Lets take a look back at the Turbografx 16 and its struggle to break into the United States gaming market. Intro music by Fantasy Music World - / alinshkaa Intro track used - • Medieval Fantasy Music...
My uncle got one when it was brand new. I used to go over his house as often as possibly to play the Hell out of it. It blew my mind in a way that didn't happen again until the Playstation came out. All I had known was Atari 2600/7800 games, computer games like Oregon Trail and Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego, The Sega Master System (I had a friend who had one back in the 80s) and of course the NES. The leap in graphics and gameplay and seeing that this was what video games could be and do had a profound effect on me. Military Madness was the first Turbografx game I ever beat and the first strategy game I ever played (which led to me being obsessed with games like Shining Force, the original Warcraft and Warcraft 2, Dune 2000, and Starcraft that I might otherwise have passed over had M.M. not hooked on the genre). And then there was Splatterhouse... I don't have the words. May seem tame now, but this was before Doom, and aside from a small handful of games that could be considered horror games like Friday the 13, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Monster Party and Castlevania on NES that were mostly campy (Nightmare most of all as even AVGN as said it should have been called BOO: HAUNTED HOUSE!) Splatterhouse was the first true, gory, bloody, awesome B-movie in video game form I'd ever seen. I could give more examples of Turbografx games and my experiences with them but suffice it to say, for me, the T-16 with its variety of games different from the NES, everything that came before it, and even early on what the Genesis was putting out really showed me what types of games really appeal to me. I still find my gaming sensibilities and what I gravitate towards aligns more with the style of games found on it back then vs NES/Super NES and Genesis.
I can absolutely see gravitating to gsmes that align more with the TG-16 perspective and aesthetic even today though id argue most of the art styles lean more toward nintendo and genesis looks wise for retro inspired gsmes. You wouldnt be alone in your thinking either i know several people who hold this system in the same regard and lean that way. Thank you for tanking the time to share your story and watch btw!
This system was way ahead of its time and very innovative. The interchangeable game cards with the Turbo Express was mind blowing. Even the controller came with turbo switches for 2 stage rapid fire.
Oh i agree it was a good system many overlooked including myself ther was just so much competition in the late 80s through the 90s it was easy to overlook some systems. Thanks a ton for checking this one out btw!
Played a bit of the Turbo Express when I was younger and that was my intro to this VERY underrated system. I can’t thank the TGFX 16 Mini enough for really showing me how great the system truly is.
Probably my favorite vintage console. I only started playing pc-engine games three years ago. I instantly fell in love with it. Street Fighter 2 Championship Edition is my favorite port to play of the series. Blazing Lazers and the Soldier games are the best shoot em ups ever made. Rondo of Blood is the coolest Castlevania game ever made, with the best soundtrack of the entire series. I could go on and on and on about the true gems in the pc-engine library.
As a launch TG16 owner and it’s still chugging it’s one of my favorite consoles ever. Very fond memories on my lunch break at work and going over to Toys R Us and perusing the flip cards. My friends and I had great weekends playing Military Madness, Baseball, Davis Cup Tennis, Andre Panza Kickboxing, and others. Pizza, beer and buddies is a great TG16 weekend. The HuCards were genius. Hopefully the TG16 mini will eventually get a full crack.
Hucards were a great idea a fantastic way to make a game without all the bulk which makes the American redesign of the console all the more confusing. I havent dug super deep into the TG but fron what i okayed ninja spirit as sadistic as it is is one of my top, jackie chan is fun, bloodywolf, bonk and lords of thunder are also amazing! I didnt really get into the console till late as it was only sold in one store nesr me so i was always a genesis/SNES guy which kept me PLENTY busy!
@@geekstorian FYI, I used to work in the industry. I was senior editor at VGA magazine. The Turbo was redesigned because the execs wanted it to be large for American homes to fit in better with our large VCRs and other equipment. True story. I've got tons of behind the scenes shenanigans lol.
@@Gorilla_Jones yep i knew that i think i even said a few words about them redesigning it bdxause things are just bigger here. It doesnt make me less annoyed by it in hindsight though lol. Love meeting people from the industry or who were in it one of theee days i gotta get a bunch of you together on a zoom call or in a discord room and come up woth a video idea that highlights what all you giys do or did in the industry. Those of you comfortable sharing at least :).
I do a little demo scene programming with the pc engine from time to time, and I never get tired of hearing this story told well. Nice video, looking forward to more in the future!
Thank you so much! I try to do bigger videos like this as much as i can and between i have a few other shorter form series that i hope people will enjoy while i soend extra time on the larger videos like this so yes absolutely more to come this kind of formst is ehat this channel is fully about :)
Great video. I never knew about the TurboGrafx 16 until it had long been done when I was trying to do a more deep exploration of the Castlevania series. Rondo of Blood still is one of my favorite all time video games. All these things you make videos about are fascinating. Keep up the good work!
