Why did this thing fail? Was it really all Pokemon's fault?

Wasn't it sold exclusively in Toys'R'Us?

As a retarded kid, I thought it was just for arcade fighter ports. Not a "regular" handheld.

>>4230183
You weren't wrong.

>>4230176

That's the only place I remember it being sold, but that's only because I went to play Pokemon cards at Toys R Us a lot in 1999.

SNK with its near zero brand recognition tried to break into the handheld market going up against Nintendurr who had a game library 800+ strong and beyond just Pokémon, had loads of other heavy hitting IPs.

SNK, even if it had Metal Slug 1st Mission as a pack-in probably wouldn't have made any kind of an impact. They did everything else right, though. Good battery life, excellent ergonomics, and high quality games. The only misstep was that they were not Nintendo.

I wonder if they had strengthened their connection with Sega at the time and it was called the Dreamcast Pocket, had more Sega developed games, what would have happened...

Limited release outside of Japan, the promise of the game boy advance coming soon, and SNK'S financial troubles didn't help.

And the library was kind of limited, Sega was the only other major supporter of the system and that might as well have been for the sake of a proxy war with Sony (since there was some wonderswan connectivity to the playstation and Sega appears to have countered with the NGPC-Dreamcast linking).

A game boy or even a wonderswan was a better choice by merit of library diversity.

>>4230206
>SNK'S financial troubles didn't help.

What was causing SNK to go bankrupt before the pocket color?

>>4230213
>bootleggers
>no hardware they produced except the neo geo mvs caught on

>>4230176
I picked up mine at Wal-Mart when it came out.

Such a shame that it never stood a chance against Gameboy despite being superior in every fashion. Not a single dud in their library, either.

>>4230198
>>4230206
These.

SNK had little pull north of the Mexican border, and considering the fighting game craze was beginning to wane and RPGs gained traction at the turn of the millennium, NGPC was doomed from the start.

>>4230175
No market for portable arcade games.

>>4230213
A series of amusement parks dedicated to SNK games that where kinda of popular for like two months, also >>4230225

>>4230246
Also the NeoGeo64 crashed with only 7 games.

>>4230175
>Why did this thing fail?

Library wasn't nearly diverse enough. Too many fighting games, too little third-party support.

WonderSwan did fairly well in Japan despite competition from Nintendo. But WS had rather strong third-party support.

>>4230175
Not as strong as Wonderswan nor GBA an not a big enough library too make up for it

Did it fail? I thought it was moderate success.

>>4230175
Doesn't have many games on it. Most of them are portable versions of Neo Geo games, and a Sonic game.

it was. what the fuck did the gameboy color have other than pokemon?

>>4230870
zelda and mario

>>4230198
Mostly on point but
>Nintendurr
Why such a petty little-
>I wonder if they had strengthened their connection with Sega at the time
OH, still fighting that old console war I see.
>and it was called the Dreamcast Pocket, had more Sega developed games, what would have happened...
PFFFFFHAHAHAHAHA! I'm sure latching onto something that sold less than it's underperforming predecessor would have saved the Neo Geo Pocket for sure!
[/spoiler]Though in a alternate timeline I'd love to have seen some odd NGP/VMU interactions, or even something similar to the GameCube/GBA link cable that could be used to play games downloaded to the NGP via the Dreamcast.[/spoiler]

Neo Geo was associated with the b-games in the arcade among my friends. You played Samurai Showdown when SF and MK had too many kids around it. Their brand wasn't strong enough in my area/among my peers. Also by the time 99 rolled around we we're all hyped about shit like Tekken, so Neo Geo related stuff was just a distant memory.

>>4230979
This, Neo Geo was a casual break from the more serious Capcom fighters.

>>4230175
>Why did this thing fail?

- Too expensive
- No marketing campaign
- Not enough game variety
- No killer licenses of it's own.

It never had a chance against Nintendo because SNK itself never bothered to try in the first place.

>>4230175
I had a gameboy with pokemon at the time when this came out and I got it for my birthday shortly after.

The Sonic game, and SNK vs. Capcom -- put more hours into those then pokemon and enjoyed beating them repeatedly.

Think I was too autistic to actually complete a pokemon and beat the elite four

would love to have a way to hook one of these up to a TV and use a flashcart

same problem with all non-gameboy portables

too much focus on graphics made the damn thing in no way economical or convenient

>>4230175
No because there were many other handhelds that came and went way before Pokemania took off. The fact is most people just didn't care if it weren't a Gameboy no matter the quality.

>>4230175
Handhelds are for kids, and there simply weren't enough kiddy games for the thing.

>>4230979
>Neo Geo was associated with the b-games in the arcade among my friends.
Your friends were rubes.

>>4230175

because it ain't got gaymes

>>4230870
Library of about 1000 GBC games, PER REGION.
And another 1200 PER region, for Gameboy Games.

>>4230175
i guess shitty marketing. i didnt even knew back than that this thing existed.

>>4231045
Is this where Sony got it's NA Vita marketing strategy from?

>>4232041
Nah, Sony let the Vita die because that was back when they were trying their hardest to pretend that they had nothing to do with sissy-faggot Japanese games, which mean they couldn't advertise a system whose life-blood was JRPGs, VisNovs, and Rhythm Games.

It's why you hear people say that Sony could never buy the rights of Nintendo, because they spent too much time shitting on them as the antithesis of Sony's games.