I never saw a TurboGrafx-16, not even in stores.
>>12617569I didn't even know it existed until a few years agoI was more aware of CD-i and 3DO
Me neither because it was never launched in my console
>>12617569NEC did absolutely nothing to promote it outside of Japan. The only time I saw and used one was an import machine from Japan.
Yeah cause it was called PC Engine in the civilized world
>>12617582Civilized world barely bought this piece of shit. 5.8 million units sold during its entire lifetime - worldwide. Embarrassing.
>>12617592I’ve never understood how anyone can claim the PCE was wildly successful in Japan. That country has a population of over 100 million people and it only managed to sell a few million consoles over there.
>>12617569I remember Bonk ads but outside of that I can't recall seeing a TG-16 either although I am sure I must have walked by one when checking out what Genesis games were in stock back in the day.
>>12617569I saw ads for it in 90's comics I had as a kid.
>>12617579yeah it was never launched in the UK but there was an import scene for the PC Engine
>>12617617in 1989 it was the number one best selling console in Japan
>>12617569I saw one at Toys R Us being demoed with Keith Courage. It looked like shit.
They waited an entire year to sell it outside of japan then gave it a stupid name, they deserved to fail
>>12617710Nigger
>>12617734That pixie chick is cute.
>>12617617It sold 10 million in Japan
>>12617772>>12617592
>>12617774It sold 10 million in Japan and 2.5 million abroad.
>>1261777610 million is way too much, your numbers are off. The PS2 sold 17 million in Japan.>In Japan, NEC had sold a total of 5.84 million PC Engine units as of 1995[24][25] of which CD-ROM2 units and the Duo combied contributed 1.92 million as of March 1996.[26] This adds up to a total of more than 6.59 million PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 units sold in Japan and the United States as of 1995. The final licensed release for the PC Engine was Dead of the Brain Part 1 & 2 on June 3, 1999, on the Super CD-ROM2 format.
>>12617569Never saw it in stores, ever. I saw commercials for it when Bonk released, but nothing after that. I thought absolutely nothing of the TG16/PC Engine until I learned about Castlevania: Rondo of Blood. That and YsI&II are the only games i've played for the system.
>>12617569The PCE was a hyper efficient powerhouse and looked the part, its design was slick and felt like something from a sci-fi film. Then when they brought it stateside they elongated the elegance out of it for some reason and by the time you attached the American CD unit to it the entire console just looked like a fucking whore. And then their big mascot was a LITERAL BABY. Did the suits really expect people to find that badass? What were they thinking?
I never knew it existed until the retronaughts podcast did an episode about it.
>>12617569same. i was aware of it (and bonk) but dont recall ever seeing one in a store.
>>12617710Even Jonathan Ross had a PC Engine and Turbo Express back in 91.>you now remember that before the SNES was released bongs were calling it the Famicom (not even Super Famicom).
>>12617617> and it only managed to sell a few million consoles over thereYes. NEC found it difficult to compete against sega and nintendo. two years after pc engine the sega genesis arrived. I think pc engine was released same year as genesis in US. If NEC had released it worldwide in '87, actually put in some effort and money to promote it, probably would have sold tens of millions easily.
>>12617795>The PCE was a hyper efficient powerhousenever happened. what a tech illiterate spastic.
>>12617830It wasFaster CPU than the SNESMore color than the Genesis Super small and compactRelatively easy to develop forReleased before both consoleHardware wise it's basically the PS1 of 4th gen
>>12617830>Fast CPU>Fuckton of colors>64 KiB of VRAM>Games came on a little card>All wrapped in a little console
>>12617839>>12617839>Faster CPU than the SNES65816 is 8/16-bit. snes' hardware architecture doesn't require 7mhz mode to display higher quality graphics. NEC had to cope this way because its technicians are talentless monkeys that tried to save money by cutting costs and basing the design of their graphics chip on the same piece of shit TMS9918 chip used in the MSX. What a POWERHOUSE.>More color than the GenesisBoth have 512, 32 on screen at one time. You're just a fucking idiot>Super small and compactWow! So it should be since it's two or three chips based on 1970s technology in 1980s packaging>Relatively easy to develop forNever happened. It's always nice to see how you tech illiterate losers think:>oh it's a 6502. must be like a c64 or somethingWrong, tech illiterate retard. It requires a specific compiler and its based on 65c02, a far more advanced and less broken version of the original. Then there's the piece of shit audio system they tacked into the chip with half assed RAM banking where you can only access 8k pages up to 2mb. What a POWERHOUSE. I look forward to shitting on your tech illiterate replies. It should be fun. If you could post a photo of your tears it would be good as well.