Yeah inwas in the same boat i saw it in the stores but never got One and didnt learn to kuch about it till much much later. Thanks for checking this one out!
My grade school buddy had a TG16 system. He was one of those kids who had everything. Only person I’ve ever known who had one. Got a chance to play some of its games once or twice. I’ve always been fascinated by this system. Great video.
Absolutely glad you enjoyed it and i never knew anyone as a kid who had one. I literally only started meeting them when i got on youtube it eventually got me looking at it myself :).
@@geekstorian My classmate was born in America, but was Indonesian. His dad’s work always had him going back and forth to Asia. They had tons of money, so of course, my friend had every toy imaginable and every 80s/90s video game imaginable. From what I remember playing: NES, Sega Master System, TG16, and to this day I believe he had a NeoGeo. Insane stuff to see in person as an 80s kid.
Konami bought Hudson and then owned the platform. NEC waited two whole years to release it in the US. It was a great console. The Genesis and SNES were better.
@@user-or6yn8pm3c I don't disagree with any of this personally I like both those systems better to but there is no denying theres a ton of fun stuff here that deserved more love. Why they wasted so much time redesigning the shell for the thing that..thats just dumb it really didn't need it to sell here but they were sure it did.
@@user-or6yn8pm3c I think Arcades were just naturally on their way out the console was matching or starting to exceed what an arcade cabinet could do. the scope and story was just so much more on console that the "arcade" had to change this time not the console market and it just failed to innovate. You still see arcades in dave and busters etc but its not the same anymore sadly. I miss arcades personally heh.
I always learn at least one thing when watching your videos. This time I learn that the turbo 16 had many things going for it(which I already knew) but the side I didn’t know is that it was held back so hard by Japan. Seems that was a bit of a theme for some amazing consoles around that time and even later. Love your content man. I love learning about these things :)
I bought this with allowance money when I was 15.. Genesis was already out but most of the games coming out were sequels from the master system (space harrier, altered beast, etc). The japanese games really interested me because they felt so different, but then the new titles were a slow trickle and Sega quickly caught up. By the time sonic the hedgehog came out I was done waiting for turbo grafx to catch up and switched consoles.
I can totally see that some people were ok waiting and enjoyed what came at that time many didnt but either way so long as you had a good time there is nothing wrong with that :)
I was aware of the TurboGrafx 16 as a kid in the early '90s but never owned one nor knew anyone who did. Where I lived, one was a Nintendo or Sega kid. If there's one game I want that console for, it's Rondo of Blood.
Yeah inwas lucky and had both SNES and genesis i nevrr had this as ive dove more into it i found a LOT more than rondo but its an easy first draw. If you emulate check some of it out its a shockingly good system!
@@RemoWilliams1227 Yeah most people missed this console or just couldn't swing it with the others they had. Now its kind of getting a lot more notice as a bit of a retro darling in a lot of circles :).
Alien Crush is pretty good and it shows the color-advantage the TG had over Genesis. Sadly no other games had this amount of color and many TG16 games just look shitty
I loved playing my Turbo Duo, really great role-playing games for that system Cosmic fantasy 2 Dungeon Explorer 2 Neutopia 1 & 2 The Legend of Heroes 1 Ys 1 & 2 Ys IV with the English Dub & English Translation
They were in stores near me just no one knew anything about them and at the time it seemed to expensive to me but yeah it realllly was not well known glad you enjoyed the video :)
TG16 always was this oddity to me. I had one friend with it and it was so different from sega and nintendo. I’ve grown to appreciate it through the years however. Side note: would love to see you cover tye master system in Brazil. How it was still supported for decades after many had forgotten about it 😀
yeah master system is on my list of ones to cover it had a lot more support in europe and especially brazil than it got anywhere else. I really didn't know much about this one growing up save that it existed and it seemed really expensive not Neo geo expensive but pretty pricey when I saw its hand held was 300 friggin dollars!
I actually recently just sold my Turbo Duo along with a large number of domestic and import games (I was stationed in Japan in the 90s when I was in the Navy) to my retro gaming loving Godson. He's really happy to have it and is garnering envy from his friends for being one of the few to have the system. I was sad to see it go, but it was just collecting dust. Plus, I'm never going to beat that damn Working Designs localization of "Cadash" where they made it harder and only a few continues per game!
lol Cadash is frigging brutal its a neat action RPG but its sorta mean! I'm glad the system at least went to someone whos really going to appreciate it thats better than mine that I at the time had every little money so a lot of m old systems would get traded in to go toward the next system I wanted or sold at garage sales by my folks!
Thank you for taking a look and for following! I understand man i have friends who were and still are huge into the console to this day and they always say the same thing as you why no rondo of blood why didnt they bring more shooters and their right! It had all the potential to be a huge success here they just weren’t confident enough in it sadly :(
yep I agree they had the potential to be a super strong contender it just wasn't marketed in a way that it got the attention it deserved. Thanks for hanging out btw!
