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NEC TG-16/TE/TurboDuo => TG-16/TE/TurboDuo Discussion => Topic started by: vexcollects on September 12, 2014, 02:27:15 AM
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http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/225466/stalled_engine_the_turbografx16_.php
Check it out if you care...
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Of course we care, it's the Turbo!
And it's a good article, very well-chronologically-explained.
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this was a good read. thank you.
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Wow, that was a great read, especially if you didn't know a lot of the history behind the TG16.
It's really sad how badly NEC managed the TG16 in the US.
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Sure wish I could read it while here at work. The site is blocked because of "games".
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So good that I forgave the obligatory 'tarded "technically it are be 8 bit and no can be fast like 16 bit be"
yes... it makes up for its short comings with great interviews and insider context
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Sure wish I could read it while here at work. The site is blocked because of "games".
where do you work? we block "games" too.
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Sure wish I could read it while here at work. The site is blocked because of "games".
where do you work? we block "games" too.
I work for a place that makes baby formula.
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I really liked reading this article. Man 25yrs.. sure flies by :)
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"It was underpowered for the era." :roll:
But at least it's not as slow as the SNES. :mrgreen:
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Yeah, the thing about the 8-bit CPU was a bit annoying. Should have mentioned that it's a powerful 8-bit CPU which is at least as good as the SNES's CPU or better, bits aside...
What this article does best, probably, is really hammer home the point about how unbelievably badly NEC and Hudson mismanaged the system outside of Japan. It doesn't even mention all of their mistakes, either! I mean, the article doesn't get to the stupid limited rollout, where NEC decided to only sell the TG16 in a few major markets in the US at first. There's a lot in the article I hadn't heard before, though. Unbelievably incompetent mismanagement, some of the worst the industry has seen.
I do question the point that we missed out on so many great games, though. I mean, yeah, we did... on CD. But on HuCard? On HuCard we got a not too bad limited selection of titles. Yeah, there are obvious big ones that were skipped, and plenty of smaller titles that would have been great to see here, but it's the CD system where the worst of the missed games shows... and of course, to get more CD games, you'd have to actually sell CD systems here, something that never happened. 40,000 sales (evenly split between CD addon drives and Duos) according to Vic Ireland is abysmal. Of course it's also possible that more Turbo Duos were made than that and that the excess stock was what TZD was selling over the next decade. Who knows how many they had though, surely not more than some number of thousands?
The constant stream of games that Japan never let the US release made the situation worse, of course. How are you supposed to convince people to buy the Duo in '92-'94 when NEC/Hudson won't let you bring over Rondo of Blood or Street Fighter II, blocks you from releasing World Heroes and King of the Monsters 2 (but takes your Arcade Card idea and releases their own SNK ports in Japan instead :lol: ), and blocks Mortal Kombat for TG16 as well? As the article says, in that situation of course you have no chance.
Still, I find it weird that they actually took until Summer CES to give up on TTi, considering that they hadn't had a retail release since 1993, and there were only two games released in '94, Godzilla and The Dynastic Hero... that's a long time to wait while releasing nothing and not really being in stores.
Oh, one mistake --- it claims that that Lords of Thunder video is "early". Lords of Thunder released in mid '93, so that's not early. That's in the middle of TTi's very short life.
One other thing -- it says that the Turbo CD released at the end of '89. For several years now, people on PCEFX have been saying that this isn't true, and that it probably didn't actually release until sometime in mid 1990. Do the NEC people interviewed in this article actually confirm that they did indeed ship the Turbo CD at the end of '89, or is the article just assuming that it released then because that was the previous date that had always been seen around the net?
Though it introduced the TurboDuo, TTi had never had to manufacture more TurboGrafx-16 units; in fact, says Brandstetter, the last 100,000 to 200,000 U.S. consoles were unloaded on the Brazilian market, with their expansion ports disabled. The initial order NEC made in 1989 for 750,000 units never sold through to U.S. customers. As for the Duo? "Turbo Zone Direct had Duos for at least 10 years," Brandstetter says.
As far as I know, this is the first time I've ever seen actual TG16 sales numbers mentioned, so for this alone this article is fantastic! The Turbo CD numbers they cite are just those same ones from Vic Ireland as usual, and they never mention Turbo Duo numbers, but that TG16 number is new, I think, and plausible. I had believed the "900,000" number that was out there, but unfortunately it looks like that estimate was too high. Too bad...
At the conference, Hudson didn't generate much publisher interest in the TurboGrafx. But it did succeed in alienating Electronic Arts.
"Basically, there was a kind of weeding-out of developers who could actually participate in development of the first round of CD-ROM games," Greiner says. "We wanted the kind of emphatic push that we would get from somebody who really knew how to use that kind of space -- in other words, really great game developers."
In a meeting, Hudson staffers asked EA's team if it was up to the task of developing great CD-ROM games -- "we didn't think EA was that at the time, obviously, or otherwise we wouldn't have to ask them so deeply," says Greiner. "EA took offense to that -- they kind of walked out of the meeting and said, 'How dare you question us?'"
This is also pretty numbingly stupid, obviously. :p
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Very interesting read :)
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This was a great article. Seriously, that's what gaming journalism is about. There's a lot of stuff I haven't seen anywhere at all.
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Great article, should be stickied for those that didn't have to live through it.
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Fantastic information in there, thanks for the link. It should be definitely stickied. I learned so many new things tonight.
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This is a great article. It really helped put things into perspective for me. I agree with one of the employees interviewed: it really does feel like NEC wanted the Turbo to fail once they didn't get the instant gratification they expected.
It also sounds like NEC had no respect for the American team's opinions and ideas. They didn't listen to their ideas because they weren't NEC's ideas, even though it was clear that NEC Japan knew nothing about the American gaming market.
Maybe I'm overreacting, due to other similar stories I've heard about American subsidiaries of Japanese companies, and stories about Japan's attitude about American games, but now that I've read this article, I'm beginning to wonder if that "Gaijin" mentality bullshit is to blame for the TurboGrafx's failure.
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Sure wish I could read it while here at work. The site is blocked because of "games".
Yeah, it was the same for me earlier today. At least I can read it now, being at home and all.
P.S. It's a shame I can't peruse the PCEngineFX forums while at work; for some reason, I have no problem browsing the shmups forum and the classic gaming neogaf (.net) threads.
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This is a great article. It really helped put things into perspective for me. I agree with one of the employees interviewed: it really does feel like NEC wanted the Turbo to fail once they didn't get the instant gratification they expected.
It also sounds like NEC had no respect for the American team's opinions and ideas. They didn't listen to their ideas because they weren't NEC's ideas, even though it was clear that NEC Japan knew nothing about the American gaming market.
Maybe I'm overreacting, due to other similar stories I've heard about American subsidiaries of Japanese companies, and stories about Japan's attitude about American games, but now that I've read this article, I'm beginning to wonder if that "Gaijin" mentality bullshit is to blame for the TurboGrafx's failure.
I'm sure that NEC Japan was a MAJOR problem, but don't excuse NEC US here; they decided to redesign the Turbografx, delayed it for months for no reason except to end up releasing after Sega when they had a years' head start, did that really stupid marketing strategy that only focused on certain major markets. as the article describes did a terrible job of selecting which games they wanted to bring over even BEYOND the interference from Japan... the article makes clear that TTi was pushing for good games, but NEC US before that... not so much. Their abysmal box art changes are another bad decision worth mentioning, too.
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It seems like nec us was managing the tg16 horribly and when they finally try to
Right the wrongs Nec Jp said screw it.
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That was a beautiful read, thank you for posting this, its intriguing getting to see it from inside perspectives.
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Seriously Johnny Turbo was basically our hero post NEC for the Turbografx. Too bad he'll be remembered more as the "fat guy on the turbo comic" by the majority of people.
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Vic Ireland says that the story about TTi being offered Mortal Kombat as an exclusive in '92 and saying no because NEC Japan said "I think Americans are tired of fighting games." is true. http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=129796238&postcount=1906
Of all of NEC's mistakes, this has to be one of the worst ones. For all of their disastrous mismanagement that ensured their failure in the US between '89 and '91, the system still could have done something with a serious hit game or two... and MK1 is DEFINITELY one of those games, particularly if it was exclusive! Even timed exclusive would be huge. Then release Rondo of Blood here, manage to actually continue to release games because of the increased sales, and '93 to '95 would have gone much better for TTi, for sure.
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I don't think NEC USA deserves any kind of respect. Chris Bieniek explains more of it here:
http://www.video-game-ephemera.com/025.htm
http://www.video-game-ephemera.com/041.htm
http://www.video-game-ephemera.com/014.htm
and please read the rest of his articles, too.
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but now that I've read this article, I'm beginning to wonder if that "Gaijin" mentality bullshit is to blame for the TurboGrafx's failure.
I don't think it's caused by the "gaijin" mentality but more by the way lots of japanese companies are run : by old salarymen who never want to change their minds and way of thinking and don't want to admit that they made the wrong decisions, etc.
Basicaly, that was the same mentality that lead to the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster.
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Vic Ireland
Funny thing: skimming through my collection of old EGM magazines looking for Turbo reviews and whatnot, I noticed that in early 1993 Spriggan was slated for release in the US and it was to be published by none other than Working Designs. Probably old news (well, literally) to most of you, but for me that's the first time I'd heard of that. Wonder what happened.
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GENERAL OBSERVATION: The problem, comrades, is that many people want to distance themselves from failure. An effort to protect the fragile ego, and all that. Even events of 20, 30, 40 years ago. So, honestly, I don't know where the truth is hiding.
The safest approach to take is that fundamental mistakes (or questionable decisions) were committed REPEATEDLY. It is this pattern of questionable decision-making by management that is most damning.
That said, we may not agree on what those "questionable decisions" actually are. I like that Black_Falcon uses evidence to support his arguments, I just want to challenge some of his assumptions. Falcon, I love you. Please don't take offense (http://junk.tg-16.com/images/pcgs.png)
A_BLACK_FALCON:
BIG PICTURE: Focusing on major markets in the US (major cities) is not, inherently, a bad idea. It sucks for people who live outside of the designated target areas, but if you want to EFFICIENTLY reach the GREATEST CONCENTRATION of your target demographic WITH A LIMITED BUDGET, what else are you going to do? I'm thinking about advertising dollars here (TV radio)...targeting major markets makes sense.
The sad truth is that TG-16 didn't catch on in the major markets. THAT IS THE PROBLEM! It should have gotten more traction in the major markets.
As for distribution, well, TG-16 was in ToysRUs, but I don't know when it was available nationally, in every store. But focusing on major markets is not wrong-headed.
A successful console requires several elements LINING UP SIMULTANEOUSLY....hopefully without too much competition, I'm not convinced that TG-16 would have been successful if we went back on time and changed superficial things:
(1) TG-16 did not fail because of its aesthetics. That's silly. Genesis/MD is an ugly wart, but it sold well.
(2) Mortal Kombat would have helped, but I'm not sure if an ISOLATED hit game would have convinced enough folks to buy the console. Management should have put every effort into promoting TG-16's too tier games, because SOFTWARE SELLS HARDWARE. I don't know if TG-16 could have assembled the killer (short) list of MUST-HAVE GAMES to compete with the giants Sega and Nintendo...Genesis and Nintendo had a wealth of must-have games that appealed to North American market.
(3) BOX ART DID NOT MATTER. TG-16 did not fail because of box art. THE PROBLEM IS THAT TOO FEW PEOPLE GOT A CHANCE TO SEE THIS BOX ART. I'm serious. Very few people were even aware of the TG-16, which is a much, much, much bigger problem than box art. When shopping, THE FIRST THING EVERYONE DID WAS IMMEDIATELY FLIP OVER THE BOX AND LOOK AT SCREENSHOTS. That's real life. Whether I was in a store or READING A MAGAZINE, my eyes rarely lingered on box art BECAUSE I ONLY CARED ABOUT THE GAME ITSELF. Kids aren't completely stupid, we knew that the screenshots were the only useful piece of information.
(4) I'll stop, for now.
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.........
The sad truth is that TG-16 didn't catch on in the major markets. THAT IS THE PROBLEM! It should have gotten more traction in the major markets.
As for distribution, well, TG-16 was in ToysRUs, but I don't know when it was available nationally, in every store. But focusing on major markets is not wrong-headed.
A successful console requires several elements LINING UP SIMULTANEOUSLY....hopefully without too much competition, I'm not convinced that TG-16 would have been successful if we went back on time and changed superficial things:
(1) TG-16 did not fail because of its aesthetics. That's silly. Genesis/MD is an ugly wart, but it sold well.
(2) Mortal Kombat would have helped, but I'm not sure if an ISOLATED hit game would have convinced enough folks to buy the console. Management should have put every effort into promoting TG-16's too tier games, because SOFTWARE SELLS HARDWARE. I don't know if TG-16 could have assembled the killer (short) list of MUST-HAVE GAMES to compete with the giants Sega and Nintendo...Genesis and Nintendo had a wealth of must-have games that appealed to North American market.
(3) BOX ART DID NOT MATTER. TG-16 did not fail because of box art. THE PROBLEM IS THAT TOO FEW PEOPLE GOT A CHANCE TO SEE THIS BOX ART. I'm serious. Very few people were even aware of the TG-16, which is a much, much, much bigger problem than box art. When shopping, THE FIRST THING EVERYONE DID WAS IMMEDIATELY FLIP OVER THE BOX AND LOOK AT SCREENSHOTS. That's real life. Whether I was in a store or READING A MAGAZINE, my eyes rarely lingered on box art BECAUSE I ONLY CARED ABOUT THE GAME ITSELF. Kids aren't completely stupid, we knew that the screenshots were the only useful piece of information.
(4) I'll stop, for now.
I knew of some people who wanted a TG-16, but when all the other kids already had an NES, later a Genesis, SNES around the corner, I can see why people passed on it. I wanted a TG-16 when it was somewhat fresh, but when it came time for a 16-bit system, my parents let me make the decision. Genesis had been out a while, good library, Turbo Grafx 16, also out for a little while.. Oh, there is the SNES, let me get the newest system.
If a parent was buying their kid a system, if ti were the parents, they seemed to stay with what was safe, familiar popular. Kids, I noticed did the same. It was Genesis or NES. Later, SNES. If someone already had an SNES, they went for a Genesis, and vice-versa.
I was familiar with Nintendo stuff. I was also already familiar with Sega stuff, due to their arcade games. TG-16, I didn't take too much notice of until Splatterhouse and such.
I knew of very few people who had the system, and once I had an SNES, Genesis, NES, even buying Atari 2600 games at yard sales. I just had enough to keep me busy. I got my own TG-16 system when they were being cleared out and I could buy a system and a bunch of games, cheap.
Had Turbo Grafx had an earlier release, it may have hung around longer. More people I knew back then may have had a system, and I would have been more eager to get one over a Genesis, more NES games, later and SNES, etc.
I don't mind the system's redesign. I prefer the black and orange look, to the PC Engine, but I think it would have made more sense to just keep the same design, and change the color to black and orange. The system didn't need a redesign.
Toys R Us was not the only one to have it. I do recall playing the TG-16 on one of those demo machines, there, though.
Children's Palace also had TG-16. I recall they had a display, with the Demo LD playing on a TV.
Some department stores, at least in the DC/MD/VA area also carried the system. Evans I know 100% had it (Out of business now). I think BEST (Not Best Buy) also carried it. Both were catalog stores. They had most of the stuff in a back room/warehouse. Or, you ordered from their catalog, then went there later to pick it up.
Sears, I don't recall seeing it in their stores, but I didn't go in there much for video game stuff, I know it was in their catalogs.
Also, I know Babbages and Software etc had TG-16 stuff.
Radio shack, they had it also!
TG-16 was in many places, in big markets. Not as dense as Nintendo or Sega, but it was not hard to find.
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Mortal Combat as an exclusive, and some other stuff, could have kept the system going for a bit longer. I in the mid 90s, even after TG-16 was, "Dead", I knew of other people who knew of the system, and looked at it as a, "boutique" system. TTI tried to keep it going as that type of, "boutique" system, but, didn't quite last.
Besides just having an exclusive game, just having more CD games would have been great.
That's how I saw the system, by the mid 90s, a boutique system. Some oddball games, some stuff I wondered why got released, but never too many harsh feelings towards it, except when certain games would slow down (Bullet time!), etc.
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The art, to me, helped it a bit. Dungeon Explorer, for example, that art is not great, but it's also so vague. it just made me want to read the back of the box, I remember that much about that game.
Esteban nails it though, back then, if you wanted to know more about a game, and had not heard anyone talk about it, or read about it, or seen a commercial, played it someplace else, etc. No internet, so, you would flip over the plastic laminated thing, and read the back of the box, where the description, number of players, and screenshots were. The front of the box was there to pull you in, to read more.
The thing that gets me about TG-16, is a lot of stuff wasn't broke, and I was unsure why they tried to fix it. Color the PC Engine black/orange, call it Turbo Grafx 16, no redesign needed. use some of the art from Japan. Pack in a game people are FAMILIAR with. NES had that awesome action pack with 2 games I played in arcade machines, Super Mario and Duck Hunt (I wished at the time Hogan's Alley was on there, also). Sega, Altered Beast, and later Sonic, which had a reputation for being good. Keith Courage... WTF is that? :) To be fair, I did play Keith through when I got the system, but it never did feel like a proper pack-in title, especially at the launch of a console.
I'm done for now, also.
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GENERAL OBSERVATION: The problem, comrades, is that many people want to distance themselves from failure. An effort to protect the fragile ego, and all that. Even events of 20, 30, 40 years ago. So, honestly, I don't know where the truth is hiding.
The safest approach to take is that fundamental mistakes (or questionable decisions) were committed REPEATEDLY. It is this pattern of questionable decision-making by management that is most damning.
That said, we may not agree on what those "questionable decisions" actually are. I like that Black_Falcon uses evidence to support his arguments, I just want to challenge some of his assumptions. Falcon, I love you. Please don't take offense (http://junk.tg-16.com/images/pcgs.png)
A_BLACK_FALCON:
BIG PICTURE: Focusing on major markets in the US (major cities) is not, inherently, a bad idea. It sucks for people who live outside of the designated target areas, but if you want to EFFICIENTLY reach the GREATEST CONCENTRATION of your target demographic WITH A LIMITED BUDGET, what else are you going to do? I'm thinking about advertising dollars here (TV radio)...targeting major markets makes sense.
The NES started in just a few target markets, and after that quickly expanded across the country. The Intellivision did the same thing. So sure, it's not a terrible idea to do that, it was done other times back then. However, they never spread it across the country! Essentially, after only having a lukewarm response in the first areas, NEC gave up and stopped there. You can't do that if you actually want to compete, or do even half-decently. You have to actually be willing to go in there and sell your console nationwide. As this article makes clear NEC was not willing to do that, and it was their worst failing.
If NEC had launched the TG16 in late '88, as of course they should have (you don't address this point), then sure, start in a few markets, and expand to nationwide in '89. You'd still be well ahead of Sega.
The sad truth is that TG-16 didn't catch on in the major markets. THAT IS THE PROBLEM! It should have gotten more traction in the major markets.
Sure, but by not even TRYING to sell the system anywhere than in those markets, NEC ensured the systems' failure. Disastrous mistake. They also needed to not release the thing after the Genesis, of course.
Also, maybe just calling it "Turbografx" would have been good... the "16" led to so much hate based on the "but it's actually 8-bit!" thing, even if the 16 always was accurately stated to refer to the graphics chip.
As for distribution, well, TG-16 was in ToysRUs, but I don't know when it was available nationally, in every store. But focusing on major markets is not wrong-headed.
It wasn't ever really available nationally; by the time they got past the major markets, they were in Toys R Us and nowhere else. That was certainly the case here. For instance, here in southern Maine, the only place I ever remember seeing the TG16 during its life was the one Toys R Us in the area. Hard to find system. I didn't know anyone who owned one. When your systems are in only one chain, that's not surprising.
A successful console requires several elements LINING UP SIMULTANEOUSLY....hopefully without too much competition, I'm not convinced that TG-16 would have been successful if we went back on time and changed superficial things:
(1) TG-16 did not fail because of its aesthetics. That's silly. Genesis/MD is an ugly wart, but it sold well.
Hey, the Genesis isn't ugly! But yeah, neither is the Turbografx.
(2) Mortal Kombat would have helped, but I'm not sure if an ISOLATED hit game would have convinced enough folks to buy the console. Management should have put every effort into promoting TG-16's too tier games, because SOFTWARE SELLS HARDWARE. I don't know if TG-16 could have assembled the killer (short) list of MUST-HAVE GAMES to compete with the giants Sega and Nintendo...Genesis and Nintendo had a wealth of must-have games that appealed to North American market.
MK was one of the most popular and successful arcade games ever in the US. That game as an exclusive would have been HUGE, if marketed even half-decently. It couldn't have entirely reversed years of falling badly behind, but it would have sold a lot of systems for sure... particularly, of course, if you release it with some SNK games, SFII, and a 6-button controller, to make the system a strong fighting game platform just as the genre first attained popularity in the US.
Of course, MK would have been a 1993 release, and in reality that year was a year of failure, as TTi failed to sell Duos and slowly faded away as a company. You could be right that just having MK might not have changed things; maybe people would still have ignored the Duo. Lords of Thunder got their biggest push that year, but it didn't change many minds. But MK is on an entirely different level in popularity from that game. It WOULD have sold systems, if they had systems to sell (which they seem to have had, in moderate quantities at least). Of course though, by 1993 it's not like they were going to suddenly win the generation or anything, but still... MK, an exclusive. Then after its success maybe Japan will actually let them release more games in the US in '93 and '94 (and also '95, if things went well). There certainly were more good games to bring over, some of which probably would have done fine here! Of course the next huge title needed to be Rondo of Blood (probably in '94 sometime), and that also would have definitely sold systems to hardcore gamers. And beyond that, there are lots moore games that would have done fine here; the worst problem never was that the system doesn't have games, it's that too many of them didn't release here. Now, it is true that the system has lots of RPGs, which were much less successful here than in Japan, and too few platformers, which were very popular that generation, but still... it has games, good ones, and with some hit games like RoB and MK and such to draw people to the system, and/or a competent NEC at the helm from the beginning, I think people would have realized that.
(3) BOX ART DID NOT MATTER. TG-16 did not fail because of box art. THE PROBLEM IS THAT TOO FEW PEOPLE GOT A CHANCE TO SEE THIS BOX ART. I'm serious. Very few people were even aware of the TG-16, which is a much, much, much bigger problem than box art. When shopping, THE FIRST THING EVERYONE DID WAS IMMEDIATELY FLIP OVER THE BOX AND LOOK AT SCREENSHOTS. That's real life. Whether I was in a store or READING A MAGAZINE, my eyes rarely lingered on box art BECAUSE I ONLY CARED ABOUT THE GAME ITSELF. Kids aren't completely stupid, we knew that the screenshots were the only useful piece of information.
I do think box art matters. It doesn't matter as much as the actual games, the marketing and how many stores carry the system, what games they are choosing to release, etc., but I do think it matters a bit. I mean, you didn't see Sega or Nintendo releasing SNES or Genesis games with box art as embarrassingly bad as Dungeon Explorer's! The Master System did have horrendous box art, but in the US at least, that system also failed badly, so that's no positive example. Box art isn't the most important thing, but it does matter a little -- it looks bad, and people do notice that and maybe some passed over the system because of it.
(4) I'll stop, for now.
What about the more important failures? I presume you agree that NEC's marketing, distribution, and choices to pass over so many games for US release were terrible moves?
I mean, what do you think they should have done better?
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It seems like nec us was managing the tg16 horribly and when they finally try to
Right the wrongs Nec Jp said screw it.
Dis. +1.
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If you look back at the era without 20/20 hindsight, I think there's a big point that people forget. When I was growing up, we were aware of the Japanese market through magazines, but rarely would a store like Electronics Boutique or Babbages offer imports for sale in-store (the Saturn is the only system I remember having in-store imports for sale).
