There's an entire line of furniture stores in my area called Badcock that also sometimes functions as a sort of thrift store. I bought an old CRT in one some years ago. If only Dick Smith's Wizzard was sold in Badcock...

Dick Smith was just an electronics tycoon. He went off the rails a few years back, or so it would seem, after his electronics enterprise folded. Probably more to him than that, but that's all I know of him after living here almost 40 years. The Wizzard was the death knell for the VTech Creativision. Dick claimed large swathes of the distribution rights (not just in Aus) and was even more vicious towards 3rd parties than Atari or Nintendo ever were, effectively crippling the system to its miniscule 18 official launch titles (one of which is the BASIC cart). Technologically it compared favourably to the 8-bit Atari and even C64 (save sound), and its price was significantly less than either, but poor management killed it.

The retro games market was invaded by speculators trying to print money. Everything adjacent suffers right now.

I almost bought one of these last year here in Tokyo but i got distracted wandering around and never went back to the shop. I may get around to buying one one of these days

According to Wikipedia: "Bandai chose the name of the system to highlight its aesthetics and technical capabilities because the swan is recognized as an elegant bird with powerful legs that aid its graceful swimming."

Neat, an oft overlooked system. Don't see enough discussion on this. And hey the B&W version was less of an oops than the OG NeoGeo Pocket and it's whole 10 games. Oh gods, the ozenuts...

“Non fungible con tricks” is the best name I’ve ever heard for the bloody things.

The WonderSwan Color/Crystal versions are the "Game Boy Color" we should have had back in 1998/99. After all, it was created by the father of the original Game Boy (Gunpei Yokoi).

Fascinating. Wonderswan has always been a footnote so it’s interesting to have a good look at it

I bought my WonderSwan Color and a handful of games for it around 15 years or so ago. The main reason I got it was for its port of Crazy Climber. It's a pretty decent system. It's a shame it wasn't more successful.

Eh, that ebay price is probably some scalper that's bought it from hardoff, yahoo auctions or mercari for 2000 or 3000 yen. I think a fair few English teachers earning peanuts sell retro games, anime junk etc on ebay as an undeclared side hussle. There are tons of them kicking around.

It reminds me of a gameboy a little, but also of these cheap "50-in-1" handheld consoles that where intended to keep kids quiet on road trips. As if the two had a baby, that got the latter's vertical screen layout and odd button configureation, but the screen quality and power of the former.

Wonder Swans were once sold in a department store in Yorkshire called Boyes. They sold both the Wonder Swan and Neo Geo Pocket (can't remember if it was the colour), around the same time, very cheaply. It had to be around the year 99/00.

The face of Dick Smith was the electronic store logo for a number of years. He produced various supermarket products in the 2000s like the ones you showed as an effort to compete against Australian brands that had been sold to overseas companies. The best named product being 'dickheads' parodying redhead matches. He is a philanthropist and also has a number of aviation firsts in helicopter and balloon.

Subscribed because of interesting content and common courtesy to include timestamps where ads start and end. Well done!

I was following developments in Japan at the time and was really into the Neo Geo Pocket, so I viewed the Wonderswan as a bit of the enemy(to the NGP, but in a friendly way), but I always thought it was a neat device. Multiple times since its release, I considered picking up the Wonderswan, even when it was still the black and white model on sale. It was partly for the novelty, because how many people would have a Wonderswan in the US in 1999? The sticking point was always how many playable games in English that appealed to me. It was very much a platform targeted to the Japanese market. While the system was impressively inexpensive even for importation, without more than a couple of games I was interested in, I always ended up deciding it was better to spend that money on a NGP or Dreamcast game. But I have always appreciated the "withered technology" philosophy behind the portable systems of the time, and the Wonderswan may have been the most impressive example of that in the pre-GBA period. The Swan was so well thought out with respectable hardware, low price, and power efficiency running on one battery.

it took me years to finally get myself a Flashmasta WS flash cart. totally worth it.

I bought one of these in Japan in 2005. It came boxed with a Final Fantasy game I’ve never played because of the language barrier. I’ve always intended to get more games for mine. Looks like I better get in before they go up any more in price.

Gunpei has a NDS port. I had the physical cart. That version had this “music creation tool” that could only make 1 measure of music, which comes out to like 1.7 seconds. It only has 16 time-steps when you need 24 time-steps to recreate the Nokia Waltz ringtone.

