2000 · Bandai · Japan · handheld
Bandai WonderSwan Color
Yokoi's featherweight handheld, where Final Fantasy was remade in colour.
Mixed Trivial to run ▶ Watch on YouTube ↗
Bandai's 2000 handheld, from a design Gunpei Yokoi began before his death — cheap, light, and famous for running for days on a single battery. It was a real, if Japan-only, rival to the Game Boy Color.
Square's colour remakes of the earliest Final Fantasy games debuted on Bandai's handheld, not Nintendo's — a small coup at the time.
Under the hood
- CPU
- NEC V30 MZ (16-bit 8086-compatible) @ 3.07 MHz
- Sound chip
- 4-channel digital audio with voice-sample playback
- Graphics
- FSTN reflective colour LCD, 224 × 144 — vertical or horizontal orientation
What it cost
a rounding error against a month’s pay in 2000 · about $115 today
| Japan launch price (¥6,800 / ~$65 USD) | ¥6,800 (2000) |
|---|---|
| Typical street price | — No verified mass-market street price recorded yet. |
| Units sold | 3,500,000 3.5 million units across the WonderSwan series. |
Why it mattered
The WonderSwan Color was Gunpei Yokoi's last handheld design, realised after his death — a cheap, long-lived machine that pried a few notable exclusives, including Final Fantasy remakes, away from Nintendo.
Emulating it today
| Emulators | Beetle Cygne (libretro), Mednafen |
|---|---|
| Setup effort | Trivial to run (0.5 on this site's scale) |
| Controls | A standard modern controller covers the ordinary controls, though unusual accessories may need custom mapping. |
| Runs on a handheld | Yes |
The emulator names above are starting points, not a promise that every title or accessory behaves identically. Computer platforms usually add model selection, disk handling and keyboard setup even when CPU emulation itself is mature.
WonderSwan Color Boot ROM (wsc.bin)
Beetle Cygne emulates the WonderSwan Color BIOS in high-level emulation, booting cartridges without external files. Supplying an authentic wsc.bin enables the original boot chime and user personalization menu.
How many files you need: 1. One optional 4 KB file: wsc.bin.
Where it stands legally: Beetle Cygne provides built-in open-source HLE BIOS support.
Firmware details checked 2026-08. Emulator requirements change — see Libretro — Beetle Cygne documentation for the current list.
Where the software is
Preservation catalogues describe verified dumps; they do not grant permission to download commercial software. A curated, correctly matched set is easier to use than an undifferentiated archive.
Copyright: Commercial software remains copyrighted unless its owner explicitly released or relicensed it. Homebrew, public-domain programs and current reissues should be treated separately from abandoned commercial titles.
This site names preservation projects and explains what they are. It does not link to ROM downloads.
Where to start
- Final Fantasy 2000 RPG
Square's colour remakes of the NES originals debuted on Bandai's handheld, not Nintendo's.
- Rockman & Forte: Mirai Kara no Chōsensha 2002 platformer
- Makai Toshi SaGa 2002 RPG
- Gunpey EX 2000 puzzle
Designed by Gunpei Yokoi, whose last handheld this was.
- Digimon Adventure: Anode/Cathode Tamer 2000 RPG
The verdict
Worth it for its exclusives and the early Final Fantasy remakes; a mostly Japanese library.
Nearly everything on it is in Japanese, and its best games later reached other platforms.
- Worth it if
- Players curious about snk and bandai handhelds and willing to learn how the original machine worked.
- Not for
- Anyone who wants a large, instantly accessible library and no model, firmware or control decisions.
Scored 3/5 for fun today and 3/5 for historical importance. Those two scores decide the label at the top — a machine can matter enormously and still be no fun.
Read more & watch
This page is 50% complete against the facts we try to record for every system. Gaps are shown as gaps.