When I think *now* of how amazing the system was, I'm taking into account the full library of both PC-Engine and TG-16 games. Back then though, all we saw was the launch lineup and a trickle of occasional good/bad/mediocre games coming through to the states. By the time TTi took over, the TG-16 was relegated in our area stores to a small shelf in the back, with SNES, Genesis and PC taking up the majority of the store. It already had the stink of failure on it.
I guess what I'm saying is, *at the time* (the Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat 1 days), the TG-16 in retail had already been given the kiss of death. As a kid growing up during that era, gamers absolutely knew what the TG-16 was, but since SF2 and MK1 weren't available for it in the states, it might as well have been invisible.
That's how it was where I grew up; your results may vary.
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This would have been a much better article if it wasn't Gamasutra.
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I was lucky enough to have 2 small video game stores when I was young that imported Japanese games so I got to play some of them, but not many TG16.
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If you look back at the era without 20/20 hindsight, I think there's a big point that people forget. When I was growing up, we were aware of the Japanese market through magazines, but rarely would a store like Electronics Boutique or Babbages offer imports for sale in-store (the Saturn is the only system I remember having in-store imports for sale).
When I think *now* of how amazing the system was, I'm taking into account the full library of both PC-Engine and TG-16 games. Back then though, all we saw was the launch lineup and a trickle of occasional good/bad/mediocre games coming through to the states. By the time TTi took over, the TG-16 was relegated in our area stores to a small shelf in the back, with SNES, Genesis and PC taking up the majority of the store. It already had the stink of failure on it.
I guess what I'm saying is, *at the time* (the Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat 1 days), the TG-16 in retail had already been given the kiss of death. As a kid growing up during that era, gamers absolutely knew what the TG-16 was, but since SF2 and MK1 weren't available for it in the states, it might as well have been invisible.
That's how it was where I grew up; your results may vary.
Yup, from my perspective, Turbo was dead BEFORE Sega commercials were on TV 24/7, magazines were filled with endless amounts of Sega coverage, and everyone at school was talking about Sega...I don't think any Turbo fan thought our little TG-16 was going to anything beyond a niche.
I just didn't want TG-16 to die an ugly death. I was amazed it lasted as long as it did (I was happy, but shocked,that DUO was actually released).
I wasn't a cynical kid, I was realistic.
You didn't need market research the title "Executive" to grasp TG-16's predicament in the early 90's. Anecdotal evidence spoke plainly and clearly.
(http://junk.tg-16.com/images/pcgs.png)
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Now *with* 20/20 hindsight, I would have bought every single Turbo release on that little shelf in the back of the store. I distinctly remember picking up Exile: Wicked Phenomenon and being like "Oh cool! They brought that over to the states" and putting it back down. It was $19.99.
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Fact #1: the Turbob wasn't "impossible to find". It was carried by Sears, Service Merchandise, Montgomery Ward, JC Penney, and Radio Shack, which were all nationwide.
Fact #2: Mortal Kombat wouldn't have been a huge system seller, as few people would've been willing to pay $200 to play MK ($90 for the system, $50 for the game, $20 for a Tap, and $40 for a pair of 6-button controllers). That's mighty steep to get a game that wouldn't have been exclusive for any length of time, 90 days tops.
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This would have been a much better article if it wasn't Gamasutra.
Care to elaborate?
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Fact #1: the Turbob wasn't "impossible to find". It was carried by Sears, Service Merchandise, Montgomery Ward, JC Penney, and Radio Shack, which were all nationwide.
The Sears and Radio Shack stores in my town did not carry the TG16. Sears had the Genesis, SNES, Game Boy, even the Virtual Boy, but not the TG16. Radio Shack had almost no console stuff. Service Merchandise... there was one of those nearby, but I don't remember going there for videogames much; if they had anything, it was probably even less than Ames (another department store there was one of around here back then), and I doubt very much they had anything TG16. If those chains carried the system in some places, it was far from nationwide. The only place I ever remember seeing a TG16 was in the Toys R Us near the mall (~40+ minutes away, so we went there quite rarely).
Fact #2: Mortal Kombat wouldn't have been a huge system seller, as few people would've been willing to pay $200 to play MK ($90 for the system, $50 for the game, $20 for a Tap, and $40 for a pair of 6-button controllers). That's mighty steep to get a game that wouldn't have been exclusive for any length of time, 90 days tops.
Yeah, the length of exclusivity would be pretty important. I do agree on that point.
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Fact #1: the Turbob wasn't "impossible to find". It was carried by Sears, Service Merchandise, Montgomery Ward, JC Penney, and Radio Shack, which were all nationwide.
The Sears and Radio Shack stores in my town did not carry the TG16. Sears had the Genesis, SNES, Game Boy, even the Virtual Boy, but not the TG16. Radio Shack had almost no console stuff. Service Merchandise... there was one of those nearby, but I don't remember going there for videogames much; if they had anything, it was probably even less than Ames (another department store there was one of around here back then), and I doubt very much they had anything TG16. If those chains carried the system in some places, it was far from nationwide. The only place I ever remember seeing a TG16 was in the Toys R Us near the mall (~40+ minutes away, so we went there quite rarely).
Fact #2: Mortal Kombat wouldn't have been a huge system seller, as few people would've been willing to pay $200 to play MK ($90 for the system, $50 for the game, $20 for a Tap, and $40 for a pair of 6-button controllers). That's mighty steep to get a game that wouldn't have been exclusive for any length of time, 90 days tops.
Yeah, the length of exclusivity would be pretty important. I do agree on that point.
Black Falcon,
What state were you in during that time? I had no trouble seeing TG-16 stuff, without even having to look for it.
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was a good read for sure, it just sucks that the tg 16 wasn't properly managed in the u.s. and that many awesome games from japan never made it to the states!
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Fact #1: the Turbob wasn't "impossible to find". It was carried by Sears, Service Merchandise, Montgomery Ward, JC Penney, and Radio Shack, which were all nationwide.
The Sears and Radio Shack stores in my town did not carry the TG16. Sears had the Genesis, SNES, Game Boy, even the Virtual Boy, but not the TG16. Radio Shack had almost no console stuff. Service Merchandise... there was one of those nearby, but I don't remember going there for videogames much; if they had anything, it was probably even less than Ames (another department store there was one of around here back then), and I doubt very much they had anything TG16. If those chains carried the system in some places, it was far from nationwide. The only place I ever remember seeing a TG16 was in the Toys R Us near the mall (~40+ minutes away, so we went there quite rarely).
Fact #2: Mortal Kombat wouldn't have been a huge system seller, as few people would've been willing to pay $200 to play MK ($90 for the system, $50 for the game, $20 for a Tap, and $40 for a pair of 6-button controllers). That's mighty steep to get a game that wouldn't have been exclusive for any length of time, 90 days tops.
Yeah, the length of exclusivity would be pretty important. I do agree on that point.
Black Falcon,
What state were you in during that time? I had no trouble seeing TG-16 stuff, without even having to look for it.
I don't remember seeing many where I live in Columbus, Ohio. They did have em at Toys R Us but it was the only store I remember.
BUT we did have Incredible Universe which still is the greatest electronic store ever.
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This would have been a much better article if it wasn't Gamasutra.
Care to elaborate?
Yes, I would ask this as well. Why would it have been better if it was not on Gamasutra? I've enjoyed Gamasutra since it was a site you needed to sign up for to gain access. I've always appreciated that they cover the industry as a whole with interesting editorials and esoteric stories. It's what I liked about Next Generation magazine as well, before magazines started to die. I would definitely pick Gamasutra over something like IGN any day. I've found it hard to find the substance in all the flash on a site like that....but I suppose that is like comparing apples to androids.
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I thought it was a great article, thanks for sharing it. I had never realized that the Genesis launched so closely to the Turbo. That was a brilliant move by Sega (not changing the hardware for the US market) which drove the first nail in the Turbo's coffin.
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Great article, very well researched.
It also finally once and for all settles the UK release being official question that's been going around for the past decade or more.
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If those chains carried the system in some places, it was far from nationwide.
Yeah, I'm sure they all had 'em in their catalogs but didn't actually stock them anywhere and refused to sell them if you attempted to order. You got me. :roll:
The concept of catalog stores is obviously lost on you.
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Yeah, I'm sure they all had 'em in their catalogs but didn't actually stock them anywhere and refused to sell them if you attempted to order. You got me. :roll:
The concept of catalog stores is obviously lost on you.
I recall buying TurboGrafx stuff at Toys R Us, Venture, Electronics Boutique, babbages, software etc and Target. I don't recall for example K-Mart stocking it. Simply put it wasn't as widely available as Nintendo or Sega hardware, but at least in urban areas it wasn't that hard to track the hardware and some games down. When TTI took over it really started focusing more on specialty stores.
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Yep, it definitely wasn't as easy to find as main stream stuff. My point was that it wasn't as hard to get as some make it out, where you had to live in a handful of select towns or you were out of luck.
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Yep, it definitely wasn't as easy to find as main stream stuff. My point was that it wasn't as hard to get as some make it out, where you had to live in a handful of select towns or you were out of luck.
Yep, compare that to Neo-Geo AES where I basically knew of JUST specialty stores and Toys R us who actually carried it.
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Fact #1: the Turbob wasn't "impossible to find". It was carried by Sears, Service Merchandise, Montgomery Ward, JC Penney, and Radio Shack, which were all nationwide.
The Sears and Radio Shack stores in my town did not carry the TG16. Sears had the Genesis, SNES, Game Boy, even the Virtual Boy, but not the TG16. Radio Shack had almost no console stuff. Service Merchandise... there was one of those nearby, but I don't remember going there for videogames much; if they had anything, it was probably even less than Ames (another department store there was one of around here back then), and I doubt very much they had anything TG16. If those chains carried the system in some places, it was far from nationwide. The only place I ever remember seeing a TG16 was in the Toys R Us near the mall (~40+ minutes away, so we went there quite rarely).
Fact #2: Mortal Kombat wouldn't have been a huge system seller, as few people would've been willing to pay $200 to play MK ($90 for the system, $50 for the game, $20 for a Tap, and $40 for a pair of 6-button controllers). That's mighty steep to get a game that wouldn't have been exclusive for any length of time, 90 days tops.
Yeah, the length of exclusivity would be pretty important. I do agree on that point.
Black Falcon,
What state were you in during that time? I had no trouble seeing TG-16 stuff, without even having to look for it.
Maine. We also had a Kay-Bee in town, in addition to Sears and Radio Shack (and Ames and Service Merchandise) which became a Kay-Bee Toy Works in '94 or '95 or so; I don't remember ever seeing the TG16 in that store either.
I am quite certain that the one and only time I saw a TG16 demo station was in that Toys R Us I mentioned. It was kind of cool because I'd never played a TG16 before (they had a shmup in it, of course)... and that was the only time I played the system before buying one in '09. Another example of how Toys R Us was the only chain which actually widely distributed the TG16 in their stores.
If those chains carried the system in some places, it was far from nationwide.
Yeah, I'm sure they all had 'em in their catalogs but didn't actually stock them anywhere and refused to sell them if you attempted to order. You got me. :roll:
The concept of catalog stores is obviously lost on you.
... What? You'd actually consider something you have to order from the catalog as being the same thing as something the chain sells in stores? That's crazy! Those are not even remotely similar. Sure, maybe they had TG16 stuff in the Sears catalog, but what mattered to me was what I could see in stores.
Yep, it definitely wasn't as easy to find as main stream stuff. My point was that it wasn't as hard to get as some make it out, where you had to live in a handful of select towns or you were out of luck.
Yep, compare that to Neo-Geo AES where I basically knew of JUST specialty stores and Toys R us who actually carried it.
Yeah, Neo-Geo stuff was even less common than TG16, that is true.
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... What? You'd actually consider something you have to order from the catalog as being the same thing as something the chain sells in stores? That's crazy! Those are not even remotely similar. Sure, maybe they had TG16 stuff in the Sears catalog, but what mattered to me was what I could see in stores.
I'll repeat myself: my point was that it wasn't as hard to get as some make it out, where you had to live in a handful of select towns or you were out of luck. Get that through your thick skull.
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Interesting read.
I think if the team behind TTi had been in charge from the beginning of the TG16 then it would of done a lot better.
The article says TTi tried to get Street Fighter II, Dracula X and the NEO GEO Game ports.
I've always thought these games could of changed the outcome of the TG16 if they had been released in the US.
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Interesting read.
I think if the team behind TTi had been in charge from the beginning of the TG16 then it would of done a lot better.
The article says TTi tried to get Street Fighter II, Dracula X and the NEO GEO Game ports.
I've always thought these games could of changed the outcome of the TG16 if they had been released in the US.
I recall talking to someone at TTI at the Summer 1993 CES about Street Fighter and they basically said the cost of releasing six button pads in the US alone made it impossible to do in the US. They also stated that most people who owned a TurboGrafx/Duo already owned a SNES or Genesis and those systems were getting their own versions of Champion Edition before the end of the year, so why bother.
The Neo-Geo ports were licensed by Working Designs.
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Interesting read.
I think if the team behind TTi had been in charge from the beginning of the TG16 then it would of done a lot better.
One other important thing I left out of the earlier message was that one key problem with the Turbo in the US was the franchise agreement between NEC and Hudson soft. NEC Home Electronics felt like had they not had to pay as steep of a licensing fee to Hudson for all licensed hardware/software and peripherals they could have made more money. Basically, all the hardware had to be manufactured in Japan through their co-op agreement and imported back into the US.
Had a different deal been reached for international distribution NEC could have shopped around for less expensive suppliers to manufacture the controllers, systems, multi-taps, and ultimately to manufacture HuCards that would have allowed more money for marketing and other resources.
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God damn...what a depressing article. There were so many opportunities just...missed.
I next time someone creates a "What Went Wrong?" thread, we can just link this thing.
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... What? You'd actually consider something you have to order from the catalog as being the same thing as something the chain sells in stores? That's crazy! Those are not even remotely similar. Sure, maybe they had TG16 stuff in the Sears catalog, but what mattered to me was what I could see in stores.
I'll repeat myself: my point was that it wasn't as hard to get as some make it out, where you had to live in a handful of select towns or you were out of luck. Get that through your thick skull.
Be realistic. If people have to buy a console by mail order, while all the other systems are available in stores, of course at least 99% of them aren't going to do it. It's a major barrier.
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*sigh*
Nowhere have I claimed that it was as easy to find as the SNES or Genesis. NOWHERE!
Are you really this stupid?
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... What? You'd actually consider something you have to order from the catalog as being the same thing as something the chain sells in stores? That's crazy! Those are not even remotely similar. Sure, maybe they had TG16 stuff in the Sears catalog, but what mattered to me was what I could see in stores.
I'll repeat myself: my point was that it wasn't as hard to get as some make it out, where you had to live in a handful of select towns or you were out of luck. Get that through your thick skull.
Be realistic. If people have to buy a console by mail order, while all the other systems are available in stores, of course at least 99% of them aren't going to do it. It's a major barrier.
You buy stuff online how is that any different? Do you only buy games at gamestop and Best buy?
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@NEO GEO:
When it launched, NEO was available, I'd say for at least 1-2 years, at JC PENNY. Yes, JC PENNY. A demo unit with Magician Lord (later Baseball Stars 2) was very nice.
Of course,I don't know if this was a national rollout, or just a few select stores that carried it (i.e. In affluent areas). Willowbrook Mall in Wayne, NJ is near many affluent towns...folks who could afford it.
I don't have any hard evidence, of course, but I can't imagine demographics weren't used when determining what stores would demo/stock.
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"The pack-in should have been R-Type. If it was R-Type, it would have made a bigger splash," says Brandstetter. In fact, NEC could have had Irem's hit arcade shooter; Hudson's port was a launch title for the TurboGrafx-16.
Johnny Turbo is right.
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"The pack-in should have been R-Type. If it was R-Type, it would have made a bigger splash," says Brandstetter. In fact, NEC could have had Irem's hit arcade shooter; Hudson's port was a launch title for the TurboGrafx-16.
Johnny Turbo is right.
I don't know, Sega Master System already had R-Type...only shootemup fans would want a game like that,since it was challenging and would scare off (frustrate) young/casual gamers.
Brand recognition was high (most folks had at least heard of R-Type)...but was it a better pack-in than Keith Courage? I don't know.
PC Genjin wasn't released until much later....I feel that Legendary Axe might have been a good pack-in.
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PC Genjin wasn't released until much later....I feel that Legendary Axe might have been a good pack-in.
Legendary Axe would have been the best choice.
From my understanding that decision had to do with ROM size, Legendary Axe required a bigger ROM card than did Keith Courage which was part of the reason Keith was picked.
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... What? You'd actually consider something you have to order from the catalog as being the same thing as something the chain sells in stores? That's crazy! Those are not even remotely similar. Sure, maybe they had TG16 stuff in the Sears catalog, but what mattered to me was what I could see in stores.
I'll repeat myself: my point was that it wasn't as hard to get as some make it out, where you had to live in a handful of select towns or you were out of luck. Get that through your thick skull.
Be realistic. If people have to buy a console by mail order, while all the other systems are available in stores, of course at least 99% of them aren't going to do it. It's a major barrier.
You buy stuff online how is that any different? Do you only buy games at gamestop and Best buy?
Black Falcon, Maine may have had a different selection of stuff at stores, than other areas.
In the DC/MD/VA area BEST and Evans were similar to Service Merchandise, from what I understand (SM is not in that area). The catalog was like... The internet of that time? It's an OK analogy. If a game wasn't in stock at the store, you could go the catalog route. You could ask at the service desk, and if it wasn't in the catalog, a particular game title, they still may be able to get it for you.
Evans I know for sure sold the TG-16 system and game sin the store, as I bought stuff from their store.
In the past, I special ordered a few games before, without even being in a catalog. I recall doing that for NES Smash TV, which was such a disappointment over the arcade. Not long after that I got the SNES, and that game for it.
Radio Shack even had a catalog of sorts, it was bolted to a kiosk in the store, it had a few page sin there for TG-16 games, which I think they then got from TTI. I remember looking it over at one point.
Video Game Exchange had used TG-16 stuff.
Anyway, what this does remind me of, is how much of a PITA it could be to get certain stuff up until ebay, after it went OOP. I remember seeing the book, "Beavis and Butt-Head: This book sucks". I wanted it for Christmas. I was in no HUGE hurry. Later that year, I had not forgot about it, but noticed no one had picked it up for me. Turns out they had trouble finding it, it was OOP. So I took my money, and went looking for it. I was on a mission. I searched all over, used book stores, a book exchange store (Big one). It just did not turn up. I had a few places put me on their waiting list in case a used one showed up. never did, and I think I had to renew that every month.
Eventually ebay came along, and I got the book that way.
Ebay - The blessing and a curse.
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Great read! So many mistakes made with the Turbo. It could've been so much more successful with the right people behind it.
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One of our local Electronics Boutiques was the only place that sold the Neo Geo at retail when I was growing up (ironically in the ghetto mall in Virginia Beach). I remember seeing the MVS for the first time at the arcade one weekend and then seeing the AES gold system and games for sale that same day at E.B.
Oh man I wanted that thing so bad, but it was unattainable on a level that nothing else can compare to these days.
We had turbo for sale pretty much everywhere though, with the exception of video rental stores. I remember Montgomery Wards having demo units and the CDROM upon release.
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Man, I straight up bought a Genesis for Mortal Kombat. That or getting SF2 on the console would've been huge.
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... What? You'd actually consider something you have to order from the catalog as being the same thing as something the chain sells in stores? That's crazy! Those are not even remotely similar. Sure, maybe they had TG16 stuff in the Sears catalog, but what mattered to me was what I could see in stores.
I'll repeat myself: my point was that it wasn't as hard to get as some make it out, where you had to live in a handful of select towns or you were out of luck. Get that through your thick skull.
Be realistic. If people have to buy a console by mail order, while all the other systems are available in stores, of course at least 99% of them aren't going to do it. It's a major barrier.
You buy stuff online how is that any different? Do you only buy games at gamestop and Best buy?
Black Falcon, Maine may have had a different selection of stuff at stores, than other areas.
In the DC/MD/VA area BEST and Evans were similar to Service Merchandise, from what I understand (SM is not in that area). The catalog was like... The internet of that time? It's an OK analogy. If a game wasn't in stock at the store, you could go the catalog route. You could ask at the service desk, and if it wasn't in the catalog, a particular game title, they still may be able to get it for you.
Evans I know for sure sold the TG-16 system and game sin the store, as I bought stuff from their store.
In the past, I special ordered a few games before, without even being in a catalog. I recall doing that for NES Smash TV, which was such a disappointment over the arcade. Not long after that I got the SNES, and that game for it.
Radio Shack even had a catalog of sorts, it was bolted to a kiosk in the store, it had a few page sin there for TG-16 games, which I think they then got from TTI. I remember looking it over at one point.
Video Game Exchange had used TG-16 stuff.
Anyway, what this does remind me of, is how much of a PITA it could be to get certain stuff up until ebay, after it went OOP. I remember seeing the book, "Beavis and Butt-Head: This book sucks". I wanted it for Christmas. I was in no HUGE hurry. Later that year, I had not forgot about it, but noticed no one had picked it up for me. Turns out they had trouble finding it, it was OOP. So I took my money, and went looking for it. I was on a mission. I searched all over, used book stores, a book exchange store (Big one). It just did not turn up. I had a few places put me on their waiting list in case a used one showed up. never did, and I think I had to renew that every month.
Eventually ebay came along, and I got the book that way.
Ebay - The blessing and a curse.
Sears and Service Merchandise both had catalogs, yeah. And sure, you could order from them, and in a way I guess it was like a predecessor to online ordering... except it wasn't as accessible. You'd have to order it by phone, wait for it to arrive, etc... not the same thing at all as seeing it in a store. While there are things that could be effectively sold by catalog, games were never one of them. Games are something people want to buy and have, not buy and then wait a week or two for, and people often buy them on impulse, based on looking at the packages.
Seriously, if catalog ordering was a successful way to sell videogames, then the TG16 wouldn't have sold only 550,000-650,000 systems in the US (since the article says 750,000 but 'one or two hundred thousand ended up sold in Brazil' at the end). And the Neo-Geo might have been a moderate success as well. The same could be said for the poorly-distributed Bally Professional Arcade, much earlier. But those systems weren't successful. If you aren't in most stores, on the shelf, few people are going to care; they're not going to go seeking them out in catalogs or specialty retailers. And this is why NEC's failure to get their system properly distributed nationwide was such a major failing -- they gave up without even competing in huge amounts of the country, just because Sega beat them in the test market areas! Sure, based on games they probably should have won -- the TG16 definitely had the better library through 1989, and probably 1990 too -- but they'd released too late and too hesitantly, and then gave up as soon as things didn't start out great from day one.
So, blame it mostly on NEC, with Hudson taking some blame as well. Don't blame the vast majority of gamers who didn't buy games from catalogs, but preferred to buy games they could actually see. I never bought a game by catalog, and didn't even buy one online until the mid '00s. This is something like what most people did, and it's entirely understandable. But anyway, by the time the TG16 was relegated only to the catalogs, its failure had already been assured thanks to NEC's unwillingness to put the effort in to sell the system.
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Seriously, if catalog ordering was a successful way to sell videogames, then the TG16 wouldn't have sold only 550,000-650,000 systems in the US (since the article says 750,000 but 'one or two hundred thousand ended up sold in Brazil' at the end).... So, blame it mostly on NEC, with Hudson taking some blame as well. Don't blame the vast majority of gamers who didn't buy games from catalogs, but preferred to buy games they could actually see.
Once again, nobody is saying that catalog (or videogame store) distribution is the same as picking something up at your local K-Mart or Walmart. The point is that the games absolutely were available nationwide and were never 'impossible to get outside of a few select markets'.
Please continue to ignore this point and argue about some other bit of foolishness; it's in your blood.
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Seriously, if catalog ordering was a successful way to sell videogames, then the TG16 wouldn't have sold only 550,000-650,000 systems in the US (since the article says 750,000 but 'one or two hundred thousand ended up sold in Brazil' at the end).... So, blame it mostly on NEC, with Hudson taking some blame as well. Don't blame the vast majority of gamers who didn't buy games from catalogs, but preferred to buy games they could actually see.
Once again, nobody is saying that catalog (or videogame store) distribution is the same as picking something up at your local K-Mart or Walmart. The point is that the games absolutely were available nationwide and were never 'impossible to get outside of a few select markets'.
Please continue to ignore this point and argue about some other bit of foolishness; it's in your blood.
word... if i could get a system and games in albuquerque, new mexico in 1990, they absolutely were available anywhere.
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Seriously, if catalog ordering was a successful way to sell videogames, then the TG16 wouldn't have sold only 550,000-650,000 systems in the US (since the article says 750,000 but 'one or two hundred thousand ended up sold in Brazil' at the end).... So, blame it mostly on NEC, with Hudson taking some blame as well. Don't blame the vast majority of gamers who didn't buy games from catalogs, but preferred to buy games they could actually see.
Once again, nobody is saying that catalog (or videogame store) distribution is the same as picking something up at your local K-Mart or Walmart. The point is that the games absolutely were available nationwide and were never 'impossible to get outside of a few select markets'.
Please continue to ignore this point and argue about some other bit of foolishness; it's in your blood.
word... if i could get a system and games in albuquerque, new mexico in 1990, they absolutely were available anywhere.
Geeze, I am in southern Indiana in a sprawling metropolis of ~250k people ( :roll: ) and I found TG16 stuff in '89 and the 90's, rather easily. Sure I ordered some stuff from Game Dude in LA, but a lot of stuff was straight from Toy'R'Us.
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Geeze, I am in southern Indiana in a sprawling metropolis of ~250k people ( :roll: ) and I found TG16 stuff in '89 and the 90's, rather easily. Sure I ordered some stuff from Game Dude in LA, but a lot of stuff was straight from Toy'R'Us.
Yep, if it were something like the Gamate that was sold only through mail order in the US. Then I'd say it was practically unavailable and unknown to most of the gaming population. But even then, you could still get one. The Neo-Geo was way more available for purchase than the Gamate, and the TurboGrafx was way more available than the Neo-Geo was.
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I grew up in Quebec city, Canada, and I was 13 in 1990. I was also a video game nut. We only had the NES home (I adored it), but I found the Turbo qyuite appealing - much moreso than pre-Sonic Genesis.
...Anyways, back in my little French Canadian hometown, I can attest that the Turbo was readily available at Toys R Us, Compucentre and Radio Shack. I played quite a few games of Devil's Crush and Bonk on the Radio Shack display monitors while waiting for my mom who was shopping at the next store in the mall. You could even rent (!) Turbo games at the popular video store of the area. So, in my experience, the product was there, it just didn't catch on.
P.S. As a point of comparison, the Saturn + software was harder to find in 95-97 than the Turbo + games back in 90-91. This is purely anecdotal of course. Anyhow, it shows above anything how much mid 90s Sega screwed up, but that's another topic.
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word... if i could get a system and games in albuquerque, new mexico in 1990, they absolutely were available anywhere.
I grew up in a small town in Central Wisconsin. 10,000 people. We had a Walmart, and that was it. The neighboring town (30 miles away) of about 50,000 had a Sears and a Radio Shack. The only reason I got Turbo games was because my stepdad was a truck driver and would go to larger cities, park his truck in the Toys R Us parking lot, and pick up games for us. Yeah, some of the library (not much of it) was available in the Sears and Radio Shack catalogs. But the notion of buying them that way never even occurred to me.
I'm not even sure what the argument is, nor am I trying to take a side, but finding TurboGrafx games in the semi-rural midwest was an absolute pain in the ass for a 14 year-old kid.
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P.S. As a point of comparison, the Saturn + software was harder to find in 95-97 than the Turbo + games back in 90-91. This is purely anecdotal of course. Anyhow, it shows above anything how much mid 90s Sega screwed up, but that's another topic.
The Saturn sold probably 1.5 million systems in North America, about the same amount as the Sega CD had and almost triple that of what we now know the TG16 sold (550,000-650,000 in North America). The Saturn was, in general, much easier to find than the TG16. I'm sure there was some variation from region to region, though, yeah.
Geeze, I am in southern Indiana in a sprawling metropolis of ~250k people ( :roll: ) and I found TG16 stuff in '89 and the 90's, rather easily. Sure I ordered some stuff from Game Dude in LA, but a lot of stuff was straight from Toy'R'Us.
... 250,000 people is four times larger than any city in this state! I'd absolutely call that a pretty big city...
Seriously, if catalog ordering was a successful way to sell videogames, then the TG16 wouldn't have sold only 550,000-650,000 systems in the US (since the article says 750,000 but 'one or two hundred thousand ended up sold in Brazil' at the end).... So, blame it mostly on NEC, with Hudson taking some blame as well. Don't blame the vast majority of gamers who didn't buy games from catalogs, but preferred to buy games they could actually see.
Once again, nobody is saying that catalog (or videogame store) distribution is the same as picking something up at your local K-Mart or Walmart. The point is that the games absolutely were available nationwide and were never 'impossible to get outside of a few select markets'.
Please continue to ignore this point and argue about some other bit of foolishness; it's in your blood.
I meant that in too much of the US, it was it was very difficult or even impossible to find the system in stores that weren't Toys R Us, not that it was impossible to buy anywhere. Mail order is a completely different thing that I did not consider. Sure, including mail order it was available anywhere. But as I said, people very rarely bought videogames or consoles by mail order. If you're not in many stores, sales are going to be quite low, as indeed they were. That's what I'm saying.
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Like I said, it's in your blood. Bees gonna buzz, cows gonna moo, black falcons gonna derp.
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Just to remind folks: the TG-16 did not fail because it was harder to find in sparsely-populated areas. I'm totally biased, I know, since I live in NYC area, but, seriously, since TG-16 failed to gain traction in larger markets, the 13.5 people in Bumblefield, USA who would have purchased TG-16 had it been available—well, those 13.5 sales would not have made a significant difference.
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I found Turbo goods in lots of towns with populations of <10,000 - 20,000.
In 16-bit discussions like this, you have to always keep in mind that Black Falcon is going by factoids he read on the internet years later. What Turbo players experienced firsthand during the lifespan of the platform is of little merit.
Like people who started saying for a while that Magical Chase was mail-order only and one of the rarest Turbo games. If the many of us who walked into the many stores selling Turbo goods at the time weren't ruining the hype with our unbelievable tall tales, MC could be hyped/gouged even further.
I haven't had time to comment properly on the Gamasutra article, but it is only really useful for people already familiar with the history of the platform. The quotes are entertaining to read, but there's lots of bs'ing, especially by Johnny Turbo and it's unfortunately all put together by someone not familiar with the system and has an agenda to portray it negatively. A stream of quotes with descriptions of who's who without the spin would have been much better and not contributed to furthering misconceptions.
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Just to remind folks: the TG-16 did not fail because it was harder to find in sparsely-populated areas. I'm totally biased, I know, since I live in NYC area, but, seriously, since TG-16 failed to gain traction in larger markets, the 13.5 people in Bumblefield, USA who would have purchased TG-16 had it been available—well, those 13.5 sales would not have made a significant difference.
Sure, that the system didn't sell well enough in the five target markets NEC focused on at first was a problem. But this article makes it VERY, VERY clear that that wasn't why the system failed, not really! That hurt a lot... but what killed it was that after it didn't sell up to expectations in those markets, NEC essentially stopped trying. They never really pushed to get nationwide distribution. They never put much money into advertising. They refused to allow some major titles to release in the US because licensing fees would be too high. NEC's unwillingness to put in the money and effort required to compete in the US was the problem.
And sure, if they had done better in those first markets, maybe NEC could have been encouraged to try harder; the article definitely suggests this. But giving up before most people in the US have moved to the next generation, NEC didn't even try. Seriously, the article again and again makes the point that NEC shied away from spending the money that really competing nationwide in the US would have cost! Even if their excuse was that the first target cities didn't see enough sales, that's just an excuse; who knows, maybe with a serious nationwide campaign they could have salvaged something more than they did. Or maybe not, but at least they'd have tried. Most Americans don't live only in a few big cities, America is a very spread-out nation. You can't successfully sell a console if you're only aiming at New York City.
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I found Turbo goods in lots of towns with populations of <10,000 - 20,000.
In 16-bit discussions like this, you have to always keep in mind that Black Falcon is going by factoids he read on the internet years later. What Turbo players experienced firsthand during the lifespan of the platform is of little merit.
I lived in the Denver metro area during the system launch. It was definitely everywhere and I could even rent games. When I moved to a town of ~15K in NM, there was nothing. Toys R Us in Sante Fe was the best bet, but the selection was awful. TZD was awesome when it came around. Good times borrowing my parents credit card to place an order via telephone that would take 6 weeks to arrive. :lol:
EDIT: I admit I haven't read some of the walls of text posted, but I find it interesting that the article never called out Nintendo for preventing titles from being released on the TG-16.
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Not to beat this into the ground even more, but I used catalogs a lot when i was younger.
The Sears Wishbooks, JCP, etc were ways to find things I may want, that weren't in stores (Black wolf roller coaster kit!), also to remind myself of things I had seen. I would make up my list for relatives and such based on what I saw in catalogs, in store, commercials, and through magazines, and this wasn't just video game stuff.
Special ordering games, was never an oddball thing for me. if it wasn't in a store, and I knew it was out there, my parents, and later myself, would call and track it down or have the store order it, or for some games try a used games store.
My feelings are, the TG-16 didn't catch on because there was so much already out there. TG should have been out there earlier.
Not to regurgitate it all again, but I had an Atari 2600, which was a bit before my time, but I had one. I had an NES. When I was to choose, what game system I wanted, as a 16-bit system, I looked at what my friends had that I could trade games with, we could play together, etc. Turbo Grafx, yes had Splatterhouse, Bloody Wolf, etc, but, I knew if plenty others with a Genesis, and soon, an SNES was being released, and I already knew of other friends who had that on their Christmas list, so I chose the SNES.
Next chance for a system, I got a genesis, since I knew of more people with that system, than a TG-16. After that, the Sega CD was added to the Genesis.
Finally, when I had more money of my own to spend, I got that Turbo grafx I had on the back-burner for years.
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Indeed, catalog ordering was a big thing for any self-respecting 80s kid, lol. In my personal experience, I would show to my parents the games (1988-91) or Transformers/GI Joe/Star Wars figurines or ships (1983-87) I wanted for Christmas, my birthday or any other special occasion, and most often than not, they would order them from the catalog, be it from Sears or Consumers Distributing. So anyone who says catalog orders weren't common back in the 80s (and 70s also I'm pretty sure - I was born in 1977 so I don't know firsthand) has either a bad memory or is too Young too remember.
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Sure, catalogs existed -- I was born in the early '80s, no internet then! However, my family was never one who bought stuff from them except in very rare occasions. I'd choose things I wanted for birthday lists by going to stores and making a list while looking at the stuff there, usually. Once I started reading videogame magazines, I'd choose games based on stuff I was interested in from reviews and such as well. (I first read Nintendo Power, which our local library got and I read from the early '90s on, but started buying and then subscribing added computer gaming magazines in '96, and subscribed to PC Gamer for four years from '97 to '01.) I do remember looking through Sears catalogs, Toys R Us ad flyers, etc. looking for games, but they usually seemed to only show a few things (with pictures and stuff, I mean!)... going to the actual store was better, you could look at the actual boxes!
But again, there never was a video game console that succeeded based on catalog sales. It didn't happen. If the only defense for national distribution is "but anyone could buy it from a catalog", I think that the point about how awful NEC and TTI's distribution was has already been very effectively made.
Did even anyone here buy TG16 stuff from catalogs during the system's life? I mean Sears or what have you, not the TZD stuff post-death.
I found Turbo goods in lots of towns with populations of <10,000 - 20,000.
I imagine that this would depend on where they were. NEC's distribution was of course extremely spotty.
In 16-bit discussions like this, you have to always keep in mind that Black Falcon is going by factoids he read on the internet years later.
How absurd... of course, the best answer to this is the obvious one, that you don't have to experienced events in order to know something about them. Almost all of the writing of history is based on this fact; I have a masters' in history, so I should know.
But even beyond that, I was around then, of course. Sure, I only played a TG16 once myself, but I read about it in magazines, etc. It was something I heard about a few times, unlike the Sega Master System, which I have absolutely no memory of ever hearing about at all during its life, or even for a long time after it. For the TG16, I remember seeing comparisons of Sonic v. Mario World v. Bonk, and the Johnny Turbo ads as well.
What Turbo players experienced firsthand during the lifespan of the platform is of little merit.
As they say, eyewitness testimony is not always reliable. What is reliable are overall trends, facts, numbers, proof of things. Proof like the actual number of systems sold, which we finally know thanks to this article. Of course peoples' stories are important too, though. Certainly. And that is there in this article, or at least in the author's other article, which is, as I say below, his personal story about his liking and owning the system during its life. The author is someone who experienced the system firsthand during its lifetime. :)
Like people who started saying for a while that Magical Chase was mail-order only and one of the rarest Turbo games. If the many of us who walked into the many stores selling Turbo goods at the time weren't ruining the hype with our unbelievable tall tales, MC could be hyped/gouged even further.
With distribution as poor as NEC's was, and with how much worse it got under TTI thanks to their limited funds, this should be entirely understandable. It's not about "tall tales", it's about that for a lot of people, even in areas which had TG16 stuff for a while, by mid '93 it was gone, and from that point on games did indeed seem to be mail order only. As one of the very last HuCard releases, it does seem quite likely that Magical Chase shipped in small numbers. Of course it was available in some places, though; it wasn't until the last couple of games that it seems to have really gone mail order only. Based on this article, I'd mostly suspect the two '94 releases, Godzilla and The Dynastic Hero, for that. Unless anyone here actually managed to find copies of those games in stores back then, and can prove otherwise? I would imagine that it was a slow progression over time though, as stores that had been carrying it gradually abandoned the system due to low sales.
I haven't had time to comment properly on the Gamasutra article, but it is only really useful for people already familiar with the history of the platform.
That may help, but no, this really is not true.
The quotes are entertaining to read, but there's lots of bs'ing, especially by Johnny Turbo and it's unfortunately all put together by someone not familiar with the system and has an agenda to portray it negatively.
Someone may have an agenda here, but it's not the author of that article, that's for sure! As you'd know if you read the other article, about his personal history with the system, the guy posted (also linked here, in another thread), you'd know that the author was a Turbografx fan, and did own the system during its life, and the Turbo CD, and the Duo. He even says that Ys I & II is his favorite game. So no. No anti-Turbo bias by the author, certainly. Just reality.
A stream of quotes with descriptions of who's who without the spin would have been much better and not contributed to furthering misconceptions.
The only major misconception that the article furthers is the "8-bit" thing. I haven't seen anything else mentioned of note.
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Black Falcon's gonna derp.
If the only defense for national distribution is "but anyone could buy it from a catalog", I think that the point about how awful NEC and TTI's distribution was has already been very effectively made.
That isn't the only defense. Do you really think that of all those stores that had it in their catalogs that none of 'em carried the games in stores too?!? Of course they did. How many of us have now chimed in and said that we bought games locally yet didn't live in one of the five select markets or huge cities?
Did even anyone here buy TG16 stuff from catalogs during the system's life? I mean Sears or what have you, not the TZD stuff post-death.
I did, having the game shipped to the store. Earlier, my ma and pa bought a 2600 and a dozen or so games almost entirely through catalogs as well, but so what? No doubt you'll dismiss this as 'unreliable anecdotes' anyway.
As they say, eyewitness testimony is not always reliable.
Because it's impossible for TG-16 games to have been available out here in cornland and nobody has ever bought a game via mail order ever, I'm obviously lying. The truth is that I started amassing my collection just two years ago..... you got me.
With distribution as poor as NEC's was, and with how much worse it got under TTI thanks to their limited funds, this should be entirely understandable.
The initial guess of it being mail order is understandable. What is not understandable is people stating it as fact (and even that it was never sold in Canada) and people still believing it to be true.
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In the same small town I grew up in, where I had multiple local sources for Turbo goods and where I bought no less than 30 Turbo games while they were current, plus a TG-16, TurboExpress and TurboDuo at launch prices... I had to mail order both of the Genesis games I bought during its first year, because Genesis games were both slow to trickle out and had a limited selection of variety. That and the fact that no more stores carried Genesis games than Turbo during the first year or so.
As goes without saying: don't rely on wikipedia for your facts.
As for the credibility of myself and others with firsthand accounts, I've been discussing Turbo/PCE online since 1996. Not only is everything I say about my experiences true, I've gotten to know so many Turbo fans over the past couple decades whose accounts I can rightfully trust. While Black Falcon was fooling around with his first console, many of us Turbo fans across the world were sharing our experiences while they were still fresh in our minds.
This is what's so dangerous about popular sites/mags/video stars casually passing around misinformation like this. It only adds fuel to the fire of revisionists whose entire knowledge is built entirely on what they heard that someone once heard that someone thinks that someome said that they saw a site that had a story that was really just pulled out of someone's ass and based on a negative bias.
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Seriously, do you even have a real point? We now know how the system actually sold, thanks to people from NEC itself. We've always known that NEC's distribution and marketing in the US were atrocious. Sure, it was available in some stores here and there, but not nearly enough of them, and in many cases probably not for very long; the article is great at describing how after not seeing the initial target-market success they wanted NEC US never gave the system the full-fledged support it badly deserved.
In the same small town I grew up in, where I had multiple local sources for Turbo goods and where I bought no less than 30 Turbo games while they were current, plus a TG-16, TurboExpress and TurboDuo at launch prices... I had to mail order both of the Genesis games I bought during its first year, because Genesis games were both slow to trickle out and had a limited selection of variety. That and the fact that no more stores carried Genesis games than Turbo during the first year or so.
As goes without saying: don't rely on wikipedia for your facts.
Nobody should ever rely only on Wikipedia, certainly. I don't, and I would hope others wouldn't as well. The article in the OP sure doesn't, it's very obviously based on original research.
As for the credibility of myself and others with firsthand accounts, I've been discussing Turbo/PCE online since 1996. Not only is everything I say about my experiences true, I've gotten to know so many Turbo fans over the past couple decades whose accounts I can rightfully trust. While Black Falcon was fooling around with his first console, many of us Turbo fans across the world were sharing our experiences while they were still fresh in our minds.
Why do you like to make up stuff? I was mostly a PC gamer in the '90s, not console. I was playing computer games mostly, that and Game Boy. '90s PC gaming is the best gaming has ever been... :)
Anyway, facts matter a lot more than any personal account. A personal account is only one persons' story, and the fact is, they are NOT reliable. This is why courts always strongly prefer evidence to eyewitness testimony, when having to determine who committed a crime. But even if a personal account of a console IS reliable, it's pretty much irrelevant on a nationwide or worldwide level. Just because you found TG16 stuff in your area does not under any circumstances mean that things were similar for other people. Personal accounts of how available various consoles were in their area are interesting stories, nothing more. This isn't just my opinion, it's the opinion of anyone who wants to focus on an accurate assessment of how things are overall. "Personal experiences mean nothing" is commonly heard in game sales discussions elsewhere on the internet.
This is what's so dangerous about popular sites/mags/video stars casually passing around misinformation like this. It only adds fuel to the fire of revisionists whose entire knowledge is built entirely on what they heard that someone once heard that someone thinks that someome said that they saw a site that had a story that was really just pulled out of someone's ass and based on a negative bias.
I know you clearly are ignoring my actual words, but there is no revisionist history or negative bias in that article, which is what this thread is about. Quite the opposite, it's the best picture of what it was actually like inside NEC US and TTI that we've ever gotten, and it was written by a journalist who was a big fan of the system in the early '90s. What you're saying here is ridiculous compared to reality. And of course, most of what I've said in this thread is just to say that I think the article is accurate, so I'm not being "revisionist" either.
Of course, it's also not "revisionist" to say that no console has ever succeeded which had poor national distribution and relied as much on catalog ordering as it did in-store sales. And that we now know that the previous guesstimate of US TG16 sales, 900,000, actually is far too high and the system actually sold somewhere between 550,000 and 650,000 in the US and Canada, with 750,000 total being manufactured for the Americas, shows this even more strongly than ever.
That isn't the only defense. Do you really think that of all those stores that had it in their catalogs that none of 'em carried the games in stores too?!? Of course they did. How many of us have now chimed in and said that we bought games locally yet didn't live in one of the five select markets or huge cities?
I didn't say that. I mean, here the system could be found at Toys R Us, so it was available SOMEWHERE physically, if not much of anywhere else. It just wasn't all that many places, while the SNES and Genesis were very widely available. (For the Genesis, this particularly would be for '91 and beyond; before Sonic, the system wasn't nearly as successful as it would become afterwards, of course.)
Because it's impossible for TG-16 games to have been available out here in cornland and nobody has ever bought a game via mail order ever, I'm obviously lying. The truth is that I started amassing my collection just two years ago..... you got me.
Once again, I didn't say that. You're reading things into my posts I didn't say or imply. Of course a few stores here and there carried the system, and of course a small number of people ordered games by mail order. "Few" and "small" are the key terms, however, as the system's very poor sales show; 650,000 systems sold at most, plus 20k+ Duos, is very poor for a system on the market for 3 1/2 years! If NEC had shelled out the cash to get better distribution, get in most stores that carried Nintendo and Sega as this article and pretty much all personal recollections I've ever read about the system agree they did not, and had actually tried to market it, it surely would not have sold such small numbers.
The initial guess of it being mail order is understandable. What is not understandable is people stating it as fact (and even that it was never sold in Canada) and people still believing it to be true.
Finding proof about the distribution of those later releases seems to have proven to be very difficult, you know. Sure, Magical Chase probably was sold in stores, yes, but how few copies was it... must not have been many.
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Not to change the topic, but...
With all this talk about how the TG16 tanked and NEC not being too enthused about continuing in the console market, it'd be really cool if someone did similar in-depth retrospective on the PC-FX. I'd love to know some inside info on how that got off the ground. Granted, it'd likely be a short article. But still...
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That isn't the only defense. Do you really think that of all those stores that had it in their catalogs that none of 'em carried the games in stores too?!? Of course they did. How many of us have now chimed in and said that we bought games locally yet didn't live in one of the five select markets or huge cities?
I didn't say that. I mean, here the system could be found at Toys R Us, so it was available SOMEWHERE physically, if not much of anywhere else. It just wasn't all that many places, while the SNES and Genesis were very widely available. (For the Genesis, this particularly would be for '91 and beyond; before Sonic, the system wasn't nearly as successful as it would become afterwards, of course.)
Because it's impossible for TG-16 games to have been available out here in cornland and nobody has ever bought a game via mail order ever, I'm obviously lying. The truth is that I started amassing my collection just two years ago..... you got me.
Once again, I didn't say that. You're reading things into my posts I didn't say or imply. Of course a few stores here and there carried the system, and of course a small number of people ordered games by mail order. "Few" and "small" are the key terms, however, as the system's very poor sales show; 650,000 systems sold at most, plus 20k+ Duos, is very poor for a system on the market for 3 1/2 years! If NEC had shelled out the cash to get better distribution, get in most stores that carried Nintendo and Sega as this article and pretty much all personal recollections I've ever read about the system agree they did not, and had actually tried to market it, it surely would not have sold such small numbers.
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I take issue with the last sentence.
Dude, please re-read my prior post: Turbo DID NOT FAIL because of national distribution. It could have been available in every Bumblefield town in RURAL U.S.A. and it WOULD HAVE FAILED because there aren't enough customers in all the Bumblefields combined to make a significant difference to overall sales (more sales? Yes. Significant sales to convince NEC to fight for America? No.
