SNK · 1999–2001 · ~2,000,000
The best-built handheld of its generation, with a microswitched clicking stick that fighting-game players still covet — killed not by the market but by SNK's own new owners.
The Neo Geo Pocket Color reached Japan in March 1999, North America that August, and Europe in October, and it was very good. Its defining feature was the tiny microswitched thumbstick, which clicked into eight directions with an arcade-like precision that no Game Boy d-pad could approach — a decision that made perfect sense for a company whose identity was built on fighting games. The software followed: SNK vs. Capcom: The Match of the Millennium, King of Fighters, Samurai Shodown, and a genuinely excellent Sonic entry. Reviews were warm and it was profitable enough in the US to hold about a 2% share of the American handheld market by May 2000. What ended it was corporate. Pachinko manufacturer Aruze acquired SNK in 2000 and pulled the Pocket Color out of the US and Europe, leaving Japanese sales to run down into 2001. SNK went bankrupt that October, and with it went the company's hardware business permanently. Roughly two million units were built — not a catastrophe, but a machine cancelled while it was still working.