Thank you for making this video, I really enjoyed it. The WonderSwan name I like to think came about due to the console being Gunpei Yokoi's swan song. The library on this system is better than most people would think and many titles have received english patches. Thanks for raising awareness of this cool and quirky gameboy competitor.

You not keeping it together at the end was incredible 🤣🤣

Great video! I thought this was made by a big channel but this only has 10k views!

The "all profits to charity" label on the peanut butter jar puts me in mind of the Newman's Own brand we have here in the States, founded by actor Paul Newman. A little digging into the man himself suggests he's more like Australia's answer to Warren Buffett.

Man I wish I got into this system a few years ago. I got one recently with the IPS/backlight mod..but man the games (especially the English friendly ones) are ungodly expensive now. I’d love a flash cart but the guy who does them doesn’t have any in stock..and hasn’t for a while. Golden Axe is like $250.

So I just ended up buying one of these off the back of the video, I managed to get a box crystal like yours with a rechargeable battery for around £50. So they're not to bad, still some of the games are pricey!

Dick Smith Electronics stores all had his face on them. It was the company logo. First computer I ever used was my uncle's Dick Smith VZ-200, a rebranded VTech Laser 200. The demo tape also drew his face.

The demand for it increased because the last Evangelion movie had Asuka playing with a red Wonderswan, beating a game for the 100th time

I have a Swan Crystal and a Color. The Crystal definitely had the better screen, and was the go-to until I put the backlit screen in the Color. Although it slashes the battery life, it's just so much better to look at. Unlike the Game Gear, the screen is a proper 1:1 match, hooray. I also put myself on the Flash Masta waiting list and they do come through in the end. So now I can finally play Dicing Knight and Judgement Silversword on the real hardware and break my hands. Here's to you Gunpei.

These actually aren't all that obscure in Japan. It was a fairly popular system over there. Not super successful like anything Nintendo put out but still not all that rare over there. It of course never came here so yeah, make of that what you will.

I live in the UK and I got my WonderSwan Color in early 2016! I found the Korean Digimon bundle, the pack-in game is in English, for £100! Looks like I was right to get it when I did! Even so, after 6 years, I still only own 2 other games: Final Lap 2000 and Wonder Classic.

Thank god i hot this for free as a christmas present with some games a few years ago!

I remember when I saw this system in game mags and wondered what happened with the western release. I still wonder how that fell through, it seems like a potential but something happened there.

I bought a secondhand but in a really good condition WonderSwan Color with a black translucent shell this month for around $59.00 and it came with a game cartridge (SD Gundam G Generation: Gather Beat).

"Rainbow Islands" On a black and white console. Awesome.

Lol I think the Mega Duck has that name beat. Must have been one awesome Duck who they named that system after :)

I remember emulating this thing when I was a kid in the early 2000s was the only way I could play any version of guilty gear and I was obsessed with it for a time

Cracking video on a system most of us never heard of let alone seen.

As a kid we used to have a "Mega Duck" ever heard of that thing? If im not mistaken the full catalog had 8 games or so and i think it came with 3-4 already. Would be interrsting to see whats out there about it

6:09 ...I couldn't help thinking of an angry hornet when I heard this sound. 😵

When i heard about both the neogeo pocket color and wonderswam color, i was really blown away because back then i tout that they were just as powerful as both the snes & sega genesis,but man i was sooo wrong ,haha but still i couldn’t understand how they could fit 16bit technology into suck pocket sized device, Also the name dick smith wizzard reminds me of someone who wants to troll people haha.

I bought a BW wonderswan 7/8 years ago for $80 on eBay. In near perfect condition. Hrmm

WOW! That racing game looks amazing! Has freaking sprite scaling for crying out loud! Lol it actually makes me wonder if it would somehow be possible to load an old version of MS-DOS on to the thing.... Would LOVE to see that happen!

It has? Lol hell I bought mine just a couple years ago & they were pretty cheap. I even got a Crystal model for just 100 or so. How much are the Crystals going for now?

They made over 100 game for Wonderswan, I wonder what the Japanese thought of it and have they ported any of these games anywhere since it's a Japanese system.

