Oh, the
WonderSwan.
Bandai's entrant into the handheld console market that never received a release in the United States. In style it looks like somebody crossed an iMac of the era (Bondi Blue!) with a
Game Boy. It came in a multitude of colors, and eventually got an upgrade with the
WonderSwan Color, and another upgrade with the SwanCrystal. It was the brainchild of
Gunpei Yokoi, father of the
Game Boy, who was unhappy with being
Kicked Upstairs at the
Big N after the failure of
Virtual Boy and accordingly left for their main competitor. Unfortunately, after Yokoi's untimely death in a car crash, the project kind of lost momentum — and it was when Nintendo was releasing its hugely successful
Game Boy Advance, which eclipsed it quite quickly, and in the end it
never reached western shores. Notable for having quite a few popular
Final Fantasy games ported to it.
