History of video games/Platforms/Neo Geo Pocket

Launch
The monochrome Neo Geo Pocket was released in 1998. Few third parties developed for the Neo Geo Pocket, though the company Dimps worked on many Neo Geo Pocket games. It's most major third party IP to see a release on the system was Sonic, when Sega partnered with SNK to make a portable version of Sonic 2 for the system.

SNK competed hard against the Game Boy line in the United States. This is especially true with the Neo Geo Pocket Color, which offered a console with superior technology compared to the Game Boy Color as wile also undercutting Nintendo, with the system costing only $69.95 at launch. By the year 2000, the Neo Geo Pocket was slightly profitable in the United States, and held a two percent marketshare of handhelds. For a new entrant to the market going against an entrenched company, those are quite good numbers given the small timeframe the system was available for sale. Unlike many consoles, internal problems with SNK in Japan rather then the console's market performance would lead to the withdraw of the console in American markets.

Legacy
Due to financial difficulties and new ownership of SNK by Aruze, including a rocky stint in the Pachinko business, the Neo Geo Pocket Color was discontinued in Canada and the United States on June 13th, 2000.

After resuming operations in March, 2001 in October of 2001, SNK was again defunct.

The Neo Geo Pocket sold two million consoles. The Neo Geo Pocket Color sold under 200,000 systems.

In 2020 SNK began rereleasing certain Neo Geo Pocket games on the Nintendo Switch.

Neo Geo Pocket
The specs of the Neo Geo Pocket are close enough to the Neo Geo Pocket Color that most Neo Geo Pocket Color games will run on it.

Compute
The Neo Geo Pocket Color is powered by a primary 16-bit Toshiba TLCS900H processor clocked at 6.144 megahertz and 12 kilobytes of dedicated RAM. A secondary 8-bit Z80 processor used for sound clocked at 3.072 megahertz with four kilobytes of dedicated RAM..

The Neo Geo Pocket Color has 12 kilobytes of RAM, and four kilobytes of sound RAM.

Hardware
The system has a built in clock.

A wireless link accessory for the Neo Geo Pocket Color was planned.

1998

 * Neo Geo Cup '98 Plus Color
 * Baseball Stars
 * King of Fighters R-1

Sonic the Hedgehog Pocket Adventure
A portable version of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 released for the Neo Geo Pocket Color. The game was well received at the time and was seen as a major title for the system in a market dominated by the Nintendo GameBoy.

Read more about Sonic the Hedgehog Pocket Adventure on Wikipedia.

2000

 * Metal Slug 2nd Mission
 * Cool Boarders Pocket
 * Delta Warp
 * Infinity Cure - Visual novel

2001

 * SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighter's Clash 2 Expand Edition

External Resources

 * Old Computers Museum - Neo Geo Pocket page with specs and history.
 * Old Computers Museum - Neo Geo Pocket Color page with specs and history.