Even considering the lack Of backlight, collors and the speakers ... The way they where ... Using Just ONE battery and playing for 40 hours ... Thats absolutelly amazing! This System was incredibly powerful (maybe not so much in the Sound department but ... Well, we'd Go through this on NES, Atari 2600 ... This was not a "no-go" for us). The design Also is pure genious - perfectly playable for letf and right handed people, Also letting play on Tate mode or horizontal. There was absolutelly no way Of competing with GBA and ... To be Fair, Anything Nintendo release because Of their IPs and background but ... For god's sake, this console should left a broader legacy ... So many good ideas inside ... So Sad It lasted so little ...

"Dick Smith's OzEnuts" sounds like a product from a Tim & Eric sketch.

I had the black and white one years ago

That racing game is 👀🤯🤯🤯🤯

There are actually DIY headphone adapter designs out there these days for this. A lot better than paying 100 bucks for the real one since they're so rare.

I picked up a WonderSwan Color in Japan in 2006. Very cheap (though not as cheap as the Saturn I also picked up). I have, I think, one game for it, if I can even find it. Very cool handheld, I prefer it to the Neo Geo Pocket Color and the Lynx (neither of which I own).

We need an opensource remake of this system. As close as possible.

There was LITERALLY zip zero zilch NADA, no game-play footy In that advert!! LoL😅🤣😂

0:16 Whats the first one?

What's the game at 5:39??

Always wanted to program them but didn't have the monies to import one in the states. My sister wanted the neo geo pocket. We read the game mags and wished to have every game lol. Now we're game developers 😆

How often should I expect to see or use a fan translation?

I bought a color and a backlight screen mod for half the price of what the crystal goes for these days. That’s the best way to go if you intend to buy one of these these days.

More recent sales may have also been pushed by the Evangelion 3.0+1.0 movie, which features a Definitely Legally Not A WonderSwan device.

The rainbow island game is pretty neat and very very cute, it actually has some bits of voice acting and is quite enjoyable despite the lower amount of islands. Sadly the games that don't require japanese knowledge on wonderswan can skyrocket in price.

Gameboy Color has 10 sprites per line

Damn just imagine if gompai yokoi did NOT leaved nintendo,maybe he brought the wonderswam color under nintendo’s brand name on the market and i am absolutely sure that if that’s was the case,then many snes games would,ve been ported to the wonderswam color with similar quality graphics & sounds,and even if the wonderswam lacked certain capabilities of the snes,they could,ve do many things and fake thngs trought software instead to get around those limitations,just imagine ports like supermarioworld,donkeykong country,mario kart supermario allstars,zelda and street fighter 2 etc,,, on it,am sure it would,ve sold like hot cakes not only that but then we would,ve already had a snes experience in our hands back in 1998 or 1999,and the gba would,ve been never made and released at all, Yes the gba was more powerful BUT it were eventually those games for it, if neither nintendo nor thirth party’s did ported their snes games to the gba,then the gba sales would,ve slowly became to an halt because of peoples gotting disappointed,the 32bit and wide screen of the gba was actually almost a gimmick as it simply had no 3D hardware and nintendo never ported a N64 game to it,altrough they did ported yoshi story to it as a demo only as a triggering point to let people also expect N64 games for it,but nope,😟

And here I thought the #1 console would be the Welback Mega Duck, AKA the Cougar Boy...

For a bit more Dick Smith inventiveness, be sure to see his take on the "Red Heads" brand of matches: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dickheads_(brand)

A fat like worth for the DICK Smith stuff at the end alone!😆

I think wonder swan is one of the most beautiful names ever prettiest handheld by far

Dick Smith is my hero

It needs to have a metal crank on the side

This console shot up in price before I had the cash to get one and that sucks lol

I thought it was called the Wonderswan because Gunpei Yokoi knew it would be his swan song...

Man, the WonderSwans graphics, even if it was just black and white... wonder if it would have been in any way economically / technologically feasible for Nintendo to make the OG Game Boy that capable or if the advancement of technology / costs of technology was what made WonderSwan possible in 99 versus the GB's release in 89.

A fantastic bargain at the price when it was on sale... of course I have a little pocket emulator thing that can run everything from gameboy to Sega Dreamcast these days so... yeah, I'll be alright. ☺

I've got the original, the color, and a WonderBorg

Here in New Zealand, Dick's head would often be between Dick and Smith in the logo... I'll let you figure out what we used to call the shop 😂

Interesting how some games play sideways.