>>12617869shut the fuck up
>>12617869>Both have 512, 32 on screen at one time. You're just a fucking idiotThe PCE could have 481 colors simultaneously, this is extremely trivial to verify.>Wow! So it should be since it's two or three chips based on 1970s technology in 1980s packaging>[...]>What a POWERHOUSE.All I'm hearing is that it was in fact hyper efficient.
>>12617869>Both have 512, 32 on screen at one timeBoth have 512 colors total, neither has 32 on screen at once. The Genesis supports 4 subpalettes of 15 colors that can be used by both tiles and sprites. The PC Engine supports 16 subpalettes of 15 colors, 8 usable by tiles, and 8 usable by sprites.
>>12617880My bad, i was thinking of SNES. PCE supports 32 subpalettes, 16 for sprites and 16 for tiles.
>>12617872>>12617872>>12617878>>12617880>Tech illiterate retards destroyed by 1 postIt's great being me. Thanks for playing, losers. Any more low iq tech related questions I can answer? No? Suck my cock, faggots.
>>12617569It didn't have many compelling games, especially not in America.Mario and Sonic have interesting physics; how many PCE platformers do?If you liked Mega Man, Contra, Castlevania, sports games, or really anything other than shmups, what did the Turbo have for you? Bonk was not a system seller, I'm sorry.Also, too many of its games graphically looked like mildly updates NES games (Bonk comes to mind). Advertisements boasted about the system's colors, yet few games on the Turbo came close to Legend of Xanadu 2. The Turbo could do so much better, but you wouldn't think so if you brought Legendary Axe home.The best games on this thing - Street Fighter 2 and Rondo of Blood - came out years too late, were Japan-exclusive, and in the case of Rondo you needed to buy a CD addon.This shit deserved to fail.
>>12617890Yeah, I got a low IQ tech-related question: how did you get "32 on screen at one time" from the widely-known 481?
PC engine sales figures are such a shitshow I've seen source with PC engine sales in japan about 3,8 millions barely above the Megadrive and others with like 10 millions just in Japan
>>1261792110 million would mean it sold like the Saturn and the N64 combined, something I doubt.
The graphics were too turbo for your slow brain
>>12618172I'm more of a naturally aspirated guy
>>12617569It was weird, I never encountered one, nor a Saturn and only one Jaguar as a kid. Never a 3DO either. Yet I read game mags religiously and they often times made this shit sound like everyone had it and you were missing out. I was convinced it was just the small towns I lived in not being "hip" enough or whatever. In reality it's partly true I guess... I undoubtedly would've had to go to a bigger city to get one just because the local stores probably barely ordered any because no one wanted them. I myself did have a Sega CD and quite a few games including Lethal Enforcers and the light gun. I was the only person I knew to have one.
It would have done fine if it hadn't shot itself in the foot almost immediately by releasing three confusing model refreshes within the exact same month (one of which needed an adapter to with with the CD-ROM drive, and one didn't even work with it at all) two years after launch. It DID actually put up a fight against the Famicom, but the Mega Drive, Super Nintendo, and (funnily enough) all the other failed early 90s CD consoles ate its lunch. And the PC-FX was perhaps THE most embarrassing follow up to an already confusing legacy.
I genuinely believe it never actually went national. I asked several old game store employees who used to work at our Funcoland, and they said they'd never seen one sold, nor did they get any games for them in. And that went statewide, too.It's like that black He-Man toyline. Nobody outside of the Great Lakes area ever heard of it outside internet rumors, because that was its only sales market.
