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Summary
The TurboGrafx-16 Entertainment SuperSystem, known in Japan and in France as the PC Engine is a home video game console jointly developed by Hudson Soft and NEC Home Electronics, released in Japan on October 30, 1987, in the United States on August 29, 1989, and in France on November 22, 1989. It was the first console released in the 16-bit era, albeit still utilizing an 8-bit CPU. Originally intended to compete with the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), it ended up competing with the Sega Genesis, and later on the Super NES.
The TurboGrafx-16 has an 8-bit CPU, a 16-bit video color encoder, and a 16-bit video display controller. The GPUs are capable of displaying 482 colors simultaneously, out of 512. With dimensions of 14 cm×14 cm×3.8 cm (5.5 in×5.5 in×1.5 in), the PC Engine once held the record for the world’s smallest game console.
The TurboGrafx-16 failed to break into the North American market and sold poorly. However, in Japan the PC Engine was very successful, briefly outselling Super Famicom, and eventually being in a steady second place, ahead of the Mega Drive. Two major revisions, the PC Engine SuperGrafx and the TurboDuo, were released in 1989 and 1991, respectively. The entire series was succeeded by the PC-FX in 1994, which was only released in Japan.
History
The TurboGrafx-16 was a collaborative effort between the relatively young Hudson Soft (founded in 1973) and NEC Home Electronics. NEC’s interest in entering the lucrative video game market coincided with Hudson’s failed attempt to sell designs for then-advanced graphics chips to Nintendo.
The TurboGrafx-16 was the first video game console to have a CD-ROM peripheral, and first device ever to use CD-ROM as a storage medium for video games. NEC released the CD-ROM² in Japan on December 4, 1988, and released the TurboGrafx-CD in the United States on August 1, 1990.
The TurboGrafx-CD had a launch price of $399.99, and did not include any bundled games. Fighting Street and Monster Lair were the TurboGrafx-CD launch titles; Ys Book I & II soon followed.
The TurboGrafx-series was the first video game console ever to have a contemporaneous fully self-contained portable counterpart, the Turbo Express, that contained identical hardware and played identical game software (utilizing HuCard format game software).
NEC/Turbo Technologies later released the TurboDuo, which combined the CD-ROM and TurboGrafx-16 into one unit.
The TurboGrafx-16 was released in the New York City and Los Angeles test market in late August 1989. Initially, the TurboGrafx-16 was marketed as a direct competitor to the NES and early television ads touted the TG-16’s superior graphics and sound. These ads featured a brief montage of the TG-16’s launch titles: Blazing Lazers, China Warrior,Vigilante, Alien Crush, etc. The TG-16 was also in direct competition with the Sega Genesis, which had had its own New York/Los Angeles test-market launch two weeks prior, on August 14. The Genesis launch was accompanied by an ad campaign mocking NEC’s claim that the TurboGrafx-16 was the first 16-bit console.
NEC claimed that it had sold 750,000 TG-16 consoles in the United States, and 500,000 CD-ROM units worldwide, by March 1991. That year NEC released the PC Engine Duo in Japan, a model which could play HuCards and CD-ROM² discs, making it the first game console with an integrated CD-ROM drive. The console was licensed to Turbo Technologies Incorporated, who released it in North America in 1992 as the TurboDuo. In addition to standard CD-ROM² format discs, the Duo could also play games in the newly introduced Super CD-ROM² format due to its greater RAM size (the TurboGrafx-16 and its CD player could support this new format only through the use of a separately available upgrade, the Super System Card, which TTI sold via mail order). The unit came into competition with the Sega CD, which was released almost immediately after. Turbo Technologies ran comic book ads featuring Johnny Turbo. The ads mocked Sega, and emphasized that though the TurboDuo and Sega CD had the same retail price, the TurboDuo was a standalone platform and included five pack-in games, whereas Sega CD buyers needed to purchase separately sold games and a Genesis console before they could use the system.
However, the North American console gaming market continued to be dominated by the Super NES and Genesis rather than the new CD-based consoles. In May 1994 Turbo Technologies announced that it was dropping support for the Duo, though it would continue to offer repairs for existing units and provide ongoing software releases through independent companies in the USA and Canada.
Reception
In Japan, the PC Engine was very successful, and at one point was the top-selling console in the nation. In North America and Europe the situation was reversed, with both Sega and Nintendo dominating the console market at the expense of NEC. Initially, the TurboGrafx-16 sold well in the U.S., but eventually it suffered from lack of support from third-party software developers and publishers.
In 1990, ACE magazine praised the console’s racing game library, stating that, compared to “all the popular consoles, the PC Engine is way out in front in terms of the range and quality of its race games.” Reviewing the Turbo Duo model in 1993, GamePro gave it a “thumbs down”. Though they praised the system’s CD sound, graphics, and five-player capability, they criticized the outdated controller and the games library, saying the third party support was “almost nonexistent” and that most of the first party games were localizations of games better suited to the Japanese market. In 2009, the TurboGrafx-16 was ranked the 13th greatest video game console of all time by IGN, citing “a solid catalog of games worth playing,” but also a lack of third party support and the absence of a second controller port.
History of Console Gaming 