PCEngineFans.com - The PC Engine and TurboGrafx-16 Community Forum
NEC PC-Engine/SuperGrafx => PC Engine/SuperGrafx Discussion => Topic started by: Amadeusama on July 15, 2011, 06:03:37 AM
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I've been wondering these last few years, why exactly the PCE is so unproportionally big in France.
Looking through European eBay, I note almost every other article comes from France. They have tons of french stores on eBay, too.
Is it retro gaming in general that is bigger in France than elsewhere?
Or was there any "logical" reason in the past, that explains the PCE situation today?
Or am I only imagining things?
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The PCE is bigger there now than in the rest of Europe because it was bigger when the stuff was new too. Sodipeng (a French company) was importing all sorts of PCE stuff and promoting the heck out of it back in the day, so it's no surprise that there's more stuff still in France than in countries where people were on their own importing goodies.
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Not only the PC Engine was almost officially imported in the most beautiful country in the world but I have to say that japanese subculture in general has been very popular here since the late 70's and early 80's with TV shows that broadcasted many many japanese cartoons that got very popular through time.
And yes, retrogaming in general is -I think- more popular here than in any other european countries. For instance, France is the second market in the world for mangas and animes after Japan and it's also the second market for homebrew games such as Pier Solar.
I remember that Arkhan was surprised after the release of Insanity that so many copies were ordered by French players.
On top of that, France always had a tradition for talented game developpers such as Eric Chahi. So yes, I think we can say that France has a real gming tradition.
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Dang. You learn something new every day.
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OCEAN :)
And I've learned to love animes through club dorotheé :P
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OCEAN :)
And I've learned to love animes through club dorotheé :P
Ocean was a british game editor. We had companies such as Ubisoft (they still exist today), Infogrames who later switched name to Atari (after they bought the brand name) and games such as Another World was developed by Eric Chahi.
And yeah, "Le Club Dorothée" was one of the TV shows I was thinking of.
To be honest, according to what I read about the distribution of the Turbografx in the US, I think it was easier to find PC Engines here in France than it was to find Turbograxs in the US. The PC Engine was sold in Supermarkets even in medium size cities and in mail order catalogues.
Even now, some guies find PC Engine games at garage sales or flee markets. It's not that often though but still, I think it doesn't happen much in other countries.
And about the popularity of mangas and animes, the Japanexpo is held every day near Paris and they have like 100 000 persons coming every year.
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We very nearly had a similar situation as France (Sodipeng) here in the UK.
I remember a company was importing the white PC Engine near-ish its release and modifying it to PAL and were selling them in Virgin Megastore.
I can only guess these modified PAL units didn't sell too well so the idea was axed.
It's strange though as in the grey import specialist stores the PC Engine was massively popular here, just taking it more mainstream didn't appear to work.
Anyways with regards to PC Engine popularity in Europe I'd definitely rank the UK a strong second after France.
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Not being UK based or from France but from Sweden and more fluent in English than Frensh.
And the ad from an issue of "The games machine" below was the catalyst for my interesst of this gamesystem!
(http://i915.photobucket.com/albums/ac360/HobbyData/Pic1.jpg)
The ad was published April 1989
But it was not until 1991 that I got my first Turbografx a bunch of turbochips (17) and a Turbobooster plus, the collection has been growing ever since.
How ever I've allways felt like I was about the only real "NEC" colletor in sweden at that time and onwards, PC Engine or Turbografx 16 has never been big in Sweden!
"Sega Megadrive" and "Nin.....belch.....do" on the other hand. I do have an some what extencive Sega collection too but it's NEC that tickles my fancy so to speak.
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Actually I think maybe that Micro Media was the company that I was talking about above, attempting to do be a UK version of Sodipeng.
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IN SWEDEN A NEW AGE HAS DAWNED
OBEY PC ENGINE
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LOL, THE IDEAL WORLD. no shit sherlock :D
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(http://img835.imageshack.us/img835/2361/gen4n024juilletaout1990.jpg)