/vr/ - Retro Games

Release earlier in America. Not wasting years on what amount to remolding a piece of plastic.

>>9854420
It just didn't have the power or the charm of its 16-bit rivals (remember the TG-16 was an 8-bit machine). I still really like Turbo CD, but it's no match for the SEGA CD imo.

More waifus

>>9854436
That's how we ended up with PC-FX.

>>9854420
They needed to make everything look more appealing in general. Everything customer-facing looked drab compared to the Genesis and SNES. They needed to package Bonk in with the console and do their damnedest to make him the face of the machine. Beating Genesis and SNES to market would have been good, like they did in Japan, but that's not realistic. So assuming they had no choice but to launch when they did, there isn't much they could have done there. Maybe try to get a port of Mortal Kombat?

>>9854670
>Beating Genesis and SNES to market would have been good, like they did in Japan, but that's not realistic.
There's an almost 2 year gap between TurboGrafx and SNES North American releases.

>>9854670
Why not make Bomberman the mascot or maybe some shoot em up ship instead?

>>9854424
>NEC plans supergrafx official as NA debut
No time…yes.

>>9854670
>Maybe try to get a port of Mortal Kombat

They almost but get turn down.
http://web.archive.org/web/20121105200924/http://www.1up.com/features/20-years-turbografx-16-retrospective?pager.offset=3

>>9854601
Voted her into Smash Bros fighter pass

TG-16 games look as good as some SNES games with color. Better than bland Genesis. Rondo of Blood for example.

Biggest boondocks was not including multiple controller ports from the start and having basically an improved NES controller. After the SNES was shown to have 6 action buttons instead of two, NEC should have come out with a new upgraded controller to extend the life of the system. Redesigning it for the NA market was probably a mistake. Have it be grey small and mighty. TG16 name is fire though keep that.

>>9854723
>Better than bland Genesis. Rondo of Blood for example.
RoB has extremely bland backgrounds compared to Bloodlines or SCIV.

>>9854686
Because people wanted a "face" to a console back then. Bomberman was already on the NES and a shoot em up isn't a cartoon character. It was a branding thing. TG16 had no brand.

>>9854723
Rondo of Blood came out in October 1993. It was way too late to make a difference for the TG16.

>>9854768
Bonk is also on the NES

>>9854686
>>9854768
>mascot
Also half-genie.

>>9854420
A second controller port would've been nice.

>>9854420
International release of SF2CE could have kept kept them going.

>>9854784
Before the TG16 launched? Obviously you'd want to prevent that if you're NEC.

>>9854420
a better pack-in, two controller ports, no "16" in the name and a more aggressive marketing campaign focusing on the higher number of screen colors to combat Sega's "16-bit" marketing strategy

even today there are gullible people like >>9854435 who think bits mean anything
>>9854435

Are there even any decent games on this thing? All the recommended list have 200 shmups and those two Zelda clones.

>>9855508
What I like to play, from the top of my head:

>Bomberman '94
>Air Zonk
>Jackie Chan's Action Kung-Fu
>Splatterhouse
>Ninja Spirit
>Dragon's Egg
>Parasol Stars
>The Legendary Axe

I'm sure I'm forgetting some games, maybe I'll add them if I remember. There's also the CD games library, which has several good games.

>>9854420
>>9854420
>>9854420

It did quite well in Japan and a lot of people in Europe liked the console (when games were localized). The North American release was botched as per usual and was way overpriced at the time. It had a very good, and unique library of games that once again would've found more success had they been localized for western audiences. Of course hindsight is a bitch.

>>9854730
This plus translate a lot of the games to english-US market missed a lot of good stuff

>>9855630
The TG16's problem was that the Genesis beat it to the punch. The two consoles were introduced with the same general gimmick as the first arcade-at-home solution. Ports were finally able to resemble their arcade counterparts and the PC-Engine landed first in Japan. This reversed in the west where the Genesis beat it to the punch, leaving it with little room to find a market. The two machines were trying to occupy the same space so one had to beat other. It just turned out that the results were different on either side of the Pacific based on who got there first.

>>9855508
The Valis games are good, people seem to love Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, Ys Book I and II, Ys III, Dungeon Explorer II and Dragon Slayer if you want a good action adventure or RPG. Double Dragon II, Mad Stalker, Galaxy Deka Gayvan, Riot Zone, Kaze Kiri Ninja Action are all excellent beat 'em ups and it has a pretty cool port of Strider. I got into Turbo CD mostly for the shmups though, some of them are truly phenomenal imo.

