Why don't Gameboy color games work in the original Gameboy?

[Admiral_Awesome06]

The carts are exactly the same... what's the difference?

[digiki]

A lot of them do. It depends on the cart it's on.

The carts that do work have an indent in the top right corner, and say Nintendo Game Boy in an indented area above the sticker.
The ones that don't, don't have an indent in the top right, and aboce the sticker the plastic is raised a bit and says Game Boy Color.

[Admiral_Awesome06]

Originally Posted by digiki

A lot of them do. It depends on the cart it's on.

The carts that do work have an indent in the top right corner, and say Nintendo Game Boy in an indented area above the sticker.
The ones that don't, don't have an indent in the top right, and aboce the sticker the plastic is raised a bit and says Game Boy Color.

That's what I mean.

What makes these any different? Just because they're colored doesn't mean that they should run on an original gameboy in black and white..

[digiki]

I don't know if the cart change was because the original gameplay couldn't handle some of those games or not, but they don't work because when you turn on the GB a little piece of plastic slides into the top right indent, so if there's no indent it won't turn on.

[hansolo350]

Why does it really matter? The GBC is smaller than the original GB, it takes less batteries and it can play games from both systems.

[Admiral_Awesome06]

Originally Posted by hansolo350

Why does it really matter? The GBC is smaller than the original GB, it takes less batteries and it can play games from both systems.

It doesn't matter...I'm just curious.

Jerk.

[Iggy]

Originally Posted by Admiral_Awesome06

It doesn't matter...I'm just curious.

Jerk.

Why would u call someone a jerk for answering ur question. He made a very good point

[Jogurt the Yogurt]

Originally Posted by Admiral_Awesome06

The carts are exactly the same... what's the difference?

Easy: the carts aren't exactly the same. If they won't play, it's because there's something in the cart that the original Game Boy doesn't know how to process.

[Marky Vigoroth]

What about the Game Boy Pocket? When I placed Pokémon Crystal in the GBP, I got a "GBC-only" message. (Yes. GBC games DO fit in the GBP.)

[pdRydia]

Originally Posted by Jogurt the Yogurt

Easy: the carts aren't exactly the same. If they won't play, it's because there's something in the cart that the original Game Boy doesn't know how to process.

Originally Posted by Marky Vigoroth

What about the Game Boy Pocket? When I placed Pokémon Crystal in the GBP, I got a "GBC-only" message. (Yes. GBC games DO fit in the GBP.)

Ladies and gentlemen, we have our answer!

Awee, I didn't know some of the GBC carts didn't work on the GB. Here I was thinking the Gameboy was the first fully forwards-compatible game system.

[Ouenben]

They're not exactly the same actually,

"the processor, which is a Z80 workalike made by Sharp with a few extra (bit manipulation) instructions, has a clock speed of approx. 8 MHz, twice as fast as that of the original Game Boy. The Game Boy Color also has four times as much memory as the original (32 kilobytes system RAM, 16 kilobytes video RAM). Additionally, the Game Boy Color could address more ROM, allowing games as much as eight times the maximum size of those for the original Game Boy. The screen resolution was the same as the original Game Boy, which is 160x144 pixels."

It's not as big a jump in hardware as consoles but it was still updated so it could do more, the gameboy can't handle the GBC (clear cartridge) only games. simple as.

The black cartridges gameboy games were basically hybrids that would play on the gameboy original but also play on the Color with a proper colour palette instead of the default colours the GBC puts on GB games.

[Ouenben]

Originally Posted by pdRydia

Awee, I didn't know some of the GBC carts didn't work on the GB. Here I was thinking the Gameboy was the first fully forwards-compatible game system.

I'm not convinced a "fowards compatible" game system is a good idea to be honest. May restict the technical aspects of the future console/games.

[kawaiipikachu]

Well at least the GameBoy Colour is backwards compatible with all the original GameBoy games including those Dual Mode paks that desigened to play in the Original GameBoy but display in colour & with its own borders if played in the Super GameBoy Atapter on the SNES just only in colour not With borders .

[Betagam7]

Originally Posted by kawaiipikachu

Well at least the GameBoy Colour is backwards compatible with all the original GameBoy games including those Dual Mode paks that desigened to play in the Original GameBoy but display in colour & with its own borders if played in the Super GameBoy Atapter on the SNES just only in colour not With borders .

Actually if you have a PAL Super Gameboy and SNES then you'll get extra borders as the Super Gameboy makes the game run in 50hz the same as your snes! This is actually downgrading the game you play.

[kawaiipikachu]

Originally Posted by Betagam7

Actually if you have a PAL GB player and SNES then you'll get extra borders as the Super Gameboy makes the game run in 50hz the same as your snes! This is actually downgrading the game you play.

Besides the fact that i never owned an SNES but still good point .
Well i do have my GameBoy Player on my GameCube to play all my GameBoy games on TV with & at least that got the 60hz option .