Game Boy Color began replacing the Game Boy in 1998. The big deal about Game Boy Color, obviously, was the color screen. The monochromatic nature of the Game Boy was one of the major complaints against it, especially since it had to compete with Sega's full-color Game Gear. In terms of processing power, the GBC was essentially an 8-bit NES in a very small package, somewhere between the size of the original Game Boy and the Game Boy Pocket. Besides color, one of the favorite features of GBC was the ability to also play original Game Boy games, adding color to them in a similar way to what the Super Game Boy accessory for SNES did. This gave GBC a huge library of titles from the start, and many gamers were thus encouraged to upgrade their system without having to replace all their games. The Pokemon series was the new Tetris: the reason every kid wanted a Game Boy now, was to collect and trade all the different critters in the many, many Pokemon titles.