Yeah not the beat design choice for people who played alot with others. When i was growing up it was usually just me playing solo so it would likely not be that big of a deal but it did make the console more costly as you would need to but not only a second controller but the tap as well
ok I wrote that down to dig into it, I have some friends who make suggestions and some I like some I dont' like Legenary Axe both of them are fun but have me on the fence, Air zonk I love, Lords of Thunder I love. So this might just help me find more gems than I thought!
Nintendos monopoly meant PC-Engine would have a lot of obscure gems. I bought a mini last year and absolutely love it. The color pallet and CD-Rom blew me away on displays back in the day. They were expensive too. Not very many people had one which made it even more obscure and interesting. The games have aged really well too. The color pallet still stands out and is clearly noticeable to the point to where it is the focus of attention and can’t be ignored. A good number of arcade ports look better because of it. Like the Sega Genesis it’s hard to find bad games on this system because there are so many good ones.
Yeah it has a pretty large number of good titles that I'm slowly discovering the CD addon was probably one of the better ones out at the time. I still find more stuff my speed on genesis and SNES from this era but this system has some great titles that are "just" on it. 90's was one of my favorite eras in gaming because the systems all had a unique color and feel this is another great example of just that. Thanks for swinging by and watching btw!
Tg16 is a beast. I’ve always wanted one and 2 years ago the dream finally came true. I been playing it daily since, you can get the multicart with all the games, it’s amazing.
Niiicceee! Ive never gotten to own one i have a few friends who adore the console and swear by it and some of the gamss i have gotten to play are really really good! Grats on getting one and the multicart btw! Also thanks for swining by to watch much appreciated!
I kind of really want an analog duo if that thing ever hits the market. I have a few friends who got me into this one and I'm happy they did it s a fun little system that deserved to do much better than it did in the states.
Thanks really glad you enjoyed it! You might be able to hack the mini to add kore if your so inclined but there are other options to play the games like the analog pocket and hopefully one day the analog duo!
We had a mini theme park that included an arcade, water area, and so forth in our city and they hired a promotional company to push the turbo grafx 16 one summer. As soon as you walked outside they had a table setup and were begging people to come over and try the system. Not sure why, but that's something I have not forgotten and we ended up buying one and eventually returning it; kept the keith courage manual by accident which we still have lol
Hahaha ok thats a great atory! Did you ever try going back as you got older to see if you like it more now? Also thanks for checking this one out inreally appreciate it
I loved the idea of this console so much, I only had a few chances to play it and most came from the kiosk in Radio Shack lol. I was always to impressed with the colors and games. Today I own a Turbo Duo and love all the games I have for it. To bad it was only available in Radio Shack LOL
I was so frustrated as a TG16 owner in the 90’s. NEC Japan had so many fabulous games but failed so badly by overthinking what to port (or not to port) to the US. They also faltered an almost 2 year head start they could have had vs the release of the Genesis by redesigning the sleek Japanese PC Engine to doubling it’s size for “American” bigger is better taste. I once heard they enlisted the help from ex-Atari folks who said the PC Engine is too small, Americans will think it’s inferior. TG16 is definitely a story of “what could have been”. Frustrations continue to this day with Konami owning the rights to Hudson Soft and it’s IPs/library of games that they do next to nothing with. What a waste. At least I still have my original TurboGrafx-16 & TurboDuo collection. Note: The HuCards are region locked via the pinouts but can be used on NTSC consoles using an adapter. The CD & Super CD games are not region locked so the TurboDuo can play Japanese games. TurboGrafx-16 CD system requires the Super System CD card to play any Super CD games
Yeah this was clearly one of those cases of the Japan management structure not listening to the american one on what would work to move the system Rondo of blood would have been an EASY system seller in the states and any number of the shooters they had would have also have sold the system yet they just chose not to send those over for one reason or another so I totally see and feel your frustration.
@@nexxusty yeah nintendo and sega played super dirty to keep stufff out of the market or undermine it at this time so i can see if the turbo was your main system how you would be frustrated
I had a TG16 in 1991 and despite being in the shadow of the Sega Genesis and NES I still enjoyed it. I now understand why the TG16 failed in the States because they didn't know how to market it here. We only were able to acquire a few games, but there were a few gems in them. I can tell you Blazing Lasers deserved to be a classic, it's an incredible shooter with amazing graphics. In fact it's those type of sci-fi and space shooters I thought would appeal most to American users. Then there's Bonk's where in many ways I couldn't help but be reminded of Super Mario Bros but it was it's own thing knowing you used your head to kill enemies and the caveman setting to make the game more original. Had the TG16 not failed in the States, Bonk's should have been every much the icon as Mario is to Nintendo, Sonic is to Sega, and later on Crash Bandicoot for the Sony Playstation.