>>9855732
Meant to put a period after Rondo of Blood

>>9854420
as much as i love hucards, they should've used cartridges from the start

hucards were extremely expensive to manufacture and the storage space was very limited. most hucards didnt go beyond a measly 4 megabits

>>9855508
good amount of side scrollers and RPGs. most of the quality sidescrollers are hucard games, vice versa for the RPGs

there are also a good amount of ports that are superior to the arcade versions.

if you like hudson, taito, namco, irem, falcom, and masaya, then theres a lot of goodies
>>9855630
it was popular enough in france that loricel developed a few games for the pce. final match tennis was also a cult hit in europe
>>9854784
bonk came out very late on the nes.
>>9854435
pce had power but not enough devs really pushed the console, and once the super famicom launched, it became a slow decline in popularity. games like bomberman 94, legend of xanadu, fatal fury special, and gate of thunder showed it could go toe to toe. over 1/3rd of the library was developed by hudson and NEC (including all the arcade ports)

>>9854420
It got screwed when Street Fighter 2 got popular and the system didn't had enough buttons for it, even thought the hardware could run the game fine.

>>9855836
>It got screwed when Street Fighter 2 got popular and the system didn't had enough buttons for it

street fighter 2 CE was one of the most popular games on the pce, it boosted console sales at a 2:1 ratio at the time. it was the very first home version of champion edition

big issue though was hyper fighting came out only 3 months later on the super famicom, and pce never got hyper fighting

It's somewhat moot because the SNES did gangbusters with the original Street Fighter II and the Genesis already had a solid install base. So when the next upgrade came out there's no way people would have bought a TG16 for Champion Edition when both SFII Turbo and Special Champion Edition were available for consoles people already had.

>>9855889
It was mostly because SNES had enough buttons for the game, with the other systems, you had to buy additional controllers.

>>9855508
Yes, the problem is that most of the good stuff are untranslated, so people just recommend games where the language barrier isn't an issue, like shmups.

Keith Courage needs to be taken out back. They had R-Type and Legendary Axe that looked better than anything on NES in 1988 and bungled it.

>>9855912
Another problem for the TG16 was that in Japan the PC-Engine was heavily bolstered by the CD add-on. At least half of the good games associated with PC-Engine were CD games. That limited what the TG16 could do with just "Turbo chip" games. And you don't want to be in an already struggling position when you ask people to drop $300 for an add-on.

>>9856050
When they did try, kinda.

>>9856262
Wow, Sherlock Fucking Holmes. That changes EVERYTHING.

>>9855971
They really should've, and I'm not that huge of a Turbo fan. R-Type port looks great, and Legendary Axe 1 is one of the best games of all time. Bonk would have sold by itself had they had a killer app pack-in, and Keith and other stuff would have been fun extras to buy later.

>>9855971
>>9856867
Legendary Axe 1 was definitely a cool game but it gets bogged down pretty bad on that last level which can take a player a long time to complete due to how the dungeon maze is structured. In fact I'd argue the game would have been improved if that whole section was removed entirely and I guess you go straight to the last two bosses instead. Whenever this is a truth about a game you know its not a good thing at all since removing something is an objective improvement here. I definitely liked it better than Legendary Axe 2. Both are good though.

As for Keith Courage, anyone else think its sound effects and music are annoying as hell to listen to?

>>9856890
>Legendary Axe 1 was definitely a cool game but it gets bogged down pretty bad on that last level which can take a player a long time to complete due to how the dungeon maze is structured
lol if I could only get that far. Fun game, nonetheless. I still play it from time to time. Its pacing reminds me a lot of Castlevania.

Another anon said Hucards were expensive to produce. More than cartridges? I know that the original specs said the cards could hold up to 8 megabits, but almost all games have half or less than that. When playing the CD games, I took notice of how the console could do better, and the slightly-better-than-NES graphics were just because of space limitations. Damn, scratch that, even Bomberman '94 (with 8 megabits) was considerably above your average PC Engine game.

I'm surprised to hear Hucards cost more than carts to produce. They basically ARE cartridges, just with less plastic and PCB components.

>>9854420
Nothing cause NEC was to stupid to market it correctly:
>Just one controller port
>No AV video output
>Controller with just two buttons
What were they thinking?

You can make the excuse for the original PC Engine launch in nipland but when they released that shit on the US then they have no excuse

NEC going "maybe we should make something other than shmups"

>>9857332
I don't think the machine being RF only was a real issue, the others definitely. Everyone used RF in the states 1989.

>>9857352
The NES had AV output when it launched back in 1985 and the Genesis as well in 1989.

There was literally no excuse for them to not include it for the US release.

>>9857335
The PC-Engine should've been the sci-fi console, rather than just the sci-fi spaceship console.

>>9857225
i dont think its the card itself cause really its just a piece of plastic with an indent for a memory chip and they would have been producing stuff like that for industrial machines. i imagine most of the cost came from trying to find memory chips small enough in size but large enough in capacity to actually put in there. like look at street fighter 2 they had to make the card physically bigger just to have enough memory for the game.

>>9856262
>>9856269
Give me reasons why Shantae a perfect mascot.

>>9857423
Yeah, it wasn't a smart move. The points you score for minimizing size ends up biting you in the ass as the generation progresses and cart-side hardware becomes the bread and butter of the 16 bit machines. The Hucard format more or less locked the system to 1987 standards.

>>9857409
It's technically there, you just needed the AV booster. Like I said, just because other consoles had it doesn't mean many used it.

>>9857715
NEC was ridiculously penny pinching. Shit that was standard for other consoles you needed to buy accessories for on TG16. And it's not like the system was a bargain. It launched at $200 and the CD add on was $300, I think. Everything about it seemed thoughtless.

>>9854839
Having five controller ports as standard would've been even better. Would've given it a head-start from the Nintendo 64 as the first console with more than two controller ports.

>>9857746
Building the multitap and AV booster into the TG16's PCB and making Bomberman the pack-in to market it as the party system might have been pretty effective.

>>9857858
the av booster was nothing more than a pass through too the console already outputs the signal through the pins on the back. i made my own av cable for the tg16 and it was glorious after all those years of RF only. NEC really were a bunch of chincy bastards. the turbo booster plus did add a memory bank though which allowed for saving on some games like dragons curse, neutopia and tiger road.

IT HAD
TOO
MUCH
SOUL
FOR AMERISHARTS

>>9856269
and the funny thing is: im sure theres not a sherlock holmes for the Genesis.

MAYBE theres one for the 3do, or the Jaguar Cd, which i think they were on the way or already available. but FEKA is supposed to be a jab at Sega, the Genesis and the Sega CD, so it doesnt even make sense!

>>9857914
nope sherlock holmes consulting detective was also on sega cd

>>9857335
pce in its twilight years was more known for digital comics and RPGs, rather than shooters and arcade ports. the library had a tonal shift after the super famicom launched

For one, the naming scheme and the absurd amount of add-ons. They re-relesead the console three times in a row under different names but no heavy hitters like Final Fantasy, Zelda, Sonic or Super Mario to justify the upgrade.

>>9854894
see>>9854697

>>9854435
Mike Matei owns a copy of this, a legit copy

>>9858797
so? that game's a shooter.

>>9857914
it pains me to say this... but the sega cd was home to some holmes already

>>9857423
>>9857489
How are they holding up today though? I wish I still had mine. Do you got to blow on them or put alcohol like you had to with those NES games?

>>9857423
Would it have been better off had they had Gameboy sized carts instead then? It would still be smaller in size compared to the big carts on Genesis and SNES but not as small as the hucards.

>>9858797
who cares?
>>9859479
they're quite reliable, but they are "glop-tops" underneath the plastic, so if they die you can't repair them like a larger cartridge.

>>9854420
>>9854601
Create best mascot

>>9859958
why are you doing this

‘Ick on ‘nec

>>9859479
>>9859734
https://twitter.com/covell_chris/status/1183912362236993536?lang=en

Apparently the sleeves are really bad for them because now they're starting to discolor shit and even adhere to the hucard's label, peeling it off.

>>9859995
yuck. that guy is a PC Engine expert so he knows what he's talking about. I just got a bootleg Turbo EverDrive for $26 shipped from AliExpress since HuCard prices are ludicrous. Turns out my PCE probably has a bad PPU, but I have a CoreGrafx II in the mail so hopefully that will work.

>>9859958
lots of underboob. simply based

>>9860001
First it was the batteries.
Then it came for the capacitors.
Now the plastic itself decomposes before our very eyes.
Time. The unrelenting, unceasing march of time.

>>9859734
>who cares?
Me.

t. Mike Matei (pls subscribe)

>>9860009

>>9860009
At least consoles from the 80s don't really have capacitor issues. They might get worn out, but they don't typically leak and will work out of spec for decades. All my 80s machines are slowly turning yellow (even in storage) but they all work perfectly. Well except the broken PCE I mentioned, but I bought it untested so what can ya do.
>>9860206
kek

>>9859480
yes there would be more room for memory on a PCB than in a hucard. the black part of the top of the card is covering the memory chip and the rest of the card is just plastic so really anything would have more physical space for memory than that

>>9859995
>AAAAAAAAARGH!!! - soijak face

>>9860280
I'm curious how long before some of the more volatile hardware becomes universally non-working. It probably won't be that long before every single original FDS game is unplayable.

>>9854420
Turbo Engine a sick name, they should've used that.

>>9860351
whats wrong with famicom disks? do they demagnitize easily or something?

>>9860351
I'm in agreement there, the FDS was unreliable when it was new — it blows my mind that people are spending hundreds on disks that are 50% likely to be blank or re-written

>>9857885
>just one controller port when even the fucking Magnavox Odyssey, the first video game console EVER released back in 1972 had two controler ports. Want two controller ports as it was the standard since game consoles were invented? Buy the external add-on lol
>no AV output when Nintendo and SEGA included one in their consoles as standard back in 1985. Do you want non-gargbage video output? Buy the external add-on lol

As much as I like to shit on Amerifats on every time possible even they could see through the bullshit those pesky jews at NEC were trying to pull out.

PC Engine faggots need to cope and seethe forever, you console is a piece of shit only nips liked cause it was just as tiny as their pathetic dicks.

>>9860403
>PC Engine faggots need to cope and seethe forever, you console is a piece of shit only nips liked cause it was just as tiny as their pathetic dicks.
>RREWEEE POST MY RANT

>>9854435
>It just didn't have the power or the charm of its 16-bit rivals
The fuck does this even mean, the power or "charm" of its rivals? Speak English, man.
>it's no match for the SEGA CD imo
Yeah, that's what the turbo CD needed- more shitty FMV games.

>>9860359
Magnetic floppies are already past their expected shelf life. Any ones still readable are in extra innings.

>>9860358
Didn't think of it before but actually you are right. That should have at least been the official name for the US version since Japan it was already PC Engine. It at least keeps part of its Japanese name. If not that then I suppose Turbo Grafx Engine could have also been a cool name for the kiddies to gush about.

>>9857858
Smart. Throw in two controllers too. Many would end up buying another two or three because that game is so much fun.

Back then the market was too small for three successful systems unlike today. It should have been as popular as the Genesis.

>>9860517
Even today it's not that easy. Microsoft seems more interested in getting people to sign up for Gamepass than actually selling Xboxes. I think the big thing is that if you were someone who only owned an NES and didn't yet have a 16-bit system, what would have to happen to convince you to pick the TG-16 over the SNES or Genesis? I seriously can't think of a single fucking thing. So at that point you have to be asking what could the TG-16 do to get people to buy it as a second or third system. So you're now looking for an avenue that covers something the others don't. Maybe they could have sold the thing at a loss to undercut the competition? But that kind of thing didn't start happening until much later and it's a big risk if your customers don't buy enough games to compensate.

>>9860569
The anime shmup community in 1989 america was just thriving, ripe for the picking, we just had to trust NEC bros

>>9860571
Why did they so aggressively refuse to localize games? Even ones that wouldn't require much translation. The Turbo CD had like 40 games released in America in total. That's pathetic. We're not even talking late in it's lifespan either. They put out like 3 games in 1991.

>>9860664
Part of me wonders, we take a look at this stuff with decades of hindsight of the gaming industry having been around now, on top of assuming a base level of competence. Maybe NEC was just fucking retarded, and there wasn't the historical precedent to clue more of the morons into "hey, we're doing a really really poor job of capitalizing on this lightning in a bottle we hit in Japan right now."

People can just be retarded sometimes, with no other explanation for it. Never attribute to malice what can be explained with stupidity and all that.

>>9860680
Either that or they were shoe stringing it. NEC as a brand barely existed in America. It's possible they just plain didn't have any money and weren't willing to take on any debt to facilitate what they weren't sure of. We think of the TG16 as a "real" video game system but it has a vibe of, like you said, capitalizing on a new trend. Kind of like how you'd find those off brand motion control games in a Walgreens after the Wii came out. Even in Japan it seemed like NEC didn't fully know what it was doing considering right after the PC-Engine they farted out the PC-FX and promptly abandoned the market entirely.

>>9860704
Don't forget the SuperGrafx which had like 5 games total.

>>9860704
I agree on the America part, it can be difficult to gauge how to approach a radically different market like that. It doesn't explain their bizarre mismanagement within Japan though.

>>9854424
Yeah, and maybe some advertising. The games WOULD have followed if nec USA had just got their foot in the door. Better cover art too, but that's back onto marketing and advertising.

>>9860775
Another opinion I've seen on here that I'm not sure I agree with but it certainly couldn't be worse than what they did was to lean really hard into it being this mysterious console from Japan and try to build a brand off of that. I could definitely see the "we fit a weird niche" thing catching on if done the right way. But if you go for that outsider thing you typically have to be either affordable like the Wii, or market yourself like a luxury product like the AES. You can't be expensive, but also have gameplay that look the same as the cheaper options, and nickel and dime people on accessories, and not have the big name franchises, and and and etc.

