Wonderswans at Toys R Us?

[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?