Green is good.

The Game Boy was a stunning success for Nintendo. Released at a time when rival hardware was packing backlit colour screens, the monochrome handheld proved that sometimes having the most powerful tech doesn't always ensure commercial triumph. The Game Boy sold millions and established Nintendo's dominance of the dedicated portable arena - a dominance which continues to this very day.

We all know that the Game Boy was followed by the Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance, but what is less well known is that Nintendo was working on another successor which would have been capable of delivering the same kind of power as the N64.

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German site Nintendo Online - referencing an Engadget piece from seven years ago - has put together a report on the system, which was referred to within Nintendo as "Project Atlantis". Work began around 1995, with an expected release date of 1996 - that's before the Game Boy Color appeared on the market.

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In terms of power, the system was rumoured to be 32-bit and would apparently capable of playing detailed 3D games, similar to the ones seen on the PlayStation, Saturn and N64. 30 hours was the supposed battery life of the console.

The system never went into production as Nintendo was apparently unhappy with its general performance, size and stamina, which suggests that the above "rumours" relating to its power should perhaps be taken with a pinch of salt.

While an image of the system was shown off back in 2009, much of its history is still shrouded in mystery. For Nintendo to scale back such ambitious plans and release the relatively crude Game Boy Color instead suggests that Project Atlantis was a non-starter, but perhaps there are other reasons for its cancellation.

Let us know what you think about this unreleased system by posting a comment below.

[source nintendo-online.de]