Game Boy Color store display
Toys R Us - June 29, 2000
These photos from a store display are also from the @pori64 collection that I wrote about last week. It shows the way that Toys R Us marketed the Game Boy Color roughly a year and a half after the upgrade to the console was introduced in North America. The original purple Game Boy Color that I still have can be seen on display in the center photo (bottom shelf) and the right photo (the bottom three shelves). The handheld was marketed in other colors, some of which are represented in the signage that was used on this display.
The Pokemon phenomenon was running strong in 2000. The original Red and Blue games were released in the United States less than two months before the Game Boy Color hit store shelves, so they were frequently marketed together. Quite a bit of the Game Boy merchandise of the era featured Ash, Pikachu or other Pokemon characters and logos, including the storage pouch for the system that were for sale at this Toys R Us.
One last photo from the @pori64 collection that I would like to share is this display of N64 controllers. Nintendo 64 is the first console that the company sold with only one controller packed in with the system. It's also the first Nintendo system that allowed for four players without a multitap extension, like the NES Four Score. Nintendo took advantage of the circumstance by marketing extra base controllers in a wide variety of colors. The price seems to have come down on them in recent months, but there was a time not long ago when the yellow controller was selling on eBay for over a hundred bucks.
