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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.
Release
Priced at ¥6,800, the WonderSwan Color launched with a larger 2.8-inch FSTN colour LCD capable of displaying up to 241 colours on screen from a palette of 4,096. System RAM was increased, and the console remained powered by a single AA battery. It was available in several colours, including Pearl Blue, Crystal Black, Pearl Pink and Crystal Orange, along with various limited editions tied to popular licences such as Gundam and Final Fantasy.
The addition of colour, combined with continued strong support from Square (which released enhanced Final Fantasy ports and other titles), helped the system capture a meaningful share of the Japanese handheld market—estimated at around 8 % at its peak.
Demise
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.
Technical Specifications
- CPU: NEC V30MZ (16-bit) @ 3.072 MHz
- RAM: Increased from the original (64 KB shared architecture with higher effective capacity for colour)
- Display: 2.8-inch FSTN reflective colour 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
- Controls: Dual orientation (landscape/portrait)
- Media: ROM cartridges (backward compatible with original WonderSwan games)
- Weight: Slightly higher than the original (~112 g including battery)
Consoles
The WonderSwan Color was released on December 9, 2000 and came in 5 different colors.
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| Crystal Black |
Crystal Blue | Crystal Orange | |||
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| Pearl Pink |
Pearl Blue | ||||
Exclusive
Two models of the WonderSwan Color are considered exclusive. The first one is the Pure Crystal which was exclusively available at Toys’r’us. The Silver Metallic was not exclusive to a store, but was instead exclusive to the Hong Kong market.
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| Pure Crystal | Silver Metallic | ||||
Limited Edition
In the midst of the was between Nintendo and Bandai for the top spot in the handheld selling chart, Bandai successfully used the Final Fantasy series to make major gain at the expense of Nintendo. Bandai also use the Gundam series , another heavy hitter in Japan to entice the player into purchasing a WonderSwan.
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| Final Fantasy December 9, 2000 (¥9999) Serial: SWJ-77AC01 |
Final Fantasy II May 3, 2001 (¥12000) Serial: SWJ-77AC02 |
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| Mobile Suit Gundam RX-78-2¹ | Mobile Suit Gundam Zaku II MS-06S¹ | ||||
¹ Both the Mobile Suit Gundam RX-78-2 and the Mobile Suit Gundam Zaku II MS-06S were available through mail order only.
Bundle
The WonderSwan Color had a few bundle. Two of them were aimed at the Korean market which was starting to be blooming.
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| Romancing Saga Bundle | Digimon Battle Spirit Bundle | WonderGate Bundle | |||
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| Digimon Battle Spirit & Sakuyamon (Korean Box Set) |
Digimon 2-games Bundle (Korean Box Set) |
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Contest Prize
The Wonderswan Color also had two special editions given as prizes.
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| Shigeo¹ | Digimon Growlmon² | ||||
¹ Prize for a contest organized by Bandai Network, a subsidiary of Bandai that specializes in mobile services. The contest was launched on December 10, 2001 to highlight the fact that Bandai Networks has exceeded 4 million members. Until January 15, 2002, users sending e-mail to the shigeo@channel.jp using the Bandai Network could register to win one of the 5,000 “special” WonderSwan. The prize consisted of a normal Pearl Pink WonderSwan Color console with stickers of the Shigeo, one of the Bandai Network mascots and the Bandai Network name.
² Prize for a Digimon related contest. The console also features a different loading screen and start-up sound.
Other Variation
The only other variation is the mysterious ASICS WonderSwan Color. According to the user @shaomu0 on X, a ASICS representative confirmed it was just a sticker.
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| Asics | |||||
WonderSwan Reference
WonderSwan Peripheral
Bandai have released (and planned to released) a good number of peripheral for the WonderSwan series: