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History
Bandai was founded on 5 July 1950 in Asakusa, Tokyo, by Naoharu Yamashina as Bandai-ya (萬代屋). The name comes from a Chinese phrase meaning “eternally unchanging.” The company began as a small toy distributor, selling celluloid dolls, metal toys and rubber swimming rings. Its first original product, the Rhythm Ball, appeared the same year.
In the mid-1950s Bandai introduced an industry-first quality-guarantee system and expanded into metal model cars. The company was renamed Bandai in 1961 and began overseas sales, opening a New York office.
The real breakthrough came in the 1960s and 1970s through character toys. Success with Astro Boy figures was followed by major hits under the Popy subsidiary, including the Kamen Rider transformation belt (1971) and the die-cast “Chogokin” Mazinger Z robots (1974). In 1980 Bandai launched the hugely successful Gundam plastic-model line (“Gunpla”), which became one of its signature products.
During the same period Bandai entered electronic games and video games. In December 1979, it released one of the first japan-made console called the Super Vision 8000. Bandai also released simple handheld and LSI games in the late 1970s and release imported or distributed several early consoles in Japan (such as the Emerson Arcadia, CGE Vectrex and Mattel Intellivision), and later became one of the first major third-party publishers for the Nintendo Famicom (starting in 1985). Titles based on its own licences, such as Kinnikuman, sold very well.
Seeing the video game market had matured, Bandai tried to renter the video game market as a console maker in 1994 with the release of the Playdia. While not being a total failure, the Playdia failed to generate additional revenue and was quickly abandoned in favor of the Apple Bandai Pippin in 1996.
After the failure of those systems, the future was grim at Bandai, but the executive at Bandai found a way out. In January 1997, Sega Enterprises and Bandai announced plans for a roughly $1 billion stock-swap merger that would create “Sega Bandai Ltd.,” a major Japanese entertainment company with projected combined annual revenue of about $6 billion (roughly 600 billion yen). The deal was scheduled to close on October 1, 1997. Bandai President Makoto Yamashina was to become president of the new company, Sega President Hayao Nakayama vice chairman (focused on strategy), and Isao Okawa (CSK chairman and major Sega shareholder) chairman. The new entity would have had three main divisions covering game hardware, multimedia/networking, and toys. Sega was a distant third in the home console market behind Sony’s PlayStation and a recovering Nintendo. It faced inventory write-downs (especially in the U.S.) and declining profitability. Bandai (Japan’s largest toy maker, known for Power Rangers, Sailor Moon merchandise, etc.) had seen its big hits fade and was projecting a large loss (the Pippin being one of them). The idea was to combine Sega’s hardware, arcade, and high-tech strengths with Bandai’s character licensing, marketing, and younger-skewing consumer base. Nakayama optimistically predicted the combined company could become the world’s second-largest entertainment firm after Disney. But the opposition inside Bandai grew rapidly. Roughly 80% of Bandai’s middle managers expressed strong concerns about cultural clashes and loss of identity. Bandai was often described as more “family-like” or informal; Sega was seen as more rigid and corporate. Petitions and angry letters circulated.
But Bandai found its hail mary. Launched in late 1996, the virtual pet became a massive global hit as millions of units sold quickly. By spring 1997 Bandai no longer looked like a company in urgent need of a partner; its fortunes had reversed while Sega’s challenges continued. As such, Bandai withdrew of the deal and started looking for a new direction in gaming. They found their answer in Gunpei Yokoi.
Gunpei Yokoi, the legendary Nintendo engineer behind the Game & Watch and Game Boy, left Nintendo in 1996 following the commercial failure of the Virtual Boy. The departure of Gunpei Yokoi had nothing to do with the Virtual Boy’s poor market performance as it’s departure had been planned for a long time. Yokoi had long intended to retire or become independent when he reached age 55 to have more personal freedom with his ideas. After finishing the Game Boy Pocket as a parting gift in July 1996, he officially resigned on August 15, 1996, after 31 years at the company, turning 55 shortly after. Yokoi then founded his own company, Koto Laboratory.
Bandai approached Yokoi to design a low-cost, efficient handheld that could challenge Nintendo’s dominance in the portable market. Yokoi led the early design work, but he died in a traffic accident in October 1997 before the system was completed. Koto Laboratory continued development under Bandai’s direction. The resulting console was named the WonderSwan. Despite respectable 1,550,000 units sold and strong software support in its early years, the WonderSwan was trailing between the Game Boy color. While the Wonderswan was vastly superior to the Game Boy Color, it had one big flaw : the monochrome screen. On December 9, 2000, Bandai fixed that flaw with the release of the WonderSwan Color.
Despite the improvements, the WonderSwan Color still faced intense competition from Nintendo. The release of the Game Boy Advance in 2001, along with Square’s eventual return to closer collaboration with Nintendo, reduced the system’s momentum. Bandai released one final revision, the SwanCrystal (July 2002), which featured a clearer TFT screen.
Release
Priced at ¥7,800 (¥1,000 less than the Game Boy Advance at the time), the SwanCrystal featured a clearer TFT reflective LCD in place of the earlier FSTN panel. The screen size remained 2.8 inches with the same 224 × 144 resolution, but contrast and colour clarity were noticeably improved. The console retained full backward compatibility with both original WonderSwan and WonderSwan Color games and continued to run on a single AA battery (approximately 15 hours of play).
It was offered in several colours, including Blue Violet, Wine Red, Crystal Blue and Crystal Black. Limited editions were also produced. While the improved screen was well received by existing owners, the system arrived too late to reverse the market shift toward the Game Boy Advance.
Demise
Sales of the SwanCrystal were modest compared with earlier models. With Square moving closer to Nintendo and third-party support declining, Bandai discontinued the entire WonderSwan line in 2003. The SwanCrystal remains the final and visually most refined version of Gunpei Yokoi’s last major hardware design.
Technical Specifications
- CPU: NEC V30MZ (16-bit) @ 3.072 MHz
- RAM: 64 KB (shared)
- Display: 2.8-inch TFT reflective LCD, 224 × 144 resolution, up to 241 colours on screen from a 4,096-colour palette
- Sound: 4-channel digital (mono speaker; stereo via optional headphones)
- Battery: 1 × AA (~15 hours)
- Controls: Dual orientation (landscape/portrait)
- Media: ROM cartridges (fully backward compatible with WonderSwan and WonderSwan Color)
- Weight: Approximately 95 g (including battery)
- Dimensions: 127.7 × 77.5 × 24.3 mm
Consoles
The SwanCrystal was released on July 12, 2002 and came in two different colors at first. Two new colors were added on November 16 to bring the total to four.
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| Red Wine July 12, 2002 |
Violet-Blue July 12, 2002 |
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| Clear Blue November 16, 2002 |
Clear Black November 16, 2002 |
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Limited Edition
Very few limited edition were made during the live of the SwanCrystal. Only the SwanColosseum is considered as a limited edition as the Mama Mitte was part of an expensive bundle and did not target the same target segment. The last limited edition is not yet confirmed as such.
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| SwanColosseum | Tanita Mama Mitte¹ November 3, 2002 (¥38,000) |
One Piece From TV to Animation² | |||
¹ The Tanita Mama Mitte was part of a bundle with a scale and a special cartridge to follow a pregnancy. Click HERE https://www.videogamekraken.com/wonderswan-mama-mittefor more info.
² No information exist on this console other that it was find on eBay. This could be an prize for the contest hold for the release of one of the One Piece games or it could be a custom shell made by a fan. If you have any information on this edition, please contact us though the FORUM.
Contest Prize
A special SwanCrystal was given as a first prize in a Digimon related contest in 2003.
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| Evolution Red³ | |||||
³ There’s not a lot of information on this one. Five different unit were spotted with the serial 00184277, 00184357, 00184363, 00184364, 00184390 which seems to indicate that around 100 devices were made. We know that at least 1 unit was the main prize of a Digimon Battle Spirit competition held in Japan on Saturday, December 21. 96 persons were competing for the first prize.
WonderSwan Reference
WonderSwan Peripheral
Bandai have released (and planned to released) a good number of peripheral for the WonderSwan series: