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NEC TG-16/TE/TurboDuo => TG-16/TE/TurboDuo Discussion => Topic started by: DarkKobold on October 02, 2012, 09:13:48 AM
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The scenario. It is August 29th, 1990, and you are the president of Hudson Soft USA, in sunny San Fransisco. The Turbografx-16 has been out for 1 year, and you just released the Turbografx CD. However, you are getting beaten by the hardware superior Sega Genesis, and the hardware inferior Nintendo Entertainment System, run by the third-party monopolizing Nintendo Corp. Also, previews of Nintendo's new killer system are making waves in the gaming publications. However, your sister product, the PC Engine, is still doing well in Japan, compared to Sega's Mega Drive. You want that market share, but here in America.
They say hindsight is 20/20. What would you have done to save Hudson Soft's Console division, and prolong the turbografx lineage? Could anything have saved the TG16 in America?
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Has it been a year already? :lol:
Short answer (use the search function to find plenty of similar threads for a longer explanation): dump money on third parties to get more quality games brought over from Japan and/or made from scratch to fit US tastes.
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First post nails it. If you've got the funds, dump more money on third parties.
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- don't waste money on very silly and very unattractive game covers.
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I would rob the 401k fund and flee the country. I'm f*cked.
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Go easy guys, Dark hasn't seen the older threads and is trying to contribute.
I would have to say invest in worthwhile exclusives. A key component is to have a killer app. Invest in marketing. You have to be willing to spend money (wisely) to make money. Unfortunately decisions were still being made in Japan and they were simply out of touch. Just read about Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter II. Also read about Nintendo's business practices during that time. I doubt 3rd Parties would be willing to get penalized by Nintendo at that time. Another thing I would have done is bring more arcade set-ups and shooters to local arcades. It worked for Neo Geo for a time.
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Cut the cdrom addon price in half and start development immediately on a super duo with the arcade card built in? Also, concentrate on more dos ports and advertise it as a cheap alternative to pc gaming. Maybe by porting Civilization over to the cdrom format? Hmmm....
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I would have brought over Wonder Momo and Energy, that would've made things way different
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do what sega did...
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do what sega did...
Minus the sports games? Sure...
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1st, I would have made a 2nd controller port mandatory without the need to buy a turbo tap
2nd, Leave most of the game artwork the same as it was in japan.
3rd, translate more JP games to bring to the US that didn't have any issues of 3rd party contracts. There were plenty of games that could have been US releases that Sega or Nintendo didn't have rights to.
Today the pc engine/turbografx is sought after by people because a good majority of their games were not on any other console. I would have built more on that and played it off as a strength in advertising.
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a good marketing is the A&O of success. also something what sega had to learn much better with their saturn and dreamcast fiasco, especially in oversea regions.
then a good company structure and action plans are needed of how to penetrate the market the best way (what typ games are requested from the US market (market feasbility), good localization of the games and arguments to pull the crowd on your side etc.).
also stuff like johnny vs. feka and stuff was unecessary imo and didn't appeal to the big mass. be hardcore is a good thing, but if it doesn't bring the required cash back, then it won't be any good to survive.
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I would have told NEC to buy Sega, kill the Genesis and consolidated first party development for PC Engine games to prepare for Nintendo's long rumored NES successor.
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do what sega did...
Minus the sports games? Sure...
EA and Sports is what gave Sega a huge edge here in the US.
Madden was pretty much a console seller.
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Taken the Big N to court over restricting 3rd parties to contribute to the US Turbografx!!
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do what sega did...
Minus the sports games? Sure...
EA and Sports is what gave Sega a huge edge here in the US.
Madden was pretty much a console seller.
Well...the turbo DID get Madden. Sure didn't save it.
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I would take all company profits, hide them in off shore accounts to the point the Comp is bankrupt and ask the Govt for handout. Worked for all todays companies.
Now if that didnt work I would standardize the software in Japan and the software here. Same Game/Same artwork/manual language different obviously. Granted you cant completely make all games the same due to censorship but a lot of them could be the same and that would reduce operating costs. Take the saving and spend them on Marketing the CD portion of the software.
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Unfortunately, after a year on the market the Turbo was in a losing position. Their marketing campaign sucked and having Keith Courage as the pack-in was a huge mistake. Sega came up with some damn good marketing with the whole Genesis Does line of advertising, and NEC simply couldn't match Sega's wealth of well-known arcade titles. The truth of the matter is that a huge chunk of NEC's best games didn't come out until the Turbo was on life support and beyond the point of no return.
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Cut the cdrom addon price in half and start development immediately on a super duo with the arcade card built in? Also, concentrate on more dos ports and advertise it as a cheap alternative to pc gaming. Maybe by porting Civilization over to the cdrom format? Hmmm....
I have to imagine that your first point was the only hope for the system. Given that the CD-rom attachment came out only 1 year after the system had been released, and was ridiculously expensive, i.e. $399 is $700 in today's money, it would severely turn off consumers. They did drop the attachment to $150 when the duo was released, but still, that was expensive given that people had just spent $100-150 for a TG-16. Also, the Duo was an upgrade, and had a $300 price point.
Upgrades to systems seem to be the death of a company, in reality. Sega made the mistake of releasing the CD, 32X, and Saturn in a very, very short time, leaving consumers with a lack of trust in the company to continue supporting their console. I'd blame that for the death of Sega. Even though they survived long enough to release the Dreamcast, they were bleeding money from the release of the Saturn until they exited the console market.
Perhaps there was no prayer for NEC/Hudson Soft, regardless of what they did. It took Microsoft 4 years in the red to turn the original Xbox profitable - a venture that would fold most companies. It took Microsoft basically surviving an entire console generation on their massive supply of cash, to become a true competitor in the market.
People are talking about the Ouya game console being the next big thing - however, I highly doubt it will even scratch the market. You have to be willing to lose a TON of money to become a competitor in the video game market.
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I've thought about this quite a bit over the years, and still feel that myself at about 12 years old could have run the marketing department of Hudson USA better...
So a few things that I would have done differently:
1. Advertise more on mainstream television stations. In all my time I'd only ever seen 1 TG commercial on TV during the 90s. It's not like the Seattle Metro area is a tiny market either.
2. Stop f*cking up the box art! Just take whatever the Japanese game had and translate it to English. Done. We all know that Turbo Grafx box art was horrible and I KNOW that drove many people to the cooler looking art that most Genesis games had.
3. Drop the price of the TG-CD by at least $75 and include 1-2 games as a packin. Monster Lair and Fighting Street would have been fine I think.
4. Translate and import as much as possible (that is still relevant in the US) from Japan. I remember drooling over the Japanese game sections in EGM and GamePro all the time...if even half that stuff would have made it stateside it would have been huge.
5. Focus on Shooters, RPGs and Action/Adventure games. Sports were not the forte of the TG, and since Sega seemed to have all those games sewn up, I'd have concentrated in other areas.
6. Go after exclusives that were either too violent/bloody, obscure, or not possible on other systems (converting PC titles comes to mind with the CD).
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So what made the system so popular in Japan, even against the SNES?
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do what sega did...
Minus the sports games? Sure...
EA and Sports is what gave Sega a huge edge here in the US.
Madden was pretty much a console seller.
Well...the turbo DID get Madden. Sure didn't save it.
it should have gotten MK but we all know where that went.
DarkKobold makes another good point, the freaking expensive entry point for the CD system was quite a chunk of money. Even if it worked with PC's.
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I'd bring out more RPGs here... which means more investment but it would have been worth it.
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I don't think RPGs would've helped in 1990, not in the US anyway. The Dragon Warrior and Phantasy Star games sold really well in Japan, but none of 'em were system sellers here (except maybe Zelda, but good luck replicating that runaway success).
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I will always like Neutopia 1&2 better than Zelda.
PC-Engine was doing well in Japan since RPG's were so popular, not to mention shooters. The US wasn't that accepting of rpg's yet, and they were so few and far between. Sports games was sadly also another factor. NEC also didn't really have an established name either. Sega was known for it's arcade games. That's what started the system selling for the Genesis in the US.
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Advertise to a broader US market base.
Start busting ass to get the best Japanese games localized for the US market. Every game that is considered for localization would have to pass across my desk for approval. I'd leave the crap in Japan.
Start throwing money at 3rd parties to develop more games. Target companies like Konami and Capcom, particularly.
Immediately discontinue Keith Courage as the pack-in and replace it with Bonk (if that hasn't been done already).
Implore EA to start doing sports games on the PCE/PCE-CD. They might suck shit, but they move machines off shelves in the US.
Throw in a free TurboTap with every new TG16 purchase.
Start development of the Duo with the extra SuperGrafx hardware and Arcade Card RAM built in.
Discontinue production of China Warrior and remove it from all store shelves.
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Start development of the Duo with the extra SuperGrafx hardware and Arcade Card RAM built in.
Thats what I said. :) Except I call it the Super Duo.
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Start development of the Duo with the extra SuperGrafx hardware and Arcade Card RAM built in.
Thats what I said. :) Except I call it the Super Duo.
To be perfectly honest, I would have said f*ck releasing the TG16 in 1989 and waited to release the SuperGrafx in the US in 1990 at a reasonable price (simultaneous to the Japan release) with like 100 of the best already-existing PCE games localized. Let's face it, we were all suckers for parallax back then, and if the SuperGrafx failed in Japan, then big deal... Consumers in the US wouldn't need to worry, because there would still be a steady stream of PCE games being localized to US markets.
The SuperGrafx mainly failed because people didn't see the need to upgrade when the PCE was still kicking asses in Japan. If you released the thing in the US in place of the TG16, it would have been the only NEC hardware available, and if priced reasonably, would have flew off shelves (assuming it was marketed properly).
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And on top of it, it would have already fitted to the actual size of the tg16, and in a much nicer design.
Only minus point would have been the bit more ackward connectivity to the cdrom.
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You could totally have stuck a SuperGrafx inside a PC-Engine case, for that matter. It's the exact same hardware with a couple extra chips.
I probably would have used the PC-Engine case design here in the US. Or something similar. The PCE's small size is part of what made it unique.
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Oh yea, and I would have redesigned the controller ergonomics. That squared-off corner shit was for the 8-bit era. Basically, I would have tried to distance myself from the NES and SMS in every way possible.
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Discontinue production of China Warrior and remove it from all store shelves.
You bastard. Sprite swap ABOBO for the monks in China Warrior. SUCCESS!
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Hire better artists for the coverarts (especially after Dungeon Explorer), get more licenses North Americans can relate to like Gradius, Batman, and Ninja Gaiden, get some famous sport names or the full league license to promote titles the sports games, and fire the people responsible for giving Deep Blue the OK.