Absolutely! Blazing lasers is amazing i think i like lords of thunder a but better but both are soooo good. I dont know that it would have toppled anyone in the states but it had potential to do way way better thanks a ton for watching and commenting!
Yeah I never knew anyone who had one as a kid I didn't start running into people who really owned one till later in life and thats when I started diving into it here and there.
Always interesting to see the American perspective. Here in Europe, this console is mostly barely known, except for parts of the UK/France/Spain... I believe there was no official release in most countries, and very limited release in the ones I'd mentioned. NES and (especially) Master System did much better in that era, and then - of course, the immortal Mega Drive. Too bad, since a lot of interesting games were left in Japan, as a result. Still, it is what it is.
Yeah that was my understanding as well it was primarily japan,US and france as the main areas they pushed and did especialy well in japan then started getting shut down hard in the US. I believe it was megadrive that was the largest in europe wasnt it?
@@geekstorian Yup, except for Germany/a couple Scandinavian countries where SNES/NES did better, Mega Drive/SMS sold 'by far' the best in most of Europe. TG-16 just didn't stand a chance and is largely unknown to this day. I guess it's just that general gaming trends here are different. Most people back then would play PC games, something like Amiga or C64. Then there was Sega, for the most part; then Playstation, which did really, really well, and then - Nintendo. I'm pretty sure N64 also didn't do very well in Europe, Nintendo handhelds were generally more popular here than their other stuff.
@@mariusamber3237 See I find that facinating because in the states it was pretty much nintendo all day till Sony hit and destroyed everyone. I knew that the European market was bigger into PC gaming from a few other peope and having done research into the video game crash in the states I just didn't think that would necessarily translate into the mega drive being a dominant console.
SEGA of Japan's decision to keep SEGA of America out of the loop when it came to decision making, as it was, also led to their eventual fall (though SEGA was extremely lucky). Not sure if there's a lesson to be learned there or not. I should note that while I'd heard of the Turbografx growing up, I'd never seen or played one. I never even played a TGX-16 game until I got the TGX-16 Mini. I never knew about any of the good games until much later. Perhaps with better marketing and game variety, I would have grown up with a Turbografx instead of a Genesis.
Yeah both sega and tg-16 had their issues in fact i have a few on sega i need to finish getting on this channel that go into that and various missteps,genesis,saturn and dreamcast to go over those consoles at some point i want to do one on the master system as well. Thanks a ton for checking this one out!
There is a version of Double 🐲🐉 Dragon 2 I believe it's Japan only on the PC engine CD maybe that I've been dying to get my hands on for over a decade.
@@geekstorian I am a double dragon junkie... I've bought consoles just to play different versions of the game. My understanding is the one on the CD engine is about as good as the game boy advance version.
@@MyBrothersKeeper101 I'm not sure about it being as good as that. It felt rather easy on hard mode and it doesn't quite feel the same as the NES game. That knee attack cant be done whenever anymore. But that remixed Shadow boss music 🤘
I remember wanting one as a kid, but it quickly disappeared. No one had one; it was either Nintendo or Sega. I only recently bought a PC Engine Core II system, and Everdrive, so I could experience some of the games.
Never manages to get my hands on one all my experience is emulation hope you enjoy it though there is a lot of good stuff on there and thanks for watching! Hope you find more on the channel you like as well :)
Yeah I heard very mixed things on that unit which had me hesitant to pick one up. A few people I know who were big into the system said it ran pretty poorly overall.
The reason why NEC quietly ended the Turbografx-16 in the US back in the early to mid 90s is because it couldn't keep up with the competition with the other two fourth-generation consoles - the Sega 16-bit and the Super Nintendo.
Ehhh id are that somewhat yes somewhat no the pc engine competed quite well in japan it had major issues here from launching later than it should poor game selection brought over. They just kept getting their foothold shutdown by the other two here at least from what i read and saw. Thbaks for checking it out btw !
Not really they were able to keep up because they interested the cd well, plus we’re able to add power to it through the Hue Card Slot. Their time would’ve been limited, but they weren’t DOA.
@@robertpeacock894 the numbers i saw didnt show them keeping up but i always felt that was lack of public understanding of the product and inability to get key games to the states personally
@@geekstorian I think it’s way more to do with lack of efficient marketing, and not being all in. PC-Engine beat Sega in Japan cause they were invested. In North America they did a soft California launch, had different.skews out of the gate. Plus no Tom K to brand them!
I've heard horror stories from former game counselors about how horrible the management at NEC was. NEC had to learn the hard way that many of their games weren't as fun as Nintendo's. They passed on so many hits in Japan and thought stuff like Camp California would sell because kids would think it was "cool".
Yeah thats kind of what they did, the american team would ask for a list of games they felt would do great and they would just get "no you will get this" . It really could have worked there are a number of REALLY good games on it. They weren't "known" names but could have been. Thank you a ton for watching btw!
As a TG16 owner back when it was new I can say it was frustrating how it was managed. Hardly any marketing and what seemed to be a heavy obsession on hardware and not games. Had they quickly brought a US version of the PC Engine here instead of wasting time completely redesigning it's look they would have had a huge starting advantage over Nintendo and Sega. Then even after the TG16 had been here a while they kept focusing on hardware like building the TurboDuo when they already had a TG16 CD attachment and then the arcade card when they should have been focused on more game titles. The only good thing about all their hardware upgrades was I was able to buy the CD attachment for my TG16 on clearance at a great price because the TurboDuo had come out. I recall having to buy a lot of games based solely off of the box cover art without any magazine reviews and also at some point I got on a mailing list and was able to import games from Japan where it was really tough to know exactly what the game was. They really squandered the potential of this system.
Yeah that was kind of my assessment to alot of the TG16 stuff was so alien and unknown it had a hard time catching an audience without coverage which it never really got. Couple that with the things you said and Japan not wanting to port some of the biggest titles and you have a recipe for disaster. Its a pity to because its a fun system!
@@geekstorian Back then without internet it really stood no chance with the way they managed and marketed it. I only knew one other TG16 owner (he had the TurboExpress) so there really was no word of mouth or way for the system get a grassroots following. They really needed to do it with $$$ and advertisements which they had little of.
@@theinsaneshecklador6598 thing is from what I found it seems like they did but Japan wouldn't give them the money to do it with considering America a lost cause almost from the start. It seems they had similar issues that Sega had later on in that Japanese management didn't want to work with the american division to move the units.
So, I take it the west didn't really care about the fact that despite being powered by an 8 bit CPU, this thing was somehow able to have full voice samples and even dialogues in most games, something no 8 bit system could do. Then again, RPGs in general hadn't quite taken hold in the west back then
I can tell you many including myself in the states saw the SNES as king when it came to RPGs around that time. Most of what we got here though was first party Hudson soft games and many of the RGS Cadash as an example showed up on other system stealing a little bit of the consoles thunder. We also got the Sega CD before we got the Turbo Duo here which caused some its more impressive games on that side to not be recieved "as" well since it was more expensive than just slapping an addon to the genesis at the time.
The hucards are still so cool-- even today you could totally lug around a modded turbo express and if you don't have a flash cart you could simply carry your fav games in your wallet!
Yeah fhe hucard was a fantastic format swga used something like it to called the sega card or something like that it was used on the master system. The seitch is good for that too not as portable obviously but easy to carry around the carts!
Fair enough at its time it was wowfukky mismanaged in the states from releases to advertising which is why the title is the way it is. The system itself is a very very good system. I can see your viewpoint on disagreeing with it though
I remember when I was a kid, I wanted a Nintendo. I chose it for the games and I loved it. The Genesis and Turbo Grafx were both cool to me and had better graphics, but the NES had the better games. I finally decided that Genesis would be my choice if I could get a second system. (This was before SuperNES, so anything else coming out was at least 100 trillion years away and the universe would never change and the market would forever be these three systems.) Turbo Grafx LOOKED nice and all. And the CD? Might as well get a holodeck. But the games just didn't look as fun and they weren't the titles I knew and loved. Nintendo had Mario, Link, Samus, and dozens of other games I loved. Sega had Altered Beast, Sonic, Kid Chameleon, and Alex Kidd. TurboGrafx had... Bonk? Unnamed plane fighters that played like 1942 and 10,000 other clones of the same genre? Content is King and TurboGrafx was a good looking peasant.
I can see and respect that even agree with it to an extent. Ive still found a lot to live there they just came in late had they hit when thoee mascots were newer they could have resonated far better. I was mostly a nintendo kid to still am genesis was my second love. Im now over time starting to dig the turbografx because ifs well quirky and different :)
It was always more expensive than sega and Nintendo in stores when I saw it too If they would have dropped price, advertised better and gotten 3rd party support before launching, they would have definitely been successful But just like the sega mini 2, shooter bloat made me disinterested fairly quickly
Yep i felt much the same when i saw it system 300 handheld 300(knowing now it played the consoles games,kinda worth it) along with an odd assortment of titles made it not as appealing at the time. Now in hindsight i think its pretty dope its not my first go to but i happily sir down to any number of its titles and throughly enjoy my time with them. Thanks for checking this one out btw!
Hold on a second my friend...the OC Engine/Core Grafx/TG-16 CD ROM ROM actually did not include any hardware that improved the base machines specs. Hudson and Nec didn't start improving the hardware until the System 2 Card which came with extra RAM. Edit* The System 2 Card came with extra buffer RAM, that's it. This was part of the reason Sega went absolutely nuts with the Sega CD hardware. Originally it was intended to be a cheap add-on with little extra hardware but that of course changed.
