The really REAL reason why the Turbografx-16 failed in North America | In response to Shmup Junkie 

What is this madness??? You dare question THE almighty Shmup Junkie then proceed to criticize and lampoon? Blasphemy! You’ve not seen the last of me! Just wait until I bring all the shmupsters to the yard. Watcha gonna do when Shmupamania runs wild on youuuu. Woooo! 🤣 Edit: sorry that’s what happens when Timmaaay gets out of his cage.

It's a lot of factors but two big ones you didn't mention: Nintendo's monopolistic practices in America holding up 3rd party releases, the different culture: in Japan kids are given money to buy what they want but adults do the buying in America and as we all know they're clueless. There are probably much more too: should've released a year or more earlier and marketing.

TurboGrafx 16 failed because it was a lack of popular American games and 3rd party support. Games that Americans would like to play. And TTI inc. should have release Madden on Turbochip too so everyone could play the game. What was they thinking. It probably would have been the number one best seller on Turbochip.

I like Shmup Junkie and all that. But Creative Cat Productions made the all time greatest Turbografx-16 Documentary I have ever seen and I have seen them all!!!! This is RU-vid gold...

I've seen a lot of speculation that Turbografx-16's North American issues were somewhat rooted not with a lack of marketing, but a lack of distinct marketing. The Genesis was able to carve out the image of doing accurate arcade ports at first and subtly positioned itself as the console for tweens and teenagers later on. Throw in the system having its price cut down (to the point of arguably hurting SoA's profits long term) and it had an immediate hook, especially when the console got EA sports titles. The Turbografx-16 had a strong library, even in the West, but I've not seen much in the advertising that really made it a unique must have; its overall presentation seemed to be just better and more colorful variations of many NES games. However, that was so diminished by the aforementioned perceived costly hardware set up that enough of the market simply saw a more expensive Nintendo console without the same kind of high-profile arcade faithfulness that a cheaper system like the Genesis offered. Honestly competing with Nintendo in the West (without the major financial resources of a Sony or Microsoft) may have only led to the respective outcomes of Sega and NEC that we got; getting market share at the cost of long term viability or low success due to cutting losses when profitability wasn't seen as likely.

Ah but we now know Sega of Japan ordered the release of the Saturn in USA not because they wanted a jump on the competition, it was because Sega of Japan held off the USA launch of the Saturn at the request of Tom C. who believed they would have a better opportunity to sell 32x addons. When that didn't happen and the warehouse was piled skyhigh with unsold 32x units, Sega of Japan ordered its release immediately (before they had wide distribution in many retail stores ie see Kay Bee Toys response at the time) then asked Tom to step down as CEO.

I think the name PC Engine was supposed to represent the partnership between NEC and Hudson Soft due to NEC making personal computers and Hudson's name coming from a Hudson steam engine that would pass by the founders' house every day when they were children.

The Famicom sold 19 million consoles (in Japan) over its life time. The Famicom Disk System sold about 4.4 million units in Japan. Or roughly 1 in 4 Famicom households also had the disk drive... that's hardly a failure. Considering the disk drive came out just 3 years after the Famicom's release, that ratio would have been a lot higher in 1990. Now consider that the Famicom was sold in Japan until 2003 to reach that 19 million! The reason Nintendo stopped selling the drive was because it was the solution to a problem that no longer existed. Chip shortages and dramatic increases in chip cost forced Nintendo to look for alternatives to chips. DISKS! but technology advanced and the advantages were soon obsoleted by cheaper larger ROMs and save batteries. The Famicom Disk System was announced for America but it was ultimately not necessary.

As a gamer of the time, its funny to see people discussing this. We didn't even get the pc engine in the UK, didn't stop us from importing it from japan, but you could see at the time that it was kind of doomed. There was only really room for 2 rival consoles at any one time, the expense of the hobby meant you had to consider not only the games, but the future lifespan of the console. By that point it seemed clear that a new generation of hardware was due, and while the pc engine looked better than the nes/master system, it clearly wasn't next generation compared to the megadrive. To fork out cash on a new machine it wasnt enough to have a few good games, you wanted to know the machine would stick around for a while. Bridging the technology gap with hardware addons was always a failure because it basically told people your console wasn't good enough, wait for the next one. And of course, once we had the megadrive we knew that nintendo could be trusted to join the 16 bit race, and that would be enough 16 bit consoles, thanks. PC engine had great games, but nintendo could be relied upon to keep a console alive for long enough to be worth the expense, and while we waited for the snes we had sonic to keep us going. I've no doubt there were all kinds of other reasons the pc engine died a death, as these videos describe. But yeah, if you were into games back then and you weren't rich, spending money on a machine that wouldn't survive the inevitable console war probably wasn't a great investment.