MOAR shmups!

>>9860732
>Don't forget the SuperGrafx which had like 5 games total.

this is just utterly bizarre to me

not even just the "5 games" part. the 5 games were released over the course of a 2.5 year period. its not like they all came out at launch

NEC didnt need the supergrafx. they just needed to prioritize larger hucard sizes. bomberman 94 looks better than most of the supergrafx lineup

>>9861312
In hindsight it's obvious they only ever had one leg in the video game market. They accidentally fell into some success with the PC-Engine landing in Japan at the perfect time and then doubling down on that with the CD attachment, but afterwards they had a policy of "ride it until the wheels fall off" with the dozen different console variants they kept pushing out. They didn't seem to put much thought into what ELSE to do. NEC's bread and butter were it's business in the computer space and A/V equipment. The same way Konami was always primarily focused on it's gambling machines and gaming was second, allowing it to just cut and run once the industry turned sour, NEC wasn't compelled to care a whole lot about what was happening with the PC-Engine/TG16. It'd be like if Toyota decided to make a game console after seeing it was the new hot thing.

>>9861352
Toyota console would quickly become dominant

>>9861358
Off topic but I'm unironically surprised Samsung hasn't tried sneaking into the market.

>>9859958
I must know the source of your insanity anon

>>9861451
Phones *are* gaming for most people now, and Samsung is massive in that. They’re basically already there, it’s just no one looks at it that way.

>>9861451
They did distribute weird-ass Korean versions of literally everyone's consoles at different times, but they clearly didn't sell much since they're exceedingly hard to find.
>>9861523
You got a point

>>9856262
Blowing their advertising budget on a comic making fun of a guy that worked at TTI is a pretty funny bit.

>>9861535
I think that's because Koreans still have a chip on their shoulder when it comes to buying Japanese products. Not that you can blame them considering all the rape and murder...

>>9861725
I think its a mix of the rape/murder and also the attitude of "we never did that, but if we did you deserved it"

>>9861727
They kind of got the last laugh. The entire anime industry is practically Korean now.

>>9860001
What are the symptoms, I think I might have a bad ppu too because the games have issues with sprite and tile priority as well as tile glitches and the wrong areas are scrolling. The system was working but put in storage for a couple of years. I got another cheap one anyway so not that big of a deal.

>>9854670
The hardware is capable of a very good MK, maybe even better than the snes. It can do about 400 colours on screen which is not far off the arcade.

>>9855665
Looks too much like an nes, it was a battle convincing my parents that the megadrive was different from the master system. Bonk also kind of looks like an nes game at first glance and having a bunch of old games on it didn't help.

>>9854424
Growing up it really was a thing that products were judged on how big they are. I do remember at times when selecting the stereo and hearing people say they don't want the small one because its probably cheap. Turns out most stereos are big wooden boxes that are mostly empty by the 90's but got to keep the illusion that its got a giant transformer and it full of valves.

>>9860569
Probably r-type. Definately not adventure island or jackie chan. People didn't want nes games with more colours even though those games aged really well.

>>9860664
Makes me wonder with sega too later on. A lot of british snes magazines criticized rpgs for being lame early on could be why. So Chrono Trigger not released in europe but a bunch of nfl and baseball games were as well as stuff like sports talk football, who the hell would want that crap and they would have no idea who was on the cover.

>>9854424
The size might have been mandatory. Back in the 80s the FCC was paranoid about RF interference and required electronics have metal shielding. The NES looks like an aluminum sarcophagus inside. The PC-Engine's shell was probably too tiny to accommodate the shielding so they expanded it.

Do Core Grafx units suffer from any defect issues, like the Turbo Duo?

>>9861312
Considering SuperGrafx came out only months later in Japan after TurboGrafx was released in America you got to think it probably would have been a lot smarter actually had they skipped releasing Turbo in America and just released Super instead. I think we should just assume what that one anon earlier said. NEC seemed to be incredibly incompetent here and were likely being run by absolute retards that didn't know what they were doing.

>>9861778
>It can do about 400 colours on screen which is not far off the arcade.

only in theory. the pce's color palette is similar in size to the genesis. snes games are regularly 100+ on-screen. pce games usually are 70-80 colors on-screen

>>9861729
Any way you look at it, rapes or anime, might makes right.

>>9862997
>incredibly incompetent here and were likely being run by absolute retards
NEC sadly rehire Atari employee

Biglobe, give me an official Rolfee figurine!