Ypu may have me there the revisions of the syscard firmware i really didnt dig into for this video. The main intent was to go over how resesign delays, bad software choices for the market and lack of marketing hirt thier chances in the states. It also however accelerated the push toward CDs as a medium because of the cd addon
All they had to do is release good sports and fighting games.Also change the pack in game to New Adventure Island.Some of the games they released look and played like shovelware.
your not wrong, they really just needed a revised release structure that worked with the american market and a better advertizing budget I think the rest would have worked itself out. Though I don't recall the system ever being really known for sports games more platforming and shooters.
@@geekstorian They were lacking good sports and fighting games.Instead of TV Sports games they should of contacted Tecmo to make their sports games. TV Sports games are shovelware in my opinion.
@@orlandoturbo6431 ive never been much for sports games so calling any of them shovelware wont get much of an argument from me but at the time they came out not having nfl,nhl or say fifa on there i dont thibk would have worked to well,not in the states. Thats one of the things that SOLD the genesis to a lot of people here
@@BornDistracted that I can't explain I think your account was locked at one point and I couldn't follow you and you often can't DM unless your following each other or have fully open DMs.
Yeah i was surprised when i found that out to but thats part of the fun of doing this channel is i find out crazy stuff like this when i go digging all the time :).
The Japanese version was so superior. It was slick, dense and fantastic while the Turbografx was bulky, light and cheap in comparison. Back in the early 90s, Radio Shack Canada carried the Turbografx and Genesis. The express was very cool, but really pricey. I still love the system as well as their great arcade ports and very different exclusive titles.
Yeah after learning more about the PC Engine and what was on it the Turbografx make over made very little sense other than the mentality of bigger is better in the states. Overall its still a great system to explore with a lot of good games on it! Thanks for checking this one out btw!
I agree. Back in the day I always wondered how the PC engine and TurboDuo could be as powerful as my TG16. Then one day I opened it up and saw it was mostly just dead air inside. The same with HuCards. Opening up a Nintendo cartridge showed it to be roughly the same inside as a HuCard. I always felt they should have kept the same case design as the PC Engine. They also could have beat Sega to market by several months and likely also saved a lot of money on manufacturing.
I enjoyed your video, although I do have kind of an asshole comment. You need to work on clearing that nasal voice, also a better mic would do you wonders, but the voice, as I mentioned, do really affect the quality of the video, as it is literally the content you’re selling. Aside from that, great video.
Thats sort of my voice especially if im a little stuffed up im using an SM7B i bought because nothing elee was working better sooo not totally sure i can help that sorry I appreciate the feedback though
Dude, I feel like I was the only kid who grew up in the 80s-90s who actually played this system when it was contemporary. I always thought of it what is objectively true: has a few cool games but the SNES and Genesis just blew it out of the water. Granted, the TG16 was meant to compete with the NES but come on, no one I knew had it over the dominating NES.
Ypu would be one of the few i know i know at least two others who had it and still adore it to this day. I got into it late and ill admit its not my first pick but it has some “really” good titles that i look at and go man i would have been ecstatic for that as a kid. I still think i like my genesis and snes a bit more but thats also in part to growing up with those i have more nostalgia for those ips than i do the TG-16. Its just hard to shake those nostalgia glasses looking back. Had they played it a bit smarter who knows what could have happened though *shrug*
@@geekstorian Well I grew up with access to all three and while it had a few standout titles, it was more of a novelty than a true contender. Part of the reason for that is no one else was making games for it. It was 1st party or bust. Nowhere was this more apparent than Splatterhouse. 1st game came out on TG16, both sequels on the Genesis. The thing I always have heard is that if you liked shootemups, it’s a gamers wet dream. Well, I think there okay but hover around the bottom of my list of genres. It also had a few neat RPGs but come on, compared to the SNES, it’s not even close to the big boys.
@@leeartlee915 ohh man yeah if you were big into rogs nintendo was where it was at till the playstation days. Platformers the tg had some good ones tons of good shooters but alot of the really good stuff stayed pc engine only like rondo of blood and never made it state side it was mostly hudson soft releasing games on it here. So i can totally see why you would favor the others
@@geekstorian Rondo of Blood… forgot about that one. Alright, yeah, there were a few bangers on there. I never got to mess with the CD add on so that was a whole aspect of the console I missed.
@@leeartlee915 yeah that had some good stuff a lot of the people really big into it swear by those games. Dont get me wrong man i love me some nintendo and sega those systems are legit legends. But this one had some good stuff to is all im sayin :). I think most system if you look at them closely you will find something you love even if its not your prefered console
You have to really make some terrible mistakes to lose the Console Wars, yet we saw some of the stupidest management decisions in business history occurring just there!
Yeah it was a mess they had some really good titles and were huge in japan they just couldn't find a way to translate it to the states which sucks because there is some REALLY good stuff there! Thanks for swinging by and checking this one out btw much appreciated!
@@geekstorian Yeah, do more stuff. As someone who was knee deep in the Console Wars, I could write a book about this from the enthusiast's perspective.