Absolutely excellent video. The preface section is a bit overly long, but it was all well explained and easy to follow with an excellent payoff in the middle and end, well done. My thoughts on why the TG16 failed? The really really real reason is a multitude of factors. NEC making sales almost only on hardware, therefore leading them to overproducing TG16s and launching the TGCD early is a big reason, but not the only one (also lets not forget NEC Avenue which was a software division mostly doing arcade ports) Other big reasons include poor perceived value with the console being RF only and having just one controller port, no mascot game for Christmas 1989, average game selection and limited national availability. But there’s one massive reason that few ever talk about. (CCP you are welcome to address this in a new video), very few games designed for the American market. That’s boring stuff like licensed tie-in games and sports titles. The NES had licensed titles from popular IPs like TMNT, Ghostbusters and X-Men and nearly every major sport was well represented. TG16 had next to none of those. NEC and Hudson didn’t have games to hit the lowest common denominator section of the market. They needed to secure licenses with popular movies, TV shows, comics, toy lines and other media, plus sports games. We all look back on those licensed games with disgust, but they’re also among the most common games on a console. They didn’t have to be amazing, just good enough to bring customers in. People still bought Back to the Future and The Terminator on NES.

The way you describe history in the beginning is pure gold 😆: brutally honest facts but with a sprinkle of humor in the form of irony and sarcasm 👍 Awesome video!

I pre-ordered an Analogue Duo a while back and I've watched this 3 times now. You nailed it dude. Best PC Engine/TurboGrafx 16 documentary on RU-vid.

This is an amazing video. The way you contextualize everything historically makes an extremely captivating story. For some reason I'd never put two and two together before to think about what actually ushered in the Bubble Era in Japan- I live in Pittsburgh and during the 1980s the city and its surrounding areas saw economic downturn due to the struggling steel industry which my family had always ranted to me as a child was because of the Japanese. I'd never thought about how during that same time period Japan was flourishing and going full Yakuza 0 while Pittsburgh and the steel industry were hit in a way it would never fully recover from. I clicked on this video for the TurboGrafx history but now I'm thinking about local history instead. LOL.

Dragon Spirit, Devil's Crush, Klax, R-Type - very good games. I owned one and it never felt to me like a failure.

The marketing sucked, it was not available everywhere, NEC and Hudson didn't have the same kind of name recognition as Nintendo, Sega, or Atari and it was expensive. Also, MK would not have worked without at least a 3 action button controller.. SF2 is playable using select to shuffle between punches and kicks. The gameplay is completely different though and MK depends on weird combos to complete special moves. They miss the boat by not offering multiplayer standard and they fall behind a bit (when they could have been ahead) by not reconfiguring the system itself.. At the very least this is the style of the time.. I'll plug this into this and that into those and this, back into that.... Technology!

like both your take and shmup junkie, both make good points, but also can I point out games associated with the TG-16 like Splatterhouse, Bonk, Ys, R-Type, would get sequels on Genesis and SNES. Licensed games like Die Hard or Batman, American IP's would be Japan only PC Engine games. Fighting games were becoming a very popular genre in the west and TG-16 had pretty much none in the west while SF2 CE and Arcade Card Neo Geo fighters were in Japan. NEC/Hudson sort of just gave up early on and weren't fully committed to the western audience, didn't try hard enough to win them over.

About add-ons, there was one company that did it right Coleco. They had a 2600 adapter, a steering wheel, a 4 button controller and a trackball. They did the one thing that turbo Graphics did not knew which was say everything was essential for the whole series. The 2600 adapter was for those who want to bring their old system over. The driving was for driving fans. The 4 button controller was for those who like arcade style sticks and had added functionality, and a trackball was needed or optimized with certain games. Where Coleco got in trouble was making the Adam. Something that was both a stand-alone computer and an ad on computer for those who owned a Colecovision . Also about the Japaneseness if the TG16 failing in the US, this that's exactly why Sega failed in Japan was because they were an American company before the Atari crash and had too much American DNA to get over Japanese one-way cultural wall when it came to video games. Most people in Japan think balloon fight was the first flappy game when in actuality it was Williams's Joust they got the rest of the world repeatedly flapping. And Americans made great games before the Atari crash. But let's admit Midway got greedy by overcrediting themselves for Pac-Man and Space Invaders. I didn't take the heart they were Namco games until much later. And I was a dumb ten-year-old American back then. Midway's over crediting themselves for Pac-Man and Space Invaders cost their hone system, the Bally Astrocade, the official home licenses for Namco games.

In order to get my NES in 1987, I had to sign an exclusivity form....using my own blood. Sorry TG16...my hands were tied, and my blood was drained.

“We all knew about the console back then, we just mostly decided not to buy it…” dude, this is crazy broad generalization and it feels like a desperate grasping of straws. I never heard of that console when I was a kid and nobody else I grew up with heard of it either. Go ahead and ask around. I’m sure you’ll find that my own generalization holds more water than yours lol

That was exceptional. Being a teen of that era(soon to be 47) I certainly have thick goggles for nostalgia however living it gave those to me. I had a turbo , a genesis and snes and whatever else I could get my grubby hands on. I was a junky then and still. Aside from some true favorites on the Turbo as a whole SNES was and is the favorite for memories overall followed by NES and Gameboy. Then that stereo and TV maker came in and shook my bones having me jump away from the N64(while owning it never grabbed as hard as it's elder systems nor Sony). Keep up the good work and thank for such a lengthy docu-movie experience.