Wow! The Color games look FAR more advanced than the Monochrome ones. Just goes to show what an increase in RAM can do for a system when RAM is lacking. You can see this in many systems from the past, one being the GBC itself, and the PC Engine & it's CD accessory & the added memory that came w it. The Super CD games look significantly better than anything that was on HuCard.

Magazines like Game Informer had the power to make or break this console. I can't remember a single game for this console that was highly praised. Nor do I recall a comparison of the same game on this console vs other consoles. Starting in late 99' most of my video game purchases were based on Game Informer reviews. I use to read every single issue for six years or so. I blame them for the failure of this console. Furthermore, I've always wondered why the handheld gaming market has usually been a monopoly, perhaps with the exception of the PSP and Game Gear. The Vita, Nomad, and Lynx all flopped. The various iterations of Neo Geo handhelds never took off either. The Game Boy sold 120 million devices. Surely there would have been a strong market incentive to have a piece of that. Microsoft has the peculiar distinction of shying away from handheld devices of all kinds. Amazon or Tesla would be wise to enter the handheld gaming market. Amazon already makes tablets. The most important thing in video games is to sell hardware for cheaper than their competitors. Amazon has been doing that for 12 years. Tesla can apply their cutting-edge battery technology to phones. All three companies have deep pockets. Unlike Atari and Sega, the three aforementioned tech companies don't have to worry about going bankrupt. Amazon went 15 years without making a profit. Tesla also went many years without making a profit. A lot more people would want to get a Prime membership if it had good games. Tesla would benefit from having more applications for their batteries. They're already making a smart phone.

Damn i wish i had one

Eagle-eyed viewers will notice the Dick Smith Wizzard is also named Creativision, which was a console made by Vtech which now makes electronics for babies... literal babies. Pre-school children's stuff. It was a nifty enough console, but never got much of a foothold in the market.

Proud owner of a wonderswan and got it for $50

Last I checked these were $40 used on ebay

What is the first most ridiculously named console of all time? The Mega Duck?

Having an x86 processor doesn't make it "technically a PC". That's like claiming the Sega Master System is "technically a ZX Spectrum" because they both have a Z80 or that the Amiga is "technically a Macintosh" because they both use the Motorola 68000...

5:45

A lot of people are complaing, so I will too. I remember learning about this thing in 2020. After seeing how cheap it was ($15-$20) I thought it would be great for introducing people to modding consoles. However, I wanted a crystal for cheap, or one with the box for some reason (I forgot the reason), so I didnt buy any. I then forgot about it until this video. Also in 2020, I remember trying to get a wonderburg ( wonderswan rc car) on yahoo auction jp, but somwone bidded 50 dollars for it. How many people want a wonderburg?

I remember them being like $10 about 4 years ago

Even the -Gabe Gear- Steam Deck cannot tip to the Dick Smith Wizzard.

I used to hate getting things like this for Christmas like wtf just buy me a game boy

Great, now I'm going to have to hurry to build my Dick Smith Wizzard collection before the price shoots up.

Wonderswan does what Nintendidn't.

I love me some Dick Smith's Ozenuts. I shouldn't have said that...

There's an Evangelion game for the Wonderswan? Ok, now I need one.

Honestly, these systems were just BEGGING to be front or backlit even when they were first coming out. I really don't get why they didn't take the Indiglo approach like Nintendo did with their Gameboy Light. It doesn't use much power & works perfectly fine. The Wonderswan really could have used such a thing, or at LEAST the Crystal model. Hard to believe that even the premium Crystal model has no light. I've been wanting to mod mine with a front or backlight just so it's visible to actually play the damn thing. Even for an unlit screen these things are incredibly hard to see.

Nintendo has Pokemon

Brought a crystal new years ago

This broadcast was brought to you by DICK SMITH"S OZENUTS.

Thanks for the "Dick Smith Wizard" dude.

Want to buy my Sega Nomad based here in Blighty?

Imagine if this was more popular how the Asian knock off names would've one upped it.

The console are not yet so expensive but the games became crazy expensive, only 9bscure japan games are cheap.

This is a very cool system.