Wonderswans at Toys R Us?

[Tupin]

I remember once, around ten years ago, a Toys R Us I went to had some Wonderswan games, which I always thought was odd. Apparently the consoles were sold for very cheap, I guess Toys R Us bought them when Bandai discontinued the system. I never saw the system itself for sale there, though...

Anybody remember Toys R Us selling these? What games did they sell for them?

[Bojay1997]

I remember once, around ten years ago, a Toys R Us I went to had some Wonderswan games, which I always thought was odd. Apparently the consoles were sold for very cheap, I guess Toys R Us bought them when Bandai discontinued the system. I never saw the system itself for sale there, though...

Anybody remember Toys R Us selling these? What games did they sell for them?

Where was this? Are you sure it wasn't another Bandai device? Wonderswan and its games were never placed in all English packaging, so I'm not sure how Toys R Us could have sold this.

[Tupin]

I wasn't actually sure what I saw until I read that Toys R Us sold them in the early 2000s, I just thought it was a weird Tamagotchi game or something when I saw it there.

[Aussie2B]

You sure you're not confusing it with the Neo Geo Pocket Color?

[Tupin]

I read about it here:

http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=1175&st=2

[Bojay1997]

I read about it here:

http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=1175&st=2

I suspect that information is not correct. I was actively collecting handhelds at the time and actually imported a Wonderswan and some games very close to release and I also visited multiple Toys R Us locations in Los Angeles pretty much every week at that time and have never heard this. I know there was talk of releasing the system in the US, including a press release at E3 and some magazine coverage, but Bandai just as quickly decided not to move forward when the system did poorly in Japan. I have also never seen a single game in all English packaging and I'm positive Toys R Us in the US would not have sold Japanese language packaged games and consoles. If anyone has specific evidence this happened, I would love to hear it, otherwise, this is just an unsubstantiated rumor on a public website IMHO.

[ownerizer]

Was the Neo Geo Pocket Color sold in the US?

[Doonzmore]

Was the Neo Geo Pocket Color sold in the US?

Yes. I still remember it being advertised sometime around 1999 and there were games reviewed for it in EGM. Heck, I remember EB Games selling bundles back in 2004.

[tonyvortex]

Was the Neo Geo Pocket Color sold in the US?

When I first started in electronics at Walmart we had them. We only sold one of the colors and Sonic. There was another game that was sold but I can't remember.

[udisi]

I bought my Neo Geo pocket Color from EB Games in a few moths before the GBA came out.

[Aussie2B]

Was the Neo Geo Pocket Color sold in the US?

Yep, and Toys R Us stores usually had a decent little section devoted to it back then, prior to the plug being pulled on the system. (Then later they started showing up in those blister packs.)

[PapaStu]

Was the Neo Geo Pocket Color sold in the US?


Yes. I got my first boxed NGPC and 4 or 6 games from a TRU in 2000, after NeoGeo went under.

[Bojay1997]

Was the Neo Geo Pocket Color sold in the US?

Yep and so was the Neo Geo Pocket. For that one, your options were to order it from SNK USA directly, National Console Support or Japan Video Games among other authorized retailers. Essentially, SNK USA was selling Asian English boxed games and consoles in the US until they released the NGP Color.

[retro junkie]

I remember purchasing my Neo Pocket color from a local Toys R Us along with Metal Slug. I went back a couple of weeks later to get another game and everything had been pulled! I was mad for a while. I didn't get another game for the system until the blister packs started showing up on shelves. Since then I have acquired more games through eBay.

I imported my Wonderswan, and my Swan Crystal, with games after a long wait for the system to arrive in the US, which it never did. Shame it never got a US release. I would loved having all the RPGs with English translation. I still have mine along with battery pack but no charger.

[goatdan]

Yeah, the comments that the original author read are definitely referring to the NGPC and the poster's memory wasn't clear on it. I remember it really well, as I had been saving to buy a NGPC and SNK announced that they would no longer be selling the system in the US, and the plan was to offer stores a buy-back version to recall the hardware so they could sell it in Japan (not destroy it). The buy-back was going to happen in 3 days after the announcement as I recall.