bro.. 1k subs? this video alone is worth that.. great stuff dude edit:turbo graphx minis are going for 400 now :(

almost all the popular games in NES are japasnes .. ( Sonic - Mario - Zelda - street fighter - Castlevania - Streets of rage - Punch out - Duck hunt - Biohazard - shinobi - Metal gear - Megaman - Metroid - Final fight ) even Duck tales & Mickey mouse were made in Japan by capcom that time .. that's almost like 90% of Global childhood .. people they started to play USA games only when ( Mortal Kombat & Aladdin ) got released .. and at that time childhood was over , they already became teen agers LOL

Nintendo actually always sells hardware at a profit, the only exceptions were the Wii U and 3DS, IIRC. They make a profit on every Switch sold, before the games make a profit.

Peak YouTubing is listening to two unknown RU-vidrs having a passionate multi-hour debate over an unkown console.

I still say that the 3DO was the greatest console of all time (I don't) and i am shocked as to why it wasn't a worldwide hit (I'm not) and it will forever be known as one of the all-time great (it won't).

just pointing out 10 million consoles sold would normally be a "failure", but consider the PC Engine the overwhelming majority were in Japan. Put it into context, Switch, one of the most successful consoles ever has sold about 18 million units in Japan as of writing this. So PC Engine was a success in Japan, obviously not worldwide.

watched both of your videos today. this was spot on. simple economics of terrible business practices. reminds me of the L's wireless companies take off those deep discounts on phones. you earned my subscribe, Fam!

Back in 1991 PC Engine in USA didnt figure, not even Sega until came Sonic. The market was almost 100% for Nintendo. U red a magazine saw some vigilante Pc Engine game, was okay but the magazine was full of Nintendo and Sega publicity. Back then i has many consoles and computers but Pc Engine wasnt in mi average radar.

I just watched this video after seeing it linked elsewhere. You're right on target with just a few details being a bit overlooked. For example while the Turbo CD add-on sold only around 20,000 units. The TurboDuo added to the overall install base. Tied to your questioning of the PC Engine sales taking off at the start of the systems life, here is a little more context. When the port of R-Type (well the first half of it as part 1) came out in Spring of 1988, this led to a run on supplies of the console and very quickly threw huge momentum behind the PC Engine, the sales of R-type inspired lots of developers to see this as a console for shooting fans which made it THE shooter platform of its era which is what led to so many shmups appearing on the platform. The reason the PC Engine outsold the Famicom in 1988-1990 was due to the fact that the Famicom had reached a point where most people who were going to buy one by five years into the systems lifespan had. Sure there were eventually more feature rich models (like the Twin Famicom and AV Famicom with composite output replacing the archaic RF, or the Famicom titler that used it as a CG generator for people making home camcorder footage) that caused short term boosts in hardware sales at times. But for the most part the Famicom hardware had reached critical mass by 1988, so while games continued to sell well for years, hardware sales were only going to go down from there and this led to NEC being overconfident in the US without the understanding of why the PC Engine was outselling the Famicom in the first place. With that said you are dead to with regards to the fact that due to add-ons and costly extras like the need for a multi-tap for two player games, the fact that the vast majority of the best games came out on the higher initial investment CD add-on or Duo compared to the entry level versions of its competitors is one of the key reasons the platform wasn't as successful. And you're absolutely right with regards to the Hudson royalty agreement being the main reason that NEC Home Electronics USA went in that direction, with very little of the licensing revenue coming their way, the agreement made the system doomed before it ever reached American store shelves. On a side note, you have a new subscriber and an thumbs up. Anyway, great job on a great video.

Yeah... your whole "America loved Anime" in 1990 is soo inaccurate. There was a vast majority games that didn't know what Anime was. Those that did, were very-very much niche. To say it had any sort of influence on gamers in NA is about ridiculous as you can get.

I had to watch introduction to this video again. The Japanese history have not known anything about it. Never heard of city pop either. So I learned a lot from the first 20 minutes of this fantastic video you guys made thanks, Sal

I only came here for the Super Star Soldier music, and i immediately left before the Guile theme.

16:45 the jaguar wasn't 64-bit. it used two 32-bit processors. atari used this fact disingenuously, ie, "32+32=64!!" . but like, the 32x and the saturn used two 32-bit processors as well. so no lol, that's not how that works.

Oh, if I were suggesting Sega's ad team doing ads for Turbo Grafx: Turbo Grafx is what Genesisn't.