>>12617869you post like a usenet poster from 35 years ago
i already posted several times but apparently ameritards never had TG-16 (most ppl never saw one). I had one and lived in leafland. I was the only kid out of all the 30-40 kids around my neighborhood who had a nes, tg-16 and snes. growing up.Some games I played back in the day>Splatterhouse>Psychosis>Bonk's revenge>Military madness>Silent Debuggers (THE FIRST CONSOLE FPS GAME)there was a shop that rented games a few blocks away from my house and tg-16 games were rented and sold there.
I’ve posted about this before but a family friend of mine had one, we used to go to his house where he had the most ridiculous set-up in his living room. 6 different tv’s, two for sports, then one each hooked up to an nes, snes, genesis, and a tg16. As a kid it was pretty much heaven, he had hundreds of games total so you could play something new every time you went over there. He also had a cat that would shit in the toilet and flush it, still can’t believe that was real. The tg16 definitely had a mystique since to me it only existed at this one guy’s house, I never saw another one anywhere. I played Devil Crash, Military Madness, and the Bonk games on it, always had a blast. The graphics and music were excellent and still hold up. It inspired me to put together a PCE collection later in life, I’ve got a nearly complete set of all the hu-card shooters plus all the bonk’s, ninja gaiden, parasol stars, bomberman, etc. Great console, had a lot of fun tracking down deals and importing games from Japan before tariff shit put an end to that.
>>12617569I think it was an east coast thing
>>12618330>>12617906>absolutely destroyed by one post
I owned two. : )
>>12618753It was always wild knowing the one adult who actually gave a shit about video games back in the 90s, because that meant it was a serious ass hobby for them. The kind of guys who literally learned Japanese to import games to play them.
>>12617709>mentioning 'learning' and 'math' in a fucking video game advertizement
>>12618753I was absolutely fascinated by the HuCards. I still think they’re very cool looking.
>>12619196Why did American pop culture in the 80's and 90's decided that mathematics isn't fun? Was it so the black kids didn't feel left out or some shit?
>>12617569>i blogged, even in 4chin
>>12617569I only saw it at Toys are Us. They had a kiosk you could play it at. It was cool, but we could only have one console, and that was obviously the SNES.I got the mini version of it and been playing it a lot. It's worth owning for sure, and you can get a controller adapter and play 5 player bomberman. Absolute hit at parties.
>>12617869this post was generated using chatgpt on an old apple 2 in japan
>>12621954why is this nigga obsessed with calling everyone an llm
>>12621963Muddling the waters
>>12617569The first time I ever saw one in person was when I imported a Duo R back in like 2002 or thereabouts. I don't think I'd even heard of it as a kid in the 90s.
>>12617878>The PCE could have 481 colors simultaneouslyNo it couldn’t lmaoIt never has more than ~60 onscreen
>>12621954>>12621965>lolcow of vr has anons living rent free in his mindmaybe they programmed pc engine games using wozmon and an apple 2? hopefully they used a fpga based computer as they have less latency than a 1000ghz cpu! have you tried contacting the owner in your secret irc channel? >>12623053The lolcow losers of this board have taken 32 individual palettes of 16 colors to come up with 512 colors on the screen at one time. limit is 16 colours per sprite, and 16 for tilemap. you can change palettes at any line but you're still limited, and genesis/snes can do the same thing but faster.
>>12617726That was where I bought my TG-16 with Keith Courage around 1991. By that time it didn't look too great compared to Genesis and Super NES games, but since I didn't have either of those systems I thought it looked amazing. kek
>>12621965>Muddying the watersWhen have you contributed anything to this website that wasn't a lie or a schizophrenic mental breakdown, lolcow loser? Post links. We'd all love to see it.It's always great seeing anons that know more than you come here to destroy you and the rest of the board with one post, laugh at you then leave. Is your contribution to the site cringe comedy?