A separate issue, of course, is that TG-16 never had the "X factor" of its competitors (brand recognition of console, brand recognition of software franchises, highly effective advertising campaigns, game library appealing to North American tastes...sports fans loved Genesis, after all, etc. etc).
TG-16 was the Windows tablet of console war...IT DOESN'T MATTER HOW MANY MILLIONS OF $$$ Microsoft spent in marketing, it gained no traction.
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That isn't the only defense. Do you really think that of all those stores that had it in their catalogs that none of 'em carried the games in stores too?!? Of course they did. How many of us have now chimed in and said that we bought games locally yet didn't live in one of the five select markets or huge cities?
I didn't say that. I mean, here the system could be found at Toys R Us, so it was available SOMEWHERE physically, if not much of anywhere else. It just wasn't all that many places, while the SNES and Genesis were very widely available. (For the Genesis, this particularly would be for '91 and beyond; before Sonic, the system wasn't nearly as successful as it would become afterwards, of course.)
Because it's impossible for TG-16 games to have been available out here in cornland and nobody has ever bought a game via mail order ever, I'm obviously lying. The truth is that I started amassing my collection just two years ago..... you got me.
Once again, I didn't say that. You're reading things into my posts I didn't say or imply. Of course a few stores here and there carried the system, and of course a small number of people ordered games by mail order. "Few" and "small" are the key terms, however, as the system's very poor sales show; 650,000 systems sold at most, plus 20k+ Duos, is very poor for a system on the market for 3 1/2 years! If NEC had shelled out the cash to get better distribution, get in most stores that carried Nintendo and Sega as this article and pretty much all personal recollections I've ever read about the system agree they did not, and had actually tried to market it, it surely would not have sold such small numbers.
I take issue with the last sentence.
Dude, please re-read my prior post: Turbo DID NOT FAIL because of national distribution. It could have been available in every Bumblefield town in RURAL U.S.A. and it WOULD HAVE FAILED because there aren't enough customers in all the Bumblefields combined to make a significant difference to overall sales (more sales? Yes. Significant sales to convince NEC to fight for America? No. [/quote]
I did read your previous post, but it's completely wrong. Most Americans do not live in only a few major markets. In the US you DO need to compete nationwide. I don't like your tone that insults pretty much everywhere that isn't a major city; those parts of America are large, and make up a lot of the country. And even the urban areas are, in most of America, spread out -- there's nothing in the US like Tokyo, with that many people concentrated into such a small area. No, to compete NEC absolutely did have to compete throughout the country. That's what every successful console has done. The NES would not be the NES if Nintendo only put much effort into that New York test market in '85 and let distribution everywhere else be badly scattershot, with poor marketing.
Of course, I imagine you'll say that Nintendo's test market was a success while NEC's was a failure, but again, as I said in the beginning, with an earlier release (NOT releasing after the Genesis!), better marketing, better packin game, etc. NEC could have been more successful too. And even with the mediocre showing in the test markets, with a serious nationwide marketing and distribution push like Nintendo and Sega did, the TG16 would certainly have sold better than it did. I absolutely believe that very few people are going to buy a console that they very rarely see in person. You do not succeed in America by only putting a strong effort in urban areas. You just don't, and you're seriously underestimating that fact.
A separate issue, of course, is that TG-16 never had the "X factor" of its competitors (brand recognition of console, brand recognition of software franchises, highly effective advertising campaigns, game library appealing to North American tastes...sports fans loved Genesis, after all, etc. etc).
This is true, yes. The TG16 didn't have Sonic and sports games like the Genesis, or Mario and Nintendo's third parties (Square, Capcom, etc.) like the SNES. And it definitely hurt for that. But of course, part of this is because of how cheap and ineffective NEC was at finding Western third-party support; for the Genesis Western support was absolutely key to its success here, but the article did a good job of showing how poor NEC's was in comparison. Slighting EA while you sign with Cinemaware was not a great idea...
Of course the other problem is that the system was mostly popular in Japan from '88 to '91, and faded after that, while the generation didn't really get going here UNTIL '91. And that is an issue; even with an earlier release and better marketing, perhaps the system would have started sputtering in '91 after Sonic and the SNES release. It also hurt that Western consumers were more price-conscious and the game library was limited, so the expensive CD addon which NEC focused on in the '90s didn't sell much. But even with those issues, the system easily could have sold several times what it did, and lasted longer overall; after Bonk, Rondo of Blood has to be the system's biggest potential system-seller.
Seriously, even if the library wasn't ideal for the West, there were more than enough quality games to compete from '88 to '91, and after that the TCD should have been able to hold its own against the Sega CD, at least.
TG-16 was the Windows tablet of console war...IT DOESN'T MATTER HOW MANY MILLIONS OF $$$ Microsoft spent in marketing, it gained no traction.
You don't know this because NEC didn't try.
Not to change the topic, but...
With all this talk about how the TG16 tanked and NEC not being too enthused about continuing in the console market, it'd be really cool if someone did similar in-depth retrospective on the PC-FX. I'd love to know some inside info on how that got off the ground. Granted, it'd likely be a short article. But still...
NEC thought that anime FMV was the future and pulled a system Hudson had designed back in '92 as a video playback-centric design off the shelf in '94 and shipped it as their new console. It didn't work out.
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Seriously, do you even have a real point?
Do you? You're all over the map with your bullshit. I repeat: it's a fact that the system was available nationwide from several retailers, as opposed to the myth that it was only available in a handful of select cities (or mail order only as you're insisting). Don't twist that into an argument that it was as widely available as the SNES or Genesis, because we all know it wasn't.
Finding proof about the distribution of those later releases seems to have proven to be very difficult, you know.
The burden of proof goes both ways, dumbass.
I did read your previous post, but it's completely wrong. Most Americans do not live in only a few major markets. In the US you DO need to compete nationwide. I don't like your tone that insults pretty much everywhere that isn't a major city; those parts of America are large, and make up a lot of the country.
Nearly 175 million people live in metropolitan areas of 1 million plus residents, which is 55% of the population; stretch it out to metros of 500k and up and you'll include right at 2/3 the nation. Thanks for failing.
there's nothing in the US like Tokyo, with that many people concentrated into such a small area.
Population Density:
Tokyo - 16,000/sq mi
New York City - 27,778.7/sq mi
Try researching your "facts" next time.
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I found Turbo goods in lots of towns with populations of <10,000 - 20,000.
I rented TG games and purchased them after the rental stores decided to sell them off. :) I live in a town of <10,000
As for the credibility of myself and others with firsthand accounts, I've been discussing Turbo/PCE online since 1996. Not only is everything I say about my experiences true, I've gotten to know so many Turbo fans over the past couple decades whose accounts I can rightfully trust. While Black Falcon was fooling around with his first console, many of us Turbo fans across the world were sharing our experiences while they were still fresh in our minds.
The Turbo Pages and Turbo List? Damn I miss the Turbo Pages...
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I found Turbo goods in lots of towns with populations of <10,000 - 20,000.
I rented TG games and purchased them after the rental stores decided to sell them off. :) I live in a town of <10,000
As for the credibility of myself and others with firsthand accounts, I've been discussing Turbo/PCE online since 1996. Not only is everything I say about my experiences true, I've gotten to know so many Turbo fans over the past couple decades whose accounts I can rightfully trust. While Black Falcon was fooling around with his first console, many of us Turbo fans across the world were sharing our experiences while they were still fresh in our minds.
The Turbo Pages and Turbo List? Damn I miss the Turbo Pages...
Places like the Unofficial Duo Page, TurboGrafx Network, Turbo Compendium, etc. The Turbo List was unavailable for me (to post in) for the first few years I was online with only my Saturn and then I was using my DC for a year or two after that before I got my first PC. Early on, after befriending people, we'd often chat through email about Turbo stuff. It seemed like forever that Tengai Makyou II was one of the rarest and most sought after PCE games. Now most English speaking Turbo fans can't be bothered with Japanese RPGs.
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Places like the Unofficial Duo Page, TurboGrafx Network, Turbo Compendium, etc. The Turbo List was unavailable for me (to post in) for the first few years I was online with only my Saturn and then I was using my DC for a year or two after that before I got my first PC. Early on, after befriending people, we'd often chat through email about Turbo stuff. It seemed like forever that Tengai Makyou II was one of the rarest and most sought after PCE games. Now most English speaking Turbo fans can't be bothered with Japanese RPGs.
Heh, I used the Saturn netlink as well.
With regard to Tengai II, I picked it up in the late 90s at a pretty high price. I found a geocities site that had a mini guide entirely in Japanese and was able to play through it that way and get past the part where I needed to enter Japanese characters. I also picked up Kabuki-den which I didn't play through until years later when I saw your guide for it.
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Finding proof about the distribution of those later releases seems to have proven to be very difficult, you know.
All Turbo games that were released in Canada (everything but the indy publishers and the last few mail order-only titles) were available at Radio Shack right up to the end. Radio Shack was everywhere in my Province and seems to have been across the country, but it's a different company than the American one.
If I had known that twenty years later that I'd have have to prove reality using hard evidence to a boy not even born yet, I would have saved my receipts.
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Do you? You're all over the map with your bullshit. I repeat: it's a fact that the system was available nationwide from several retailers, as opposed to the myth that it was only available in a handful of select cities (or mail order only as you're insisting). Don't twist that into an argument that it was as widely available as the SNES or Genesis, because we all know it wasn't.
So basically you're mostly agreeing with me. Nice to know.
(I never said that it was ONLY available in a few select cities, just that that's where NEC put the strongest effort into around launch. The article in the OP describes it, how they did their launch, then kind of gave up after the launch didn't go as well as hoped. That launch, of course, focused on a few metro areas. So sure, it was available outside those areas, but very poorly distributed and marketed because NEC was never willing to spend the money required to get the game actually decently distributed nationwide, after the mediocre success of the test-market release.)
Finding proof about the distribution of those later releases seems to have proven to be very difficult, you know.
The burden of proof goes both ways, dumbass.
You do know that I'm not saying that Magical Chase was mail order only and never have, yes? I'm not the one you should be getting mad at here. The only games I've said I think were likely mail order only are Godzilla and The Dynastic Hero, the two '94 releases.
Nearly 175 million people live in metropolitan areas of 1 million plus residents, which is 55% of the population; stretch it out to metros of 500k and up and you'll include right at 2/3 the nation. Thanks for failing.
Uhhh... first, so you've already forgotten that NEC wasn't focusing on all urban areas, but only a few of them, in the '89 launch? Please remember this. Second, "metro areas" is a pretty broad definition that includes huge amounts of suburban and even rural space, in the US. Japan is small and concentrated, while the US is large and spread out. So even with the "same" terms, in the US you're talking about VASTLY more space to try to cover.
there's nothing in the US like Tokyo, with that many people concentrated into such a small area.
Population Density:
Tokyo - 16,000/sq mi
New York City - 27,778.7/sq mi
Try researching your "facts" next time.
New York City has a lot fewer people than Tokyo does, and it's a much smaller percentage of the nation's population too. Tokyo metro is 10% of Japan's population, in one metro area! The US is more spread out and can't match that. You will have much greater success in Japan focusing on urban areas than you will in the US. This is a very well-known fact.
And anyway...
Greater Tokyo Metro Area - 13,754 km2 of land with 34,607,069 people. (of ~127 million in the country) for a metro density of 2,516/km2 (6,516/sq mi)
New York Metropolitan Area - 34,490 km2 of land with 23,484,225 people (of ~318 million in the country) for a metro density of 1,876/sq mi (724/km2)
Greater Tokyo has a far higher population density than metro New York, regardless of the population density in only the city itself. Tokyo's population density only appears "lower" because some mountainous land and a bunch of islands are included in the Tokyo district, while the NY metro only includes highly populated areas, pretty much. Looking only at metro densities corrects this.
Finding proof about the distribution of those later releases seems to have proven to be very difficult, you know.
All Turbo games that were released in Canada (everything but the indy publishers and the last few mail order-only titles) were available at Radio Shack right up to the end. Radio Shack was everywhere in my Province and seems to have been across the country, but it's a different company than the American one.