48:00 that’s the reason, you had a choice- you could buy like five great games for NES or upgrade and there wasn’t any exciting games for these other systems

Great video……..DAD. -_-

This guy really started off his 1hr30min video with a history lesson on WWII. These video essays are getting way too overconfident LMFAO

I still have my original TurboGrafx-16 console complete in box and my TurboExpress, TurboDuo and almost every game I purchased back in the early 90’s. My first console was the Sega Genesis I bought just before my TG16 due to the Genesis slightly lower price because it was an additional cost to buy a TurboTap for multiplayer and a TurboBooster for AV out whereas Genesis had 2 controller ports and only required an inexpensive AV cable. It was very frustrating as a TG16 owner back then, at least after it’s first year as game releases became few and far between when compared to my Genesis. I recall going to my game store many times not seeing any new TG16 game releases for months upon months while the Genesis game shelves were filled with games and new releases almost every month if not weeks. Another thing is the games we received didn’t have licensed teams/players for the sports games. NEC didn’t believe in that so your Football, Baseball, Basketball and other games had generic players where Sega had full licensed rosters for MLB, NFL, NHL, NBA, Boxing, Golf etc. NEC also didn’t spend much on advertising where Sega was all in. NEC simply didn’t have a lot of experience or understanding the North American market and made a lot of poor decisions when deciding what games to port over to the North American market. NA never got CastleVania, Street Fighter II C.E. and a plethora of other wonderful PC Engine games. And there was a time when TTI was offered an exclusive on Mortal Kombat but NEC Japan turned it down, so many mistakes were made. Another thing you’ll notice is that NA TurboChip cards had 3-4 color plain graphic text whereas PC Engine received beautiful artworks on their HuCards, at least not till TTI took over sales and distribution around 1992 when NA started to see some nice graphics on the TurboChip cards but by then it was too late as Sega & Nintendo we’re running away with the video games market. Yeah, many frustrations that are fresh in my mind as they were back then. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed my TurboGrafx-16 system and games but when compared to my Genesis it’s a stark difference between the two in North America and my Genesis easily was played and enjoyed 10x as much if not more. Today you’ll find so many wonderful PC Engine games that NA never received thinking how in the world did NEC not port them over to North America.

It’s FOMO now. The games are great and many people didn’t get to play the system so to many it’s new.

Cat, this video condense not only the failure of N.A. TurboGrafx-16, but the overstimation of NEC PC Engine in its own main country, Japan. It's important to make a clear statement about the socio-economical context in Japan during the late 80's. PC Engine was a sucess early on because japanese common people had have a lot of extra money and the console was cheap enough to catch the interest of some casual Famicom user, and some demographic that latter we could call them "the Otaku Market". The Otaku Market it's own strenght is at the same time a weakness: A very loyal and dedicated fanbase that could buy expensive consumer's electronic and special edition toys, but at the same time, is a niche market that don't grew more. However, I disagree in two points: 1) The anime wasn't a big market back in the 80's in the USA. Sure, there were some shows that were classics for some kids back in the 80's (the mish-mash Harmony Gold create with Robotech from Macross and the other shows used as sources, the americanizated version of Gatchaman, the G-Force), there were some shows as Speed Racer and the Theater Masterpiece that were foundly remenber by a kid's generation before the 80's ones, and some of the most popular cartoons during the 80's were animated by Toei and other japanesse studios, but take in consideration for the vast amout of people in USA don't saw them as "japanesse anime" and some shows (Macross) were a thing very different from the original source. That distinction came with the original localization of Akira and Lensman and the first bootleg OVA's avaible form fandoms and obscure importers. The USA didn't have a notion about anime until the early 90's, when in Europe, México, South America, and some southeast Asia countries anime were more common and accepted as a different beast from the american cartoons (Mazinger Z, Arbegas, Hurracaine Polymar, Galaxy Express 999, Cobra or Captain Tsubasa were a thing outisde Japan back in the 80's and early 90's but completly unnoticiable in USA). So, the general public couldn't care less about the "anime look" of the games, even more, we have evidence that the general US public were very adverse to anime look games; when we search about the total dissaster that was for Nintendo of America the relase of Dragon Warrior (Dragon Quest 1 in North America), part of the failure was confer to the cutsey and "weird" heavy anime syled monsters and enemies of the game, thanks for Akira Toriyama (a man was a total alien for the westerns during the 80') 2) The North American name was simple too long. Whle I understand the name "PC Engine" could be very confusing with a clone PC, the name "TurboGrafX-16" was too long, could be unimpronunciable and sound stupid. Why not "Turbo-16" or "Turbo NEC"? A shorter name could be more distinctive and memorable. Another thing you didn't notice enough is the big amout of PC Engine variants relased: The CoreGrafx, the SuperGrafx (that have 5 exclusive games), the Shuttle (a crap deceit), the Turbo Duo, the CD Rom-Rom... Sega was widlly critizated for the MegaDrive / Genesis variants and the expensive and commercial doubtful add ons relased, but NEC wasnt so harsh critizated for creating the same and worst errors (there were like 3 expansion cards to the PC Engine in Japan, for example). Keep the good work, because your TurboGrafx-16 / PC Engine videos were a fun ride. I hope you could release more material, thanks buddy, and good luck!

I like to see the game Zool ported to the Turbografx 16.

There were two main reasons it failed: 1) Most video rental stores (Blockbuster) did not rent TG16 games, but they DID rent NES games. 2) Only a single built-in controller port, and absurdly short controller cables. Thus, no sharing the fancy new game console with whining siblings or friends by enjoying multiplayer games, without buying a TurboTap and second controller... and even then, you'd have to sit too close to the TV due to the short controller cables.