>>12623116>By that time it didn't look too great compared to Genesis and Super NES games,It looked dreadful when the genesis and snes was released. nec made the mistake of releasing the pc engine elsewhere in the world the same year genesis was released. made pc engine look like an atari 2600. nobody wanted pc engine shit after genesis arrived.
>>12623123A head start over the Genesis would have been helpful, but the main reason the TurboGrafx failed in America was way worse marketing than the Genesis, and a lack of software that appealed to American children. Sales of both consoles in the US were comparable until Sonic. It was not perceived as noticeably inferior to the Genesis hardware-wise.
>>12619204Because it isn't?
>>12624437Retard.
>>12624440No, shit for brains. Math is needed in society but it isn't FUN.
>>12617569Same. I didn't know anyone who owned one. First time a saw a TurboGrax-16 was at a pawn shop like 15 years ago.
>>12617569I played one at a fair, that was the only time I remember seeing one
>>12617878>The PCE could have 481 colors simultaneouslyBullshit. It should look on par with the SNES but it's on par with Genesis at best.
>>12624583What you’re seeing is the difference between having a master palette of 512 colors and 32,000+ colors.
>>12624589Ah I see, so PCE is sorta primitive in that it only has 512 possible colors to pick from, while Genesis has over 1,500 and SNES has over 32,000. So it COULD pick up to 481 but that would run the entire gamut of color
The dummies at NEC/Hudson thought it would be a good idea to launch the console stateside in select cities. If you lived outside of LA or NYC, you were out of luck.
>>12624594NTA but yeah it's just impractical to actually do. It CAN display all that color but it'd look like vomit in Street Fighter.
>>12624583>It should look on par with the SNES but it's on par with Genesis at best.It can display more colours than the Mega Drive, but WHICH colours? It's still using the same 9-bit palette as the MD.
>>12624437>>12624454Math is super fun, and I'm not even good at it!
>>12624624The MD can darken or lighten those base colors too, getting even more options.
>>12624627That's true, but using the shadow and highlight modes for colour depth's sake wasn't very practical since the shadows/highlights consumed their own tiles and and the rules about what the shadows/highlights could be applied to were kinda complicated.
>>12617898>If you liked Mega Man, Contra, Castlevania, sports games, or really anything other than shmups, what did the Turbo have for you?2D action / platformers>Ninja Spirit (really, really good port of an excellent arcade game not available on any other system)>Legendary Axe (Cavemanvania)>Splatterhouse (really, really good port of an excellent arcade game not available on any other system)>Bonk 1-3 (maybe not a system seller to you but still good and thoroughly enjoyable games)>Adventure Island (a platforming series that was also on the NES and SNES)>Bloody Wolf (military run n gun with Contra vibes)>Vigilante (another arcade port, kind of a Bad Dudes-esque brawler)>sports gamesit had games of all the usual genres. Baseball, tennis, basketball, football, golf, even fucking volleyball. I can't speak for all of them but I had TV Sports football and found it comparable to the very early Madden games or Joe Montana football. Sure, they have annual installments of EAslop but that wasn't even a thing yet. >or really anything other than shmups,>Alien and Devil's crush (arguably the best console pinball games of the 16-bit era)>Neutopia 1 and 2 (passable zelda clones in an era where thee weren't shitloads of zelda games yet)>Bomberman (not sure what genre it is but it's not a shmup)>Silent Debuggers (cool first-person horror sci-fi with anime aesthetic)>Klax (do I really have to explain Klax? You know Klax. It was good. And not a shmup).And keep in mind I'm not including japan-only games or anything that required the CD add-on. And these are all in addition to the numerous really good shmups, which some people liked. The base TG-16 had an underrated library. I had one and enjoyed the fuck out of it and 90% of my library wasn't shmups
>>12624673>90% of my library wasn't shmupsAre you sure about that?
>>12624673Where's the Mega Man type game and where's the platformers with interesting physics?
>>12624412>It was not perceived as noticeably inferior to the Genesis hardware-wise.It was. pc engine was 8-bit console, genesis was 16/32bit. everyone saw the pc engine as been vastly inferior in every way imaginable.
