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[Hurricane_Chris]

I was messing around with my PC Engine the other day and started to think what a great time I had with the system back in the day. That got me to thinking...

The PC Engine started off slow but eventually saw huge success in NEC's home market Japan. Altho the TG-16 was pretty much a failure outside Japan (failed in the US, and was it even released in Europe?) I always wondered why NEC never seemed to give the game business a serious try. I hardly call the SG and or FX serious efforts.

Does anyone know what happened in the last days of PC Engine, the early days of the SuperGrafx, and what led to SuperGrafx getting 6 games and NEC bailing out of the console business. I'm curious about this.

 

[john tv]

They came back last year, released two games that totally bombed, and went back to the grave. Probably due to clueless management more than anything else, but who knows.

 

[soundwave05]

I think it may also be because they ended up being the semi-conductor supplier for Sega and Nintendo later on, perhaps NEC just felt that was a better way to go.

 

[ferricide]

it was clearly bizarrely bad management. if the PCFX hadn't been a completely unpalatable disaster, they might still be around (in japan.) but that system totally failed to have features that appealed to the mainstream market at all, while pushing all sorts of irrelevant ones. connect to a PC to make games? check! 3D graphics? nope! full-motion video looking gorgeous? check! as powerful as the saturn? no way!

it seems like the saturn really inherited most of the PC engine's legacy in japan -- stuff like cotton and tengai makyou, for a couple of examples -- leaving the PCFX with very few titles that mattered (but a lot of anime pr0n. woot.) the system was underpowered, huge, and just couldn't possibly manage to exist with sega doing the best it had ever done in japan and basically eating its audience (meanwhile, the PS1 owned mainstream gaming, as we all know.)

as for NEC interchannel USA, i don't think they did anything particularly wrong. culdcept was a fantastic game with a decent localization and an adequate, professional looking print ad. it just didn't appeal... in the US, card games are teh kiddie at this point, and the game just didn't find an audience (despite the fact that it is IMO incredibly awesome.) tube slider had an awful title, but there was nothing *wrong* with it, per se, from a product standpoint. sure, it's mediocre, but it's a competent little racing game.

sony denying ys I & II might have put a bullet in their head, if they didn't have any other titles lined up. and IIRC, NEC sold off interchannel (to marvelous? or someone. i forget) shortly after that anyway, which means that the US division would have been adrift even if it didn't close.

 

[xexex]

The SuperGrafx aka PC Engine 2 came out only 2 years after the original PC Engine came (Oct 1987 ==> Nov 1989) It was only a very modest improvement graphically, and other things were about the same as the original machine (CPU, Audio). PC Engine owners were satisfied with the system they already had and saw no reason to get the new SG when it cost at least twice as much, maybe three times as much as the PCE. hardly anyone supported the SG, software support was virtually non-existant. unbelievably few games came out for SG, and all of these except 1 looked like they couldve been done on the older PCE.

If the SuperGrafx had been what it was supposed to have been, a real 16-bit system with obviously better CPU, much better graphics, and better audio--launched in 1990 not 1989, with arcade-identical ports of more arcade games and an RPG or 2, things would've been very different.


The PC-FX failed for several reasons. some of which I probably don't know. from what I understand, the 3D capabilities were gutted between 1992 and 1994. instead of being a fairly mainstream system like the PCEngine and CD-ROM systems were in Japan (with all kinds of games), the PC-FX became a narrowly focused "anime system" with basicly 1 type of game, with rare exceptions. and instead of launching in 1992 or 1993, they launched in late 1994 right up against the Saturn and Playstation. a suicide in the making.