BitHead1000 is the man! How dare you?

As an American in his 40's, and a PCE/Turbografx-16 Fan, I gotta be honest. This console didn't exist to me as a kid. I don't remember TV commercials for it, I never seen one in the store and I didn't even know it existed until some kid on the Bus tried convincing me HIS TG16 was better than my SNES. First I was like, "WTF even is a TG16?" and "NUH-UH!" Then Name calling ensued. I still hate that Kid to this day >.

58:28 An interesting thing about when an artpiece in general is examined is that it will always be based on when it is experienced in the first place. Almost always will the initial contemporary experiences with an artpiece be prioritized above all else as opposed to when it first came out eons ago. An artpiece will always be a product of its time with the time, place, and people that were involved with making it. A human's experiences seem to always be changing and absorbing these experiences from said artpieces. So even if an artpiece in of itself can't change on its own, a human will always change. It isn't the same playing a game 4-years old on original hardware, and playing the same game on an emulator years later from a computer. It is so many little pieces of *experience* that people never seem to notice that all add up.

No brainers! No pack in street fighter 2! No pack in Castlevania rondo of blood (English translation)!!! Serious missed opportunities for TurboGrafx greatness in north America!!!

I'm 32 minutes into this video and it's FUCKING HILARIOUS :D I'm also going to fanboy over the cyriak comment 😍😍😍😍

80s Japan sounds fricking AWESOME

I subscribed. I usually don't spend over an hour watching anybody's video that you made very cogent points that are easy to forget even for those of us who are buying video games at that time. I've got to say. The lettering style on most of the early tg16 games is pretty damn ugly. You're right though. And yes. But look at something really ugly like MOTO RACER box art.yuck Dot but I gladly subscribe to your video and when I have time I'll be watching the ones about the history. You're reasonable. And I didn't even think of how much the CD had on was $400 at the time yikes! I bought my for $80 in 1993 or so. Worth more than that now! Thanks for the video and look forward to seeing more stuff from you.

And Rondo of Blood, well, that didn't release outside of Japan until.... Sony make a crappy port of it to the PSP.

I say it failed because of lack of third party support, timing, ugly console design, and bad marketing. C’mon look no further than the Turbo Grafx 16 box art for the console and games they are hideous. The Japanese artwork and designs for the PC Engine looked way more appealing especially to a kid. I grew up when these consoles were slugging it out. It was Sega and Nintendo that had cool box art. The PC Engine should have kept the same design as in Europe and Japan.

I would have to agree with you, Creative Cat Productions. The Turbo Graf-X had a bunch of expensive crap and inferior games when compared to the Sega Genesis/Megadrive.

I suddenly feel the need to go spend my life savings on TurboGrafx 16 stuff.

I found this video very well researched and produced. It happens I agree with you on most points (the main ones). I think people can speak about how we think things were (based on some interviews of events that happened years ago) but in reality we are dealing with human memory, unless there was evidence outside of that (which there really isn't, which is my issue with Nutt's interviews). And with many videos on YT it is down to the populist view, which in most of these kinds of productions is really preaching to the converted. But your video (including the first one) was a breath of fresh air. At this point I have am placing you up there with GTV Japan (which is my opinion is high praise). What I didn't agree was is very slight, I think. The story about EA kind of makes sense, but only if you take into account their (mostly) excellent record in the computer world, and the industry-wide recognition of the arrogance of Trip Hawkins. And I enjoyed Console Wars but I really feel like I need to call into question some of what Tom Kalinske talked about. He really made it sound like just about everything he touched turned to gold and when crap was handed down it was just about always from Japan. To a certain extent this does sound plausible, but I imagine the truth is somewhere in the middle. Good work and I look forward to looking into the rest of your content.

It was a lack of games and a price point that got you Keith Courage in Alpha Zones and two other games, Sega saw an opportunity and ran with it. Mega Drive/Genesis was a brilliant design. They tried to do the same thing with Saturn. Capcom or Konami or some other company told Sega about the PS1 3D capability. Not to mention how bad the launch and games were. Saturn was a capable machine. Even in Japan they had to stop making consoles, because they were not selling enough games to offset the cost. It was a sad end to a great machine. Dreamcast was awesome, but it had no killer app. Shenmue should have been it, but it was pretty boring. 32X should never have come out and all of Sega's teams should have been hard at work on Saturn. Hind sight is 20/20 I guess.

Should we bring up, how Nintendo more or less blackmailed other publishers and developers to only release games on Nintendo consoles or else they would not be allowed to release them on their platforms anymore? Nintendo were bricks and they still are. I'm not about talking the developers but the leadership. When you bring up all these great games that came out for the NES, most of them were from other companies that could have released their games also on the PCE or Sega consoles but didn't for quite a while because of the threat from Nintendo. Seeing this video, especially the beginning of the PCE, it really feels odd that this console was barely getting any third party support, even though NEC's PC88 and 98 series of computers were quite successful.

Man if I only watched the first couple minutes of this video I would totally get the wrong idea

Over 5 mins of crap before you got to the pc engine. WTF. Talk about filler.