@@MaxAbramson3 funny thing is comsole wars go back to atari and intellivision if not further so yeah thats easily a video if not a series or more in and of irself lol so o can totally see it!
@@geekstorian My cousins had the sought after Atari 2600, which everyone seemed to want until ET came out. We were given an Intellivision by ACTIVISION, which seemed more interested in actually making quality games. Some of the best stuff from the early 1980s was on Intellivision.
@@MaxAbramson3 They have a pretty active homebrew scene as well if you still have an Intellivision. I have some friends who are really into that console and talk about it all the time lol.
dude that's still a great find, even just playing the hu cards is pretty dope. Systems got some super fun stuff Ninja Spirit is amazing though insanely hard, Jackie Chan Kung Fu, Star Solider bunch of fun stuff man!
i did went to 1 some thrift store for stray cat's & dogs bumming around & found a turbografx duo for $2.00. i damn near had a heart attack when i saw it. yes i did grab it & bought it
Yeah it could have done way better in the states. Honestly i didnt even see one in my area till i had a genesis and a Super Nintendo and no one really tried to sell it even when i did so it was mostly unknown in my area. I didnt get much into it till later when i got into the retro gaming scene. Damn shame to so e good titles on it to be sure!
@@geekstorian I was fortunate to have had one, I was actually all set to get a Genesis and my older brother said “don’t get Genesis all your friends have that, you can play it at their house, get Turbografx” I remember replying “ok, but what game should I get?” And he said “get Bonk, he’s carnivorous nerdy!” 🤣 And history was born. Later I got the cd add on and imported games also like Dracula X rondo. I sold the Turbo to get the Duo when it came out. I was a big fan of the NEC stuff. By brother passed away in October 2018, this is one of my fondest memories of him, he wasn’t always the best person or big brother.
Nah, the Turbografx was unsuccessful in the US for sure, but it was modestly successful in Japan for awhile. It might have been mismanaged, but the most MISMANAGED was the Atari Jaguar which came out in 1993. The Atari Jaguar failed in all markets.
Yeah ive touched on that one to it was a bit of a last swing by atari to try to get back into the market. The pc engine itself did well the tg16 well like insaod lack of advery wrong games 0 confidence in the US market just hurt it. They still made less miss steps than the saturn though. Dont get me wrong saturns a good syatem and so is the TG the hardware didnt fail then management did
Difference is the Atari Jaguar was doomed to fail. Terrible lineup of games, extremely high retail price as well as pitiful marketing, Atari at that time had no strategy or any business intelligence to compete with the big dogs of Nintendo & SEGA so it all blew apart in record time. TG16 had an actual chance in cementing itself in the console market in the West and definitely could have done it if it's Japan division had more faith in the system. Sure shmups do tend to be repetitive from time to time but the TG16 had a good lineup of them as well as original games too and if NEC/Hudson Soft had put in the effort of marketing the way SEGA did with the Genesis, Nintendo would have to worry about two rivals as opposed to one during the Early to Mid 90's. I hold to the belief that the most mismanaged system of the 90's goes to the TG16 because it had actual potential that management failed to live up to.
@@TheyCallMeSledge yep in my mind only one other system potentially botched it worse from a management side and that was the saturn tons of potential there to just handeled badly. Thanks for chrcking this one out!!
I have just not done a full video on the jaguar itself atari just really didnt want to commit on that one lack of funding killed it of i recall. That and it had a ton of competition coming in hot on its heels at the time. Thanks a ton for watching btw hopefully you found ome fun in the video :)
@@geekstorian Yeah I enjoyed. Great content, keep it up. It might be worth adding another mistake NEC made. They chose to sell the console mostly in the big cities resulting in the console having no exposure in rural areas in the States. This wasn't a problem in Japan doing the same approach being a smaller more closely connected country but disastrous when attempted in the States being a much larger country logistics wise for this to have worked nearly as effectively as it had done in Japan.
Ah most powerful 8 bit can endure mismanagement cost? See how future console done. Look at you Wii successors. More stranger is Hudson Soft once convincing co-work with Nintendo.
Tons of consoles struggle if costs are mismanaged im just not sure nec had deep enough pickets or felt it was prudent to spend the money. The system needed some in advertising at least to raise awareness at the very least imo. Thanks for checking this one out though!
i always thought of the turbo grafx at this mythical and elusive console that was out of my families price range, like the 3do. looking back and seeing it as an adult i realize the turbo grafx is nothing more than a glorified nes. i would have hated this as a 10 year old expecting to upgrade or at least compete with my genesis and snes.
I think it was a bit more than that. Its a solid system I've come to appreciate far more as I got more into the retro gaming scene but it was definatly at least in the states far more niche to be sure.