I very much remember this, as the day it was announced I went to three Toys R Us's because although I wasn't quite where I wanted to be in the way of having enough money to buy the system and some games, I decided that it was worth getting it and a month or two of credit card fees would be fine. I picked up a Sonic System, Metal Slug, Baseball Stars and Pac-Man for it.

Toys R Us was the only store that seemed to carry it in a decent selection.

[NYLatenite]

I remember getting my NGPC from Toys R Us on clearance through Amazon back in 2004. That little device would soon thereafter help me quit smoking!

(Every time I wanted a cigarette, I'd just play a game of Pac-Man instead)

[BetaWolf47]

Was the Neo Geo Pocket Color sold in the US?

Yes +6....

[buzz_n64]

Bought my Ne-Geo Pocket Color with games in a blister pack at EB Games in 2003, bought a blister pack of games not included in that set at a EB Games on vacation in Hawaii in 2004. Have 14 games because of that.

[atarikurt]

I remember getting my NGPC at Ames department store. For some reason they really supported the system even though the rest of their video game selection sucked.

[tonyvortex]

I still remember buying Cardfighers Clash at Best Buy.

[allyourblood]

I worked in the game dept at a TRU from 98-03, and we definitely never had the Wonderswan. We did have the NGPC, and I remember snatching up gobs of games when the whole thing went under, along with both of our kiosk/display systems for $4 each.

Good times.

I have always been a bit curious about the 'swan though. Seems to me I played with one at E3 back around that time, but I might be confusing it with the GP32.

[A Black Falcon]

The NGPC was released in the US in 1999, and cancelled in 2000. I'm not sure about the exact month of release, though. Wikipedia claims that it was released in August 1999, and discontinued in July 2000. The latter date sounds about right -- the last US release I know of is Metal Slug: 2nd Mission, released in May 2000 -- but as for the former date, some other things make it doubtful.

First, Wikipedia also says that the NGPC was first sold exclusively through the website EToys, before it was sold at retail. And second, some release dates are for as early as April 1999, for the launch titles like KOF R-2, etc. Those dates and that info could all easily be wrong (that happens, with US release data, it's frequently inaccurate or unknown...), but if it's right my guess would be an EToys release in April, followed by a release in stores in August or so. I remember seeing the system in stores, I had some interest in getting one but didn't at the time.

So yeah, the NGPC barely lasted over a year here, sadly. SNK went bankrupt in mid 2000 and was bought by Aruze, and the new owners didn't care about the NGPC. So, while support at home did continue for a little while, even in Japan its life was short -- it released in spring 1999 (March maybe?), just six months or less after the late '98 release of the B&W Neo Geo Pocket, and while support did continue until 2002, after June 2000 (when they also killed the system overseas) support in Japan was significantly cut back by SNK's new owners at Aruze. Reduced, mostly externally developed support continued through the end of 2000, but in '01 apart from a couple of pachislot games the only thing released for the system was Capcom vs SNK Card Fighters 2.

There were two games that released in Europe but not the US, in May/June 2000; both had had American carts made, but they weren't shipped before the shutdown for whatever reason. Did they not have boxes yet? Who knows. Though the story was that the unsold carts had been redone for sale in Asia, apparently they weren't all, because the US versions of those two games (Faselei! and The Last Blade) were finally made available in the blister-pack releases of 2003 that have been mentioned in the thread already. They're clearly US versions, they have ESRB ratings on them.

As for the Wonderswan, no, there was not an official US release, and I've never heard of it being sold in American stores either... given that all games for the system are in Japanese, it'd be tough to play many of them...

[DeputyMoniker]

Yes. I still remember it being advertised sometime around 1999 and there were games reviewed for it in EGM. Heck, I remember EB Games selling bundles back in 2004.

I think I remember that. Was the system bundled with like 6 games all in a plastic package?