From my perspective, growing up in a small city in the midwest, I simply wasn't aware of the TG16. I had seen it in magazines but it wasn't available anywhere within several hours driving distance so I had never actually seen one until I visited the game store in the Mall Of America in MN. There I saw the machine on display along with Hu cards and indeed the fricken awesome turbo express. I also saw the Atari Lynx and the 3do (800 bucks?) at the same visit so that should give a good time frame. I saw Sega and Nintendo commercials all the time but rarely if ever a TG16 commercial. If it were available I would have compared it to the NES and had it instead.

Kalinskie sacrificed short term profits to get brand recognition because he was competing against a brand that had like 95% market share. It's the same thing Lexus did when they entered the luxury car market: undercut everyone to get people in the door and then convert those curious new customers into loyal regular ones. The problem was that because that success wasn't enjoyed where the decisions were made at Sega of Japan, it wasn't safe guarded. They squandered the good will that came with a near 50% increase in American market share with add ons and when they should have been cashing in from all the lean years on the Saturn, they were snuffed out by the competition.

Famicom Disk System wasn’t a failure; it was a stop-gap between development of built in mapper chips to cartridges.

Indeed sometimes the very best things are less than successful, i mean, look at CCP😂😂😂 wow man that was some truth and self aware af of a joke.❤❤❤ i learned so much from this video. I think you totally closed the case on this. You deserve way more subs and views. You have a viewer for life.

To be fair to the Neo Geo, it was never intended to compete with Sega and Nintendo. It started out as a rental system and did very well which led to a home system. It was for people (adults) with large disposable income. I did some research on SNK recently which led to some very strange discoveries. 'Neo Geo' means New World which alludes to the New World Order (the dream of the masons and why we are in this Covid situation). The 330 Mega limit is simply a 33 masonic code. The phrase 'The Future Is Now' is worth 330 in one type of numerology (It's a 33 masonic code). In another type of numerology it's worth 666 (The number of the beast). One of my MVS arcade boards was dead so I removed the bios chip hoping a new bios chip would fix it. Hidden under the bios is a PENTAGRAM.

If the TG16 had good sports titles like the Sega Genesis did then I believe it would have sold much better. I wish I had kept my TG16.

I don't know when we got our TurboGrafx-16 (probably on clearance at Kmart), but I was well aware of the system and its advertisements at the time, so I agree that failure likely wasn't due to no one being aware of the system at the time. The relationship between NEC and Hudson does make sense, though.

Such an informational and well produced video. I'm really glad that I watched it.

70%babble 30% what the title said.= monetized mo ney for this channel. Very clever non the less.

About the adult diapers and used female underwear: the Japanese have vending machines where you can buy a used diaper that has been used by a specific girl/woman. The photo's are there and you choose one. The diapers have shit in them. The girl/woman has done her business in them. I imagine you can then go home, wear them and writhe around in them in ecstacy. Talk about degeneracy!

I'm convinced. You got a new subscriber. Hell of an introduction. Well done 👏

I eventually got a Turbografx with Splatterhouse, and I couldn't find games for it unless I ordered them online lol. I played Bonks adventure more than anything. Then suddenly, *poof*. I think after that I had a JVC X-eye after that which played SEGA CD, SEGA Genesis, and kareoke lol.

Great video. TG16 is my favorite game system but when it came out along side the Genesis, all my friends recognized the Sega games that brought the arcade home.

Also I want to say this is the greatest video about the business of retro consoles I've ever seen on this platform. Your centering of the economic health of the given country and the experience of the parents was like scales falling from the eyes

Bad timing. Should have launched in 1987.

I think you're both wrong and right. It's probably a of a little bit of everything mentioned in the video that led to the failure. Now, regarding what was the biggest reason, I do disagree with your theory somewhat. While I do believe it contributed, I don't believe the TG16 combine total cost was the biggest factor. Why? Because I don't think a lot of people even noticed at the time. They just didn't want to buy the TG16. I personally believe the biggest factor was the NES and Genesis competition combined.

My friend had a Turbografx. The control wires were really short.

Being around 12 or 13, I was exactly the age to get my parents to purchase a TG-16, but I got a Genesis instead. The TG-16 looked funky and old school. The commercials were terrible and the games looked like bad versions of Mario and Kung Fu with bigger sprites. I don't remember the CD or any other addon being a factor at all. RF was fine. None of my friends or I cared at all how the console was hooked up. The only unacceptable video quality was black and white. I had a black and white TV in my room for a while in the late 80's and we all hated it. I only had one controller for both NES and Genesis. If I knew we were playing a game that had 2 player simultaneous play, then I would have the friend bring an extra controller. By the time the TG-16 was getting clearanced, still no one I knew bought it, mainly because we didn't know the games. I enjoy several of the games now, but nothing stands out as a killer app that could have sold the console to American kids at the time.

