Do I need a non-photo blue pencil for scanning drawings?
Modern scanners, cameras, and digital editors pick up the non-photo blue pencil marks that earlier scanners did not. However, this color is still easily removed from the scanned image by switching to grey scale and altering the brightness and contrast. You could do this with another colored pencil pretty easily as well.

The answer to your question depends on what type of scanner and what type of digital art programs you use. If you have a modern scanner with a modern digital art program (Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.) you could likely achieve the same result with a normal colored pencil, as long as it was different from your final inking color.