It's interesting that Radio Shack in Canada had so much Turbo stuff, because around here I barely ever remember Radio Shack having much of anything gaming-related, for either consoles or PC... they would sometimes have a few games here and there, but it was clearly not their main focus. I do remember them sometimes having a small rack of games, and I got a PC game or two there, but games clearly were not something they cared much about.
As for your ridiculous (removed) attempt at an ending sentence, I have no idea what you're talking about, but if you actually read any of my posts you'd know my age. If you want to talk about consoles from before I was born, look back before the Colecovision (that released the same month I was born).
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I bought my Turbo Grafx 16 BITD from Toys R Us. I lived outside of a city that, in 1990, ranked as the 123rd most populous city in the US, which isn't that big. I was able to buy hardware and games at Toys R Us, Kay Bee Toys, and Electronics Boutique. As long as you were within driving distance of one of those stores, you could buy a Turbo. Once it started to fade, Kay Bee dropped it, but Toys R Us and Elbo held onto it until it was really dragging. I was able to get Working Designs releases in both locations.
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I liked this article, seemed pretty comprehensive. Well, here's to 25 more years. How many of you will be around then? :P
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So basically you're mostly agreeing with me. Nice to know.
You're an idiot.
I never said that it was ONLY available in a few select cities, just that that's where NEC put the strongest effort into around launch.
By disagreeing with my original assertion, that's exactly what you were saying, and my original statement had nothing to do with a limited time frame at launch.
You do know that I'm not saying that Magical Chase was mail order only and never have, yes?
Did I say you did? I was responding to your assertion that it's reasonable for people to make such claims. Try paying attention.
Uhhh... first, so you've already forgotten that NEC wasn't focusing on all urban areas, but only a few of them, in the '89 launch? Please remember this.
Neither esteban nor myself limited our arguments to the launch window. Please remember this.
Second, "metro areas" is a pretty broad definition that includes huge amounts of suburban and even rural space, in the US. Japan is small and concentrated, while the US is large and spread out. So even with the "same" terms, in the US you're talking about VASTLY more space to try to cover.
Irrelevant. The point was that the majority of people live in urban areas and not rural areas, having nothing at all to do with urban density. Face it, you're wrong.
Greater Tokyo has a far higher population density than metro New York, regardless of the population density in only the city itself. Tokyo's population density only appears "lower" because some mountainous land and a bunch of islands are included in the Tokyo district, while the NY metro only includes highly populated areas, pretty much.
Why look at just the city when you can include bits of Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey? Everyone knows that when you say Big Apple you mean Pennsylvania!
Looking only at metro densities corrects this.
You mean 'skews the numbers so you are correct'.
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How a thread that started with such an awesome article can devolve into this bullshit upsets me. Christ people, be the bigger man already. At least take it to Fighting Street. :(
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How a thread that started with such an awesome article can devolve into this bullshit upsets me. Christ people, be the bigger man already. At least take it to Fighting Street. :(
Seconded.
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You're an idiot.
You need to read this thread again. We don't disagree anywhere remotely near as much as you think. So how about I respond to that part again.
I think the biggest disagreement is on the catalog ordering issue, really.
I repeat: it's a fact that the system was available nationwide from several retailers, as opposed to the myth that it was only available in a handful of select cities (or mail order only as you're insisting).
I never said it was mail order only, or only available in a few select cities. It was MORE available in a few markets. Not ONLY available there. But apart from that, of course you're right, it was available nationwide, just in few stores in most of the country.
Don't twist that into an argument that it was as widely available as the SNES or Genesis, because we all know it wasn't.
This is confusing because of course this is a big part of the point. NEC was a large company, much larger than Sega. There is no good reason for the TG16 to have been so comparatively hard to find! I know we agree on this, you've said the same thing.
I know, you're saying that even though it wasn't as available as those other two it wasn't hard to find, but I think that if it was as easy to find as you say, the system would have sold better than it did. Unless we actually agree entirely on this point, which is also quite possible.
I never said that it was ONLY available in a few select cities, just that that's where NEC put the strongest effort into around launch.
By disagreeing with my original assertion, that's exactly what you were saying, and my original statement had nothing to do with a limited time frame at launch.[/quote]
I didn't disagree with your original assertion, though. Not really. You're already forgetting the actual discussion!
http://www.pcenginefx.com/forums/index.php?topic=17667.msg371491#msg371491 I said that around here, the system was not available in the stores you listed. This shows that it wasn't available in those stores in-store nationwide, nothing more; I never said I thought it wasn't available in those chains anywhere, of course! I'm sure it was. I was just pointing out that it wasn't available in-store everywhere in those chains you listed, that's all.
http://www.pcenginefx.com/forums/index.php?topic=17667.msg371646#msg371646 This is the closest I can find to me actually saying what you seem to think I'm saying but never did, but even there, I certainly never said that everywhere was like that, only some places! We all know it had poor distribution, there were certainly plenty of places where it was very difficult to find.
On the other hand, you say both http://www.pcenginefx.com/forums/index.php?topic=17667.msg371975#msg371975 that the system was available nationwide and also http://www.pcenginefx.com/forums/index.php?topic=17667.msg371583#msg371583 that it was harder to find than "main stream stuff". NEC was a huge company. The TG16 should have been just as mainstream as the SNES or Genesis. That it wasn't shows how shoddy their distribution and marketing efforts were after expanding beyond the initial test-market areas.
http://www.pcenginefx.com/forums/index.php?topic=17667.msg371581#msg371581 Your defense is that people could order it from the store's catalog. This started the debate over whether that counts or not. You do follow that with this: http://www.pcenginefx.com/forums/index.php?topic=17667.msg371975#msg371975 but still, I probably do consider catalogs less than you do. I know you could get gaming stuff that way, I just don't see the evidence of it a being popular way to buy videogames or consoles specifically. Catalogs were plenty popular for other things, of course.
Of course, to criticize myself, I did use personal experience as a major point, which of course I shouldn't do. Sure, my point was just to show that the system wasn't available in those chains everywhere, but still, it IS personal experience, and those vary too much from area to area to be particularly useful unless you compile a lot of them from different places. It would have been better to focus on what is in the article, the parts about NEC losing interest after the less-than-expected test-market sales, that they never sold through that initial production run of 750k systems, etc.
Did I say you did? I was responding to your assertion that it's reasonable for people to make such claims. Try paying attention.
Attacking me for things others think that I don't agree with makes no sense. That's the point.
Uhhh... first, so you've already forgotten that NEC wasn't focusing on all urban areas, but only a few of them, in the '89 launch? Please remember this.
Neither esteban nor myself limited our arguments to the launch window. Please remember this.
It sure would be nice if NEC had. :p
Seriously, we're discussing this article here, and the article makes it very clear that NEC didn't put nearly as much effort in as they needed to, and should have, after launch.
Irrelevant. The point was that the majority of people live in urban areas and not rural areas, having nothing at all to do with urban density. Face it, you're wrong.
... No, the point was that NEC focused only on a few market areas in the US at first, which were urban markets. It was not that they focused on all of urbanized America. The number of people who live in rural versus urban areas isn't all that relevant. More important is the size difference between the countries! There are so many MORE markets in the US, it costs a lot more to compete in. The article explains this, and says how after the mediocre first-market showing, NEC wasn't willing to put in the money to seriously compete nationwide.
Why look at just the city when you can include bits of Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey? Everyone knows that when you say Big Apple you mean Pennsylvania!
I'm not sure what you're talking about here, but that's how metro areas work. In Maine, for example, the Portland "metro area" includes almost half of the states' population, that in southern Maine, including some quite rural towns.
Looking only at metro densities corrects this.
You mean 'skews the numbers so you are correct'.
No, the skewing is comparing Tokyo prefecture data which includes thinly inhabited mountains and island chains to NY metro area which includes only populated areas. The US equivalent of the Tokyo prefecture data you list there would be New York state data, and I assure you, its population density would be much lower than Tokyo's!
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(http://cdn.meme.am/instances/500x/54630205.jpg)
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Heh, that's awesome Josh.
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According to Wikipedia:
Alien Crush
China Warrior
Dungeon Explorer
Keith Courage in Alpha Zones
Power Golf
R-Type
The Legendary Axe
Victory Run
Vigilante
To me, Legendary Axe or Dungeon Explorer would've been the best ones. f*ckin' crazy that DE was a launch game. Still one of my favorite games for the Turbo.
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The Turbo had a strong selection of launch titles in my opinion, it's just that their follow up wasn't so good.
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According to Wikipedia:
Alien Crush
China Warrior
Dungeon Explorer
Keith Courage in Alpha Zones
Power Golf
R-Type
The Legendary Axe
Victory Run
Vigilante
To me, Legendary Axe or Dungeon Explorer would've been the best ones. f*ckin' crazy that DE was a launch game. Still one of my favorite games for the Turbo.
The amount of agree I have with this statement is large.
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According to Wikipedia:
Alien Crush
China Warrior
Dungeon Explorer
Keith Courage in Alpha Zones
Power Golf
R-Type
The Legendary Axe
Victory Run
Vigilante
To me, Legendary Axe or Dungeon Explorer would've been the best ones. f*ckin' crazy that DE was a launch game. Still one of my favorite games for the Turbo.
I agree....if that is the selection that was available I'd have gone with Legendary Axe all day.
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Yeah, R-Type, along with Gradius, were probably the two most popular post-crash shmups of the '80s, and their respective series would remain two of the most popular shmup series until the '00s. Having a great port of R-Type was a big deal. Not everyone likes the game -- the super-hard gameplay is not for everyone -- but it's a fantastic game, and NEC absolutely should have had it as the packin. I know some people would prefer Legendary Axe, but I like R-Type more, myself. Plus it's a known name, not an original IP like Legendary Axe.
I understand and agree with most of this. Just feel it is simply the wrong kind of game to be a pack in. The hardcore gamer will always come if you build it, so to speak. Pack ins, especially then, to me were to attract the general gamer crowd--hence, platformers/action games usually.
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To echo what jlued686 already said: North Americans were really lucky to have something like Dungeon Explorer at launch. When I look what PCE had in Japan for the FIRST YEAR...ouch.
Yeah, R-Type, along with Gradius, were probably the two most popular post-crash shmups of the '80s, and their respective series would remain two of the most popular shmup series until the '00s. Having a great port of R-Type was a big deal. Not everyone likes the game -- the super-hard gameplay is not for everyone -- but it's a fantastic game, and NEC absolutely should have had it as the packin. I know some people would prefer Legendary Axe, but I like R-Type more, myself. Plus it's a known name, not an original IP like Legendary Axe.
I understand and agree with most of this. Just feel it is simply the wrong kind of game to be a pack in. The hardcore gamer will always come if you build it, so to speak. Pack ins, especially then, to me were to attract the general gamer crowd--hence, platformers/action games usually.
I agree, GoldenWheels.
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When I look what PCE had in Japan for the FIRST YEAR...ouch.
Of the games released in 1987 Kato chan & Ken chan and Bikkuri Man World are great IMO. :D
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When I look what PCE had in Japan for the FIRST YEAR...ouch.
Of the games released in 1987 Kato chan & Ken chan and Bikkuri Man World are great IMO. :D
Agreed. But look at how long it took for a decent library to form. I am surprised it wasn't more robust, sooner.
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One of my Genesis fanboy friends' first purchases was a PBC and SMS R-Type. It was still a big deal to him.
Imagine if he got to play the Turbo version a year or two earlier.
Hey, SMS R-Type with the FM sound module ain't nothin' to f*ck with. It was seriously a good version of the game for the time, though the PCE version had a leg up.
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Dungeon Explorer as a pack-in would have encourage the sale of more turbotaps and more controllers. Inviting friends over to play would have encouraged more sales of the system and so on and so forth.
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Dungeon Explorer as a pack-in would have encourage the sale of more turbotaps and more controllers. Inviting friends over to play would have encouraged more sales of the system and so on and so forth.
I hadn't thought of that. It's sad that it is one of the FEW 3+ player games that really shine on TG-16/PCE.