell iirc
My favorite GB game was Metroid 2... soooo fun!
The GBC clearly just a refresh, not a new generation BTW.
The best gameboy game is DOnkey Kong. FACT! It is not an arcade port, its totally new game with over 100 stages. check it out
its not a system refresh. i had to buy a game boy colour back then because i couldnt play zelda oracles on my old game boy. i read it on the back of the box but couldnt believe that it wouldnt fit when i get home. it didnt. i felt stupid for even trying, thats like when you try to put an SNES cartridge into an NES, or a switch game into the wiiu, it wont fit or run and it clearly says on the box, so its a new generation
kirbys dreamland 2 was my favorite gameboy game
You forgot to talk about that other bestselling game on GB that isn't Pokémon. But then again, you used its main theme as the music in the video, soo......
I remember when I was a kid I was desperate to play Pokemon Crystal on my original Game Boy so I broke the little plastic piece that prevented it from turning on and it worked! The game still ran fine in black and white and I played it for years until I finally got a Game Boy Color. Pokemon Crystal also used the IR port for the Mystery Gift feature that would give you and your friend a random decoration for your home.
My Favorite Game Boy Color Games are Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 and 2, Turok: Rage Wars, Pokémon Yellow, Pokémon Gold and Silver, Pokémon Crystal, and Super Mario Bros Deluxe my Most Favorite Game Boy Color Game is Super Mario Bros Deluxe (Mostly Mario and Pokémon)
Got the gameboy color bundle that came with pokemon yellow + strategy guide back in the day and it was the only game I ever had =p
6:46 I find it baffling how the Gamecube didn't sell more than that. It's definitely among the best consoles ever released.
I was badly addicted to my brother/parent's gameboy color and gameboy advanced back in 2007-2010. I remember burning out the battery on one pokemon yellow cartriadge, and a pokemon ruby cartridge which was starting to corrupt saves. So many sleepless nights!
Its kinda funny how you started this... My first Gameboy of my own was a Gameboy Color, and I bought it with Pokemon Red. The release of the Gameboy Color sparked it for me, as I thought the color screen on it was just so darn cool. It was so crisp for motion, the blacks were very black, and of course the color capability. I honestly didn't really mind the lack of the backlight at the time. It's just how Gameboys were and I'd always find a way to make it work. I spent so much damn time with my Brother and friends playing that system, so many fond memories.
I don't recall any discussions whether or not it was a next-gen system. It was always simply an upgraded Gameboy, nothing more.
The games were very similar, but colorized. Sure some games were more impressive but it wasn't the leap the GB had to the GBA, similar to the NES to SNES. Still 8bit hardware at it's core. Especially given that the system wasn't seeing nearly the same amount of releases. More seemed to be the cross compatible versions.
I Remember when my Sister gave me her Atomic Purple Game Boy Color when it 1st Released Years Ago I would play it I would always had a Hard time seeing the Screen and I would show my Mom what I was supposed to do and SHE would have a Hard Time seeing it too and then she would look at it Closer and she said "it says here "Press Start" and I Pressed Start (because I Already knew how to do that) and I would just sit back down and start playing the Game
Oh my gosh. I grew up with that Tony Hawk GBC game. I remember blindly buying it expecting it to be exactly like the console versions. Luckily I still I still enjoyed this version of the game and it brings a lot of nostalgia
Hey Jon/Nathan, do you guys do any gbc modding? BennVenn released an lcd mod for the gbc that gives it a nice backlit screen. He calls it freckleshack. Would love to see Spawns take on it!
Game Boy :8 Bit, Clock speed: 4.19 MHz, ram: 8 Kbytes
Game Boy Color :8 Bit,Clock speed: 8 MHz, ram: 32 Kbytes
for me next gen not a refresh
www.nintendo.de/Hilfe/Game-Boy-Pocket-Color/Produktinformationen/Technische-Daten/Technische-Daten-619585.html
GameBoy Og, Light, Color, Micro, Pocket (Fitting since the Original Is the size of a brick), Sp, Advance and the superior Ags-101 Advance. What is next a Double Screen System?! A Handheld and home System!? (Plus, What do you people think if they made Project Atlantis instead of the advance?)
Growing up the Gameboy and Gameboy Color were a bit before my time. I got a GBA for my 5th Birthday alongside Kirby Nightmare in Dreamland. My brother had a Gameboy Color and I remember watching him play Pokemon Red. I was a fan of the cartoon and had played Stadium on N64 so I got the newest Pokemon game for my birthday which was Sapphire. Loved it so much I went and got gen 1 and 2 games. My GB/C library consisted of Pokemon Blue, Yellow, Gold, and Silver. And nothing else.
Most notable victims of the Nintendo handheld line:
Atari Lynx
Sega Game Gear
NEC TurboExpress
Sega Nomad
Tiger Game.com
SNK Neo Geo Pocket
Bandai Wonderswan
Nokia N-Gage
Sony PlayStation Portable
Gizmondo
Sony PlayStation Vita
From the moment it comes out on the 5th generation 10 years later, with more powerful hardware and hundreds of exclusive games on cartridge: it's a new console. i don't even know why people still wonder.
the reason nintendo bundled it with the original GB is to boost sales figures: 118 million is more impressive than 54 or 64.
I got that exact same Gameboy Color as a kid, and I had the limited edition "Ice Blue" Gameboy Pocket. Still have both of 'em too.
As for the games I played the most on the Pocket/Color, it was Pokemon, Oracle of Ages/Seasons, Game and Watch Gallery, Megaman, Wario Land, Harvest Moon and Donkey Kong Land.
The gameboy color was definitely a refresh. The massive number of game boy color games that also worked on the original are proof enough of this. You had the grey carts, which were OG game boy games and worked on both systems, with just a set of predefined system palettes native to GBC, you had the black carts, which were GBC games that had a degraded colorless mode for the original system (with a few exceptions that wouldn't run on an OG gameboy) but had special expanded palettes for GBC that weren't changeable, then you had the bulge carts, which were typically clear plastic, even when colored, which worked solely on GBC. The various solid colored carts tended to be, aside from red and blue pokemon, the equivalent of black carts. You also had a few carts that had built in things like rumble packs, which were typically, iirc, bulge carts.
As for gameboy games you may wanna take a look at?
Final Fantasy Adventure/Mystic Quest (NA/PAL region names). It was basically the blueprint for the legendary 'mana' series. Sword of Mana is a remake of it. I really wish I hadn't lost my cartridge of it way back in the day. Was very impressive for a grey cart.
There was also a version of the original gta on game boy, iirc. I think it was a black cart. It might be worth a look.
There was also a conker game on the game boy or GBC, don't remember which specifically. It was, iirc, a prequel to bad fur day that was drastically different in tone.
I also fondly remember an interesting sylvester and tweety game that switched between sidescrolling platformer and isometric puzzle game.
There were just so many gameboy games. I've never seen a full list, because noone seems to be sure just how many were released, let alone the ones that were completed but never actually released.
There's also always the more well-known staples like Shantae (good luck finding it for a reasonable price), Pokemon, wario land.
Thinking about it, yeah, I also believe the GBC was a revision. Most played game on GBC? Pokémon Gold. I had a bunch more, but that's was basically the one I always had on the console. The port of the PS1 Spider-Man game, the one developed by Vivendi, was also one of my favorites.
i remember they had a convention at a shopping mall for pokemon... my parents took me and my siblings and found hundreds of kids in this mall, all with gameboys and pokemon and link cables lol. fun you couldn't even describe to kids of this generation! good ol days
Love how you tried to harddrop in tetris :D
9:26 Twice in a row actually lol. I would be doing the same. I forgot they didn't add hard drops until later on.
i got a gameboy pocket then a few months later the colour came out 😅
I think you can say the GB Color was a next gen because the exclusives but saying that also makes the DSI and New 3DS next gen in the counter part most of the New and DSI games weren't really important but the Color exclusives where(for example the best exclusive for the 2 from what I can tell is Xenoblade Chronicles a good game but a port vs Zelda Oracle of ages/seasons a 100% new game)
Tetris DX was a great upgrade to the original Tetris on the gameboy. Pocket Bomberman was also a great game. I really enjoyed it when I was a kid. Also obligatory Gold / Silver / Crystal pokemon. Mario Land was a decent game. Had some unique mechanics in it that were to that series of games. I didn't get the second one however. Donkey Kong Country on the GB was interesting too. It was as one can expect of a DKC game, difficult.
9:10 Gamecube did not have any backwards compatibility either. There was no N64 cartridge slot on that lunchbox.
You could play Gameboy advance game's
@@demetriuspowell29 Yeah with an accessory that you had to buy separately and plug in. Not natively out of the box.
@@fatmatt589 yes I know
It was a new gemeration. But it is confusing because it was the first time Nintendo used previous gen hardware... "improved" previous gen hardware.
The jump from GB to GBC is similar to the jump from GC to Wii, and to DS to 3DS.
Yes, in the last 2 jumps you can say the difference was bigger, but was still based on previous tech.
So yeah.. to me, it was the first time nintendo dared to move on while using previous gen tech.
Honestly I consider the Game Boy Color to be a new generation console rather than a revision mainly because its purpose was to bridge the gap between the original Game Boy and the GBA and it's the N64's proper handheld companion.
This is why Nintendo made first party GBA games for 5 years and GBC for 3 years.
The Super Game Boy is more or less GB's equivalent to the New 3DS and DSi mainly because of the enhanced games.
I look at the GBC as late console refresh, just like Nintendo did with the "NEW" 3DS line only on a much larger scale. Also yes Nintendo could have done a front light just like with the SP on both the GBC, and OG GBA, but they had to come up with excuses to pinch those pennies for more profit lol!
Yo spawn, if you're getting more In to the Gameboy Color go check out BennVenn's new freckle shack drop in backlit display mod. Its amazing, and not crazy expensive. I just installed mine and it was simple. Older front lit mods can't compare.