If any system was to knock the Game Boy Color off the top of the handheld food chain, the NeoGeo Pocket Color was it. Backed by all of SNK's member developers, along with announced support by developers such as Capcom, Hudson, Taito, Namco, Sony, and Atari Games, the months up to the release of the NGPC were filled with rampant speculation of the oncoming defeat of the Nintendo portable gaming monopoly. However, the release of the system, at best, fizzled. Thanks primarily to SNK's then legendary lack of marketing, along with availability in America that could be summed up simply by a link to SNK's website, the Game Boy Color remained largely unchallenged.

For most gaming historians, the NGPC occupies a place similar to that of the Atari Lynx or the Sega Game Gear; however, to a small group of fans-cum-obsessors, the NGPC remains both an example of days-gone-by, and a prominent marker of the first fall of SNK.

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SNK was no stranger to imitation. Their claim to fame was the NEO GEO, a modular system that allowed arcade operators to quickly swap out one game and replace it with another as easily as changing cartridges in a console. A great idea in concept, but in practice it meant that an operator could replace one cheap Street Fighter clone with another. The huge majority of SNK's releases were fighting games, and for a long time it seemed they would never be more than an also-ran company with a series of mediocre games. SNK could not, it seemed, make very good software but they could make great hardware. Their NEO GEO system, released in 1989, was still seeing new releases in 2004. No console or platform could claim such a successful time on the market.

They were no stranger to the home market either. When their NEO GEO was new they experimented with game rentals in Japan where it's normally illegal to rent software. While they quickly discovered gamers weren't interested in renting the system, they found more than a few were willing to buy them - even with single game prices reaching more than $300. For some time they were very successful, with a string of hit games and a small but fervent group of fans who snapped up every new game released. The good times came and went for SNK, and perhaps out of desperation they cast about for something new. They decided to release a portable game system.

It was an excellent system, both in capability and design. It won awards in Japan for its quality and styling, and SNK pushed their hip new system hard. Their advertising campaign featured the slogan “I'm not boy”, a sideways shot at Nintendo's GameBoy which should have been long in the tooth and ready for replacement. SNK pillaged their back-catalogue for releases and for a short time it looked like they had it made. Everything they had was better than Nintendo's offerings. Games came in plastic cases instead of cardboard boxes, instruction manuals were full-colour instead of black and white. Several notable third parties created launch games for the system, including Namco who released their sure-selling PacMan.

The hardware was very solid as well, with a horizontal design much easier for players of all ages to grasp compared to the skinny GameBoy which cramped older hands. The screen was exceptionally clear and easier to see in lower light and from more angles than the GameBoy. Instead of a flat directional pad the Neo Geo Pocket had a clicky little thumb stick that looked neat and felt great. It ran for longer than the GameBoy on only two batteries, and had a built-in world clock and horoscope function. Before it was discontinued SNK released a very efficient wireless unit that allowed up to sixty-four players to connect and play together (never mind that no game supported more than two players this way).

Unfortunately SNK also did everything they could to sink their baby. Almost immediately after launching the black and white Neo Geo Pocket they started talking about the colour successor, due a year later. Few players were willing to pick up the system when another was so close on the horizon. SNK in Japan was notoriously hard to deal with, and no Western game company could even get developer documentation from them. Even Japanese developers stayed away after the initial launch, and it was soon SNK alone making games for the unit.²⁾ SNK's American distribution company wanted nothing to do with the unit, and didn't use the fancy plastic cases for their territory³⁾ or even secure much advertising. Instead they gave it half-hearted support, and dumped stock early⁴⁾⁵⁾⁶⁾

At the end the system was given away as prizes in pachinko parlors in Japan, and Aruze, a gambling machine manufacturer who owned SNK for a short time, released almost ten nearly-identical games featuring their latest slot-machine in portable form. Between SNK's inability to keep up the momentum, Nintendo's vice-like dominance and a lack of great games the talented little handheld just lost momentum. Systems bundled with six games in a bubble-pack for under $50 were available throughout North America only a few years after the system was released⁷⁾.⁸⁾

Technical specifications:

   CPUs:             Toshiba TLCS900H core processor (16-bit) at 6.144 MHz
                     Z80 sound processor (8-bit) at 3.072 MHz
   RAM:              12KB for TLCS900H
                     4KB for Z80
   ROM:              64KB boot ROM
   COMMUNICATIONS:   SIO 1 channel 19200 bps, 5-pin serial port
   SCREEN:           Reflective TFT, 45mm by 48mm
   RESOLUTION:       160x152
   COLORS:           16 palettes per plane, 48 palettes.  146 colors on screen out of 4096.
   SPRITES:          64 sprites per frame, 4 colors per sprite.
   SCROLLING:        2 scrolling planes, 8x8 character tiles, 4 colors each.
   SOUND:            PSG 6 tone simultaneous output.  Stereo sound.
   CARTRIDGES:       Maximum 2 MB (16 Mbit) with 4-16Mbit flash memory.
   BATTERIES:        40 hours on 2 AA batteries.
   MISC:             Lithium battery backed-up memory and clock

A master list of all the games released for the NGPC can be found here. ^9)10)11)12)