WonderSwan

Gunpei Yokoi's last handheld, Bandai's Japan-only Game Boy rival with Final Fantasy remakes and a 30-hour battery

Shut down
19902026

The WonderSwan was a handheld console released by Bandai in Japan on 4 March 1999, designed by Koto Laboratory under Gunpei Yokoi, the creator of the Game Boy, who died in 1997 before it shipped. Cheap, light and running 30 hours on one AA battery, it was followed by the WonderSwan Color on 9 December 2000 and the SwanCrystal on 12 July 2002 and had Final Fantasy remakes and Gunpey as its best-known games. Bandai discontinued the line in 2003 after about 3.5 million sales.

Timeline [edit]

  1. 1997
  2. 4 October 1997 other
    Gunpei Yokoi dies

    The WonderSwan is finished by his team at Koto.

  3. 1999
  4. 4 March 1999 Launch
    WonderSwan launches in Japan

    4,800 yen, monochrome, one AA battery for 30 hours.

  5. 2000
  6. 9 December 2000 Version
    WonderSwan Color

    Square's Final Fantasy remakes; about 8% of the Japanese handheld market.

  7. 2001
  8. 21 March 2001 Decline
    Game Boy Advance launches

    Nintendo takes back the colour handheld market.

  9. 2002
  10. 12 July 2002 Version
    SwanCrystal

    A sharper TFT screen; the last model.

  11. 2003
  12. 2003 Shutdown
    Bandai discontinues the line

    About 3.5 million sold across three models.

The site through time

Browse bandai.co.jp as it was, via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine:

1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 Full archive →

Ownership [edit]

Bandai 1999–2003 Founded Hardware designed by Koto Laboratory under Gunpei Yokoi

Key figures [edit]

MetricValueAs ofConfidence
Downloads ▲ 3.5 million 2003 Estimated Combined sales of WonderSwan, WonderSwan Color and SwanCrystal

Confirmed official figures · Reported media, cites a source · Estimated analyst or our estimate

Why it shut down [edit]

Official line: Bandai stopped supporting the WonderSwan line in 2003 after about 3.5 million units across three models. The Game Boy Advance, launched in March 2001, took the market the WonderSwan Color had briefly contested, and Square, whose Final Fantasy remakes had been the platform's biggest draw, went back to Nintendo the same year. Bandai then merged its game business into Bandai Namco and never made another console.

Our analysis: The WonderSwan was designed by the man who created the Game Boy, and it showed: cheap, light, a single AA battery for 30 hours, a clever body that worked upright or sideways. It got to about 8% of the Japanese handheld market, which was more than anyone else managed against Nintendo, on the strength of a Square deal that gave it Final Fantasy I, II and IV. But it was monochrome when colour was arriving, Japan-only, and one exclusive partner away from irrelevance. When Square went back to Nintendo, the machine had no reason to exist.

History [edit]

Yokoi's swan

Gunpei Yokoi left Nintendo in 1996, founded Koto Laboratory and took a contract from Bandai to design a handheld to fight his own Game Boy. He was killed in a road accident in October 1997, and the WonderSwan, finished by his team, launched in Japan on 4 March 1999 at 4,800 yen, less than half the price of a Game Boy Color. It was a monochrome machine, but a smart one: a 16-bit NEC V30 processor, a 2.49-inch screen, two sets of controls so games could run in portrait as well as landscape, a headphone port, and about 30 hours from a single AA battery. Gunpey, a puzzle game named for Yokoi, was the launch title.

The deal that made it was with Square, which was feuding with Nintendo at the time and gave the WonderSwan Color remakes of Final Fantasy I, II and IV plus a Front Mission port. The Color, released on 9 December 2000 at 6,800 yen, took the platform to about 8% of the Japanese handheld market, the closest anyone came to Nintendo in the Game Boy era. Bandai's own Digimon and Gundam licences filled out a library of about 200 games. The SwanCrystal of 12 July 2002 replaced the Color's screen with a sharper TFT panel and was the last model.

Overtaken

The Game Boy Advance arrived on 21 March 2001, in colour and with Nintendo's library, and the WonderSwan's window closed. Square made peace with Nintendo in 2002 and stopped WonderSwan development; a planned Final Fantasy III remake never shipped. Bandai discontinued the line in 2003 with about 3.5 million sold across the three models. It was never released outside Japan and Asia, which is part of why it has become a collector's machine in the West.

The domain today

bandai.co.jp is Bandai's corporate site; the WonderSwan is a museum entry there.

Similar projects

Ouya The $99 console Kickstarter wanted to exist 2013–2019 Sega Dreamcast The console that killed its own company 1998–2001 Wii U 13.5 million sold, and the ideas all survived it 2012–2024 PlayStation Vita The best handheld nobody supported 2011–2019 Virtual Boy Nintendo's red 3D headset, on sale for about a year 1995–1996 PlayStation Portable Sony's first handheld, 80 million sold, the UMD disc, the PSP Go that nobody bought, and a store that closed twice 2004–2014

Sources [edit]

  1. WonderSwan The Centre for Computing History 1 January 2019 [archived]
  2. Hands on with the WonderSwan Color IGN 16 December 2000 [archived]
  3. Anniversary: Game Boy creator Gunpei Yokoi's WonderSwan is 25 years old Time Extension 4 March 2024 [archived]
  4. The Game Boy creator's last handheld was a wonderful little machine Kotaku 11 April 2011 [archived]

Last verified: 16 August 2026. Spotted an error? Suggest an edit (corrections with sources are reviewed and applied).