I have quite a few notes or corrections. Note #1 at 23 seconds in. The PC Engine was not officially released in France, but units were imported from Japan, modified and distributed throughout Europe, NEC had introduced a European TurboGrafx for PAL regions in 1990, though a SECAM video format unit was never released. At 1:34 you mention that the PC Engine had built in Turbo controllers. While later models such as the Coregrafx, Supergrafx and Duo consoles along with the US TurboGrafx had Turbo controllers, the original model of PC engine did not come with a turbo controller but a simple stock pad with the switches being absent. Aftermarket white PC engine controllers with turbo switches were sold by NEC, but these were not included with the console. At 2:08 you list off JJ and Jeff, China Warrior and Keith Courage as early PC Engine titles. JJ and Jeff was heavily modified from its original Japanese game which was based on a Japanese comedy duo at the time, the title of that game was Kato and Ken, China Warrior was called The Kung Fu and Keith Courage was slightly modified as it was based on an anime called "Mashin Hero Wataru". The North American versions of these games with those titles were not released in Japan. At 2:40 you mentioned May of 1989 it was released in the United States, this is incorrect the TurboGrafx was launched in August of 1989, I'm not sure where you sourced this information, but wherever you did, they are incorrect.There is a well researched article conducted by Gamasutra some years back that goes over dates and history relating to the North American struggles in thorough detail with interviews from key staff on both the NEC Home Electronics USA and Hudson staff, I'd recommend reading it. At 3:02 you mention "The console hit the states and initially sold really well" this is incorrect. It was a disappointment on the market from the first week, NEC Home Electronics really didn't understand why the system was successful in Japan which was not because people were buying it instead of the Famicom but in addition to it. The Famicom had reached a saturation point where most households with any interest in owning a game console had one, while the PC Engine offered something new. The North American market was still a ways from reaching peak NES popularity and the NEC Home Electronics management had realized very quickly that they misunderstood the market. At 3:07 you stated that the lack of third party support was because "Nintendo had started bullying third party developers", this hadn't started in 1989 and was a major problem for Sega with the Master System and Atari with the 7800, to state that the starting point was around this time is highly inaccurate. At 4:56 you mention Nintendo's announced partnership with Phillips and Sony, while this was the origin point of the Playstation. The CD-i was already available on the market before Nintendo and Phillips had announced their partnership and the CD-i had been in development for years prior with authoring tools being available prior to the launch of the PC Engine CD-ROM in late 1988 let alone in 1991 when Nintendo and Phillips agreed on a deal. Stating that this was a factor in "leading us to the CD-i" or that "In a way the TurboGrafx is responsible for those systems" is inaccurate. At 5:09 you mention that the TurboGrafx CD add-on was "released at a price of almost 300.00" it was 399.99 MSRP at launch, this price point exceeded 300 dollars. At 6:18 you say "It was around this time that Hudson Soft was starting to get unhappy with how NEC was running things in the United States", this is also a misstatement, from looking at interviews with the involved parties Hudson had criticism from before the console even launched, NEC home electronics was losing money on the TurboGrafx while Hudson was pocketing lots of royalties due to the licensing agreement that was in place, it was NEC Home Electronics who wanted to exit and NEC of Japan and Hudson negotiated transferring North American distribution which led to the formation of TTI, additionally it wasn't around 1990 when the express launched that the talks that this had occurred. These talks happened in late 1991 with TTI coming into existence in Spring of 1992. At 6:49 you mention that they had a verbal agreement regarding Mortal Kombat, they did not. They simply were offered the property by Midway, expressed interest and were denied the financing to do so by NEC of Japan who was responsible for the purse strings of TTI. At this point I just gave up on watching more of your video, before posting histories on games it might be a good idea to proofread, reach out to relevant communities on reddit, facebook groups or forums to fact check your content before you post it.
Ok I deeply appreciate that you took the time to detail this all out and I appreciate the feed back this was meant to be a genrral overview of the console and things it did well and ways it could have improved its position in the market. While all these details are great i dont think they would have changed the overall narrative enough to spend more weeks digging into this to get to the same end. However i will make not of them when and if i do any follow up videos on the topic. Thank you an absolute metric ton not only for the comment but the clear and concise detail and time you put in to writing this up. I hope you at lwast found some fun and value in the video itself and I appreciate you taking the time to analyze it so throughly!
@@geekstorian Tied to how it could have done better on the US market. The revenue sharing agreement between NEC was quite lopsided with NEC taking on all of the financial risk and burden in North America and Hudson simply raking in royalties, this led to a whole lot of problems with NEC focusing on selling peripherals and hardware since they benefited more directly from that. This is why they kept the single controller port with you needing to buy a seperate multi-tap for 2 or more player games design of the Japanese unit for example.
@@DragonmasterDan yeah i can see all that leading into a ton of internal struggles and frustrations. Seems like that would have been a bad idea to do that deal from the start since even then consoles never had the high margins it was always software. Good to see you again btw
Thank you for the correction did I misspeak that in the video I thought I had that listed as 1989 and 1987 in japan as the PC engine, if I didn't my apologies and thank you again.