I like that you did some good theories and research into the topic but I really do not like how you immediately dismiss the NEC PC-ENGINE and its CD-ROM2 attachment or even Sega Genesis and SegaCD for the FEAR of the monster of the Nintendo Entertainment System and the Super Nintendo... it's not that simple to just lump the competition like that because there were real factors that stagnated Sega in North America, namely the newly formed subsidiary branch, Sega of America which had unreliable management staff and a leadership who quit or left and allegedly claimed that videogames were not gonna be profitable which is almost like a curse because later hired Sega of America leadership had that same lack of faith including Tom Kalinske who since 1993 was giving out misinformation and fear about the Project Saturn being over $400 dollars. Note that the Sega MegaCD launched in Japan for ¥50,000.00 Yen which roughly is around $500 dollars because it featured competitive CPU, graphics and sound processors to battle it out with the NEC/Hudson Soft technology and the potential for what Nintendo was making threats about. The NEC PC-ENGINE Duo also launched in Japan for slightly similar or higher price because of the technology being cutting edge... Also do not just dismiss the buying consumer into just parents. Nintendo launched their FamiCom in 1983 Japan and by 1986 they had sold ten million FamiComs in Japan alone, securing the loyalty of Japanese third party devs... Nintendo then launches in North America 1985 and Nintendo of America goes through their teething problems without some management leader quitting or claiming videogames weren't profitable... Btw Atari largely abandoned the game system market in favor of selling their Atari Computers under the belief that a specialized videogame computer aka videogame systems were no longer profitable essentially giving the market wide open to Nintendo and even Sega who had far superior tech than both Atari's 7800 and the NES but of course Sega of America was so unstable that they dipped to a dismal third place and under management by Tonka Toys... a toy company clueless about videogames or arcades. As such Sega headquarters in Japan had to increase funding to reformat and reorganize Sega of America and by relation also lost their potential to have launched the Sega MegaDrive in 1988 North America as test markets which is probably the other problem. By 1989 the NES and Nintendo of America had basically formed a beachhead fortress... it wasn't just "nuts for Nintendo" they basically kept advancing the chess piece and formed a defensive line... Nintendo of America also greatly benefited from the 1986 ten million FamiComs sold which greatly allowed the chips in the NES to be highly profitable, mass produced and allowed for price drops in the approaching new cutting edge competition. Therefore by 1989 the NES could sell for a lower price, had four years of marketing presence and the year before had started up their official Nintendo Power Magazine which quickly became monthly and if you purchased a NES game or NES system in 1988 and 1989 you were guaranteed to get a slip offering a two year subscription to Nintendo Power Magazine for the price of one year. Michael Katz knew this and so did NEC America... that's why Michael Katz had started the official Sega Visions Magazine in 1990 but that got stuck in not being funded once he was fired by the replacement hack job. NEC was starting TG16 fan magazines... but here is the problem or question. by 1987 going into 1988 and 1989, NES was setting sales records in North America again securing loyalty from third parties counting the beans of how many NES systems sold the previous years so at some point both NEC America and Sega of America misjudged the sales potential for their brand new cutting edge technology systems... it wasn't really just pricing NES went through test markets in 1985... that's an edge gaining move that was sheer magic or again Atari walked away and didn't bother leaving the NES to secure dipping their toes... Therefore it is just UNREASONABLE and unrealistic to just expect the targeted one million Genesis sold in one year promise or even the 700,000 TG16 units produced... If both NEC and Sega had set lower production runs and targets in 1989... things would have been dramatically different because it's likely that Michael Katz would not have been fired and it's even more likely that the TG16 would have been slowly increasing production runs instead of making what seems to be a "Hey Nintendo sold 5 millions systems in U.S.A., we should be able to completely sell out stock especially because this is new tech. Another way of looking at it is if ATI released RADEON 8500 in 2001 to wild success and four years later Nvidia released their Geforce 6800 GTX but people had instead no real knowledge of what the 6800 offered and worse they expected use production runs to sell out from over production.. Also yes thank you for finally saying that Tom Kalinske had a spotty record... many things started and arranged by Michael Katz including the Genesis Does comparison commercials were all set up by Katz and Kalinske took all the credit.

But the Turbo Express was pretty great

Turbografx 16 and Sega needs to team up on a new next-generation console?

You know, a lot of people say Kalinske started the "GENESIS DOES" campaign, but according to Console Wars it was Michael Katz. What's the real story?

The Atari 2600 had lots of games and was priced at $300. The intellivision had their machine at $200 I was trying for games that are not easily replicated in the arcade like the original sports games. The ColecoVision was 150 and had enough arcade games that people wanted, like ironically hits, from Nintendo and Sega, the ColecoVision became the number one system of 1984 then shot themselves in the foot with the Adam. But unique to the second generation was not who had the most exclusive games because they were infiltrating each other's ecosystems with M Network, AtariSoft and Coleco's red and blue label games.

Sega did everything NEC did but better. Sega CD was better than NEC CD.

I have to say it was the console itself and games during launch. I actually remember when it came out I myself didn't like the one controller port and the price of the console when other consoles had 2 ports and more games. I remember playing games like Raiden, splatterhouse, impossimole, kieth courage, bonks adventure, and aero blasters at my friend's house and it was awesome. But even then couldn't justify getting the console because of the genesis and super nintendo at the time. They had more value overall.