>>12624658>but using the shadow and highlight modes for colour depth's sake wasn't very practicalwas so practical that the effect was used all the time. what the fuck are you talking about? it was a standard feature that cost nothing in terms of compute power to use. you clearly know nothing about the genesis. are you just googling random things to reply?
>>12624673>TG-16 had an underrated library. was so underrated that nobody bought the games or the machines, resulting in around 2 million units sold between 1987-1994. 7 years to ship 2 million units. lmao. who are you are fooling, retard?
>>12624873>was so practical that the effect was used all the timeHow many games used it to layer darker/brighter shades over other sprites in order to increase the colour depth, as you implied?
>>12624879Being unpopular is literally a prerequisite for being underrated...
>>12624873Gayga Niggasissy
>>12617806Wibbly wobbly Jonathan Woss
>>12617890Have you ever seen boobies in real life?
>>12624870>pc engine was 8-bit console, genesis was 16/32bit.So you can use Wikipedia, nice. No one noticed that difference in performance, they noticed the graphics, and they both have comparable 16-bit graphic capabilities.
>>12617569Same here but that is because I was a young baby/kid. I may have seen it but it was too long ago for me to remember. If I did I could imagine I saw one at a Toys R Us. You anons remember Toys R Us? Those were the good old days.
>>12617569I had somewhere around 10-20 games for this if I remember right. I wish I still had it. The console was actually very fun.
Oddly enough the Kmart in my small midwestern town had the turbografx 16 and a full selection of games. This would be 1989 or so. My kid mind was blown at the idea of games on cards. I'd never seen a commercial for the system so it was this exotic thing out of nowhere. When I got into emulation i grabbed a full set and was struck by how meh it was. Quite a contrast to my perception as a kid looking at the box art and screenshots in the display. Kind of glad I didn't end up with it.
>>12624923That anon wasn’t >>12624627 me, I’m trying to make sense of all this still. I figured out 9 bit RGB, and apparently Genesis can shift the brightness up or down 50% for almost any color. Still looking into how it works precisely.
>>12617578>t. born 2008
>>12617569True story, I didn't either, but in 1993 I did, at TRU. Bonk was playable.I was so excited I set down my wallet and then forgot I did, then had to go back the next day because someone found it and didn't steal anything.
>>12623096was it schizophrenia?
>>12624879If people rated it it wouldn't have been underrated
>>12625501Wrong
What's your top 3 game list for the TG16/PCE/TurdboDuo/etc? For me it's>Legendary Axe II>Legendary Axe>Alien Crush
>>12626194Rondo of bloodGate of thunderStreet fighter 2
>>12626194Tengai Makyou II Tengai Makyou Fuun Kabuki DenDracula X
>>12626194Excluding ports from other systems:Tokimeki MemorialLinda CubeRondo of Blood
>>12626194dawn of yssapphiretokimeki memorial
>>12625418Shaddow/highlight mode is not useful in the general case. Its a special feature that can be used only in specific circumstances to implement special effects. You can use it for things like spot lights. Two palette entries are reserved for creating masking sprites that lighten or shaddow the pixels underneath.
I saw them in stores. But never on display or out of the box. I always thought Bonk's Adventure looked cool as fuck on the TG-16. I know Bonk ended up on other platforms. The Turbo version always looks like the best one. Because back before Sonic. I always remember the ads for Bonk on the TG16 and was blown away by the large character sprites and animations. Bonk's Adventure on the GameBoy was always kind of neat. The PCE/TG-16 versions of Bonk's Adventure 1 and 2 are the definitive ones.
>>12617569Of course you didn't, you weren't born when it was in stores.
>>12617569Sucks to be you. My mom bought me one from Lionel Kiddie City. Bonk was awesome.
What's the TG-16 game with best graphics (card only, no CD)?
>>12617569Same.>>12617578I was aware of it, not sure if it was because of magazines, forums or maybe even g4. I didn't even know Hudson was involved despite being a big bomberman fan and having played adventure island a lot and owning a couple other games of theirs. I just knew it existed.
