RIP: Bandai Wonderswan
Ed Steele
May 19, 2003
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 The Bandai WonderSwan handheld gaming console was designed by Gumpei Yokoi, who also designed the original Game Boy for Nintendo. Lik-Sang is reporting that Bandai is in the process of phasing out the little handheld, as no more hardware is being produced and fewer and fewer games are being released. (My Casio WQV-3 watch has a beam option for the WonderSwan!) The most unique creation for the WS was the WonderBorg, a robotic beetle with different sensors and sensor attachments that you program to react to certain situations. At one point Mattel planned to release the WS in the United States, but that plan never came to fruition.
The last company to take Nintendo on in the handheld gaming arena and fail was SNK with the Neo-Geo. It will be interesting to see how the soon to be released Sony PSP and Nokia N-Gage handheld gaming systems will fare. With 150 million Game Boy units sold worldwide and one hundred years of experience with making games, I don’t think anyone will be taking Nintendo’s crown anytime soon. |
About the author: Ed Steele View all posts by Ed Steele
Photographer and technology critic Ed Steele is the creator and editor of GadgetMadness and has been finding and reviewing the coolest gadgets first since 2003.
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