"The true reason kids wound up with a Sega Genesis in 1989..." No, that is incorrect. The Nes was not selling out of stores in 1989. Individual games were selling out but not the console. You're talking about a console that came out in 1985...in 1989. Not even when the Nes dropped down to 100 dollars, did it completely sell out nationwide. Moving along... In reality, most gamers who got a Genesis or TG-16 simply were ready for something better. I remember well my mother asking me which console I wanted for Christmas. At the time, it was the biggest decision of my life, and I didn't want to be stuck with a console that might fizzle out and not be supported. What helped me immensely was several friends got their Genesis consoles a few months before Christmas. After seeing what Sega's 16-bit console could do, the choice became easy. I got my Genesis on Christmas of 1989 with Altered Beast (pack-in), Ghouls n' Ghosts, and Space Harrier II. Not because of happenstance or luck but because I wanted it. For reference- Neo Geo AES games cost $200 to $250 a pop new. Even after its price drop to $400, their games still retailed well above $120 mark. I know because I tried like hell to get one and almost succeeded... sort of. I had one in my hands before my mother found out how much it was selling for. I finally got my AES in 2008... Addendum- EA was not hugely important for console gaming in 1989. However, they became a powerhouse in the industry from early 1990 forward. EA brought more than Madden to 16-bit consoles. Road Rash, Madden, and the Strike series made EA household names in the US.

I had a TG16. I liked it. A lot. I was really sad there were so few games. And very hard to find. I had to mail order my games.

This is an amazing doc, you need more subscribers

Yes, I agree that we should remember how it was at the time. I got my Japanese Saturn on Day 1 and hoped for a Street Fighter II collection of perfect arcade ports soon after launch. We did get that game... 4 years later. Capcom took a year to get going and I couldn't stand it any longer. I swapped my Saturn for a Neo Geo CD. The fact that Capcom needed a year to release a CPS2 port suggests they got their development systems very late (almost at launch).

Interesting. I think it’s really a combination of all these things. I think you’re right on with the overwhelming cost and push to include a way too expensive cd add on and just too many extras which confused parents who had no idea what they were looking for (perfectly shown in your cartoon). However I truly never even heard of the Turbo when I was a kid. So they may have spent the same as Sega in advertising but Sega reached me. I don’t even think the Turbo was sold at Kay Bee Toys which was my local toy store. I first remember seeing the TurboDuo at RadioShack years later. I think you might be underestimating the value of sports games and celebrity endorsements. EA and their sports games especially the NHL series were pretty big. But anyway still a good video and I’m glad I found your channel.

It was sold through Sears with no marketing support and Nintendo and Sega were superior at the time.

I'm quite pleased that you've done another video on TG-16.

I owned the Turbo Graphics 16 and getting friends to come over and play it was like pulling teeth. When 90% of your friends have a Nintendo it gives them something almost all have in common. You were able to talk about the games you were playing and offer help on beating them. Even more so it would expand your access to other games without having to pay because you could borrow or trade games with friends. This was not an option for the kid who had only neighborhood turbo Graphics 16 console...lol. I ended up getting a Nintendo and never played with the turbo graphics console, I believe my mother sold it for 40.00 at a garage sale a few years later with 5 games.

What a great video...thanks

The interesting part starts at 5:38

I still blame it all on the delayed western launch. I think the Saturn comparison is invalid. Sega of America and Sega of Japan were at each other's throats at the time, with the Japanese office vetoing most of Sega of America's big plans. Sega of America planned a September launch for the Saturn (A week before the PlayStation), but Japan demanded that they release early, forcing them into their infamous surprise E3 launch. This release date swap was much to the dismay of developers and retail stores who weren't alerted of the change ahead of time, resulting in a shoddy launch lineup and poor availability. KB Toys was so outraged by the switch (and not being among the stores that got the first batch of Saturn units), that they dropped Sega from their stores altogether. You also bring up the Saturn but ignore the Xbox 360, who in beating Sony to the punch by a year, forced Sony to play catchup for pretty much the entire 7th console generation until some high profile exclusives like God of War III and Uncharted started taking big chunks out of Microsoft's market share. An earlier launch (even as late as Christmas 1988), would have offset many of NEC's mistakes. Sega and NEC cannibalized each other's sales due to launching so close together, and I bet NEC would have had a much easier time selling through that overblown initial shipment of 750,000 units if they had the 16-bit market all to themselves, just like in Japan.

They didn't have a football game in America until 1990. I was a nerd so I didn't care but that was just insane. They also didn't release any other baseball games let alone one with an MLB license. And they didn't have a basketball game until 1991. You would have to be a hardcore nerd gamer to not be annoyed as hell by the lack of sports titles.

Excellent video ^_^

This was excellent

borrringgg babbling intro.

That apartment building reminds me of the movie Baby Boy when Snoop was over at his girls place lol

Great follow-up. The inner workings at Hudson Soft are severely underresearched. Nowadays with emulation, it can be easy to lose sight of the reality of getting all the right (hopefully) working hardware to even get a game running.