In 1996, the slumping sales of the Game Boy were reignited by an innovative new approach to gameplay. Nintendo game designer Satoshi Tajiri created a new line of games called Pocket Monsters (aka Pokémon). An instant hit Pokémon boosted sales and became a major franchise unto itself, spawning video games, card games, toys, television series and feature films.
A year after he left Nintendo, Gunpei Yokoi started his own company called Koto Laboratory and began work on a new handheld video game system, the WonderSwan. That same year Yokoi was fatally injured when a car sideswiped him while he was standing roadside examining a fender bender. A tragic loss to the world of video games.
Reignited with the success of Game Boy due to Pokémon, but threatened by competitive handheld systems on the market, Nintendo released the Game Boy Color (GBC) in 1998. Although many consider the GBC as nothing more than a colorized version of the Game Boy it was actually an extremely innovative and groundbreaking system. Not only did it allow for superior games in color, but it was the first handheld system to be backwards compatible, use wireless connectivity via infrared sensors, and the first to use motion controlled cartridges which would eventually inspire the Nintendo's Next-Gen console, the Nintendo Wii.
After Nintendo's ups and downs on both the console and handheld front, 2001 served as a major year for the company, as they released two new systems which upgraded all of their existing traditions. On March 21st, 2001 the Game Boy Advance premiered in Japan, and on September 14th, 2001, their first disc console, the Nintendo GameCube made its debut.
Released only two years after the GBC, Nintendo the Game Boy Advance brought the quality of the SNES console into a handheld. The final system to produce all 2D games in a classic style is also backwards compatible with all the classic games from the original Game Boy. The GBA also hosts more ports of classic Nintendo games than any other system. Game ports range from the Nintendo Game & Watch and NES titles, to SNES and coin-op arcade games. The GBA has outlasted any other game system and is still available today.
During a time when Microsoft was launching the Xbox and Sony releasing their second generation of PlayStation, the PlayStation 2, both of which touted as an all inclusive entertainment system designed to play games, DVDs and CDs, Nintendo decided to take the opposite approach and release the GameCube as the only "current gen" gaming console designed specifically for video games, and sold it at a lower cost than the competition. Unfortunately this approach didn't catch on and the GameCube dropped Nintendo to the number three spot in the console wars, with the PlayStation 2 as #1 and Microsoft's Xbox coming in #2.
Instead of admitting defeat Nintendo went back to the drawing board and started developing plans for a new and unique "Next Generation" of home gaming console. In 2001 the Nintendo Revolution was conceived with a new way of interacting with a video games, full motion control.
