Let's Save the NEC Turbografx-16!

[Music] in 1987 NEC and Hudson salt joined forces to develop and release the PC engine in Japan it was a hybrid of 8 and 16bit Technology meant to go head-to-head with Nintendo's ficom and wipe the floor with it and from a technical perspective it did just that it featured a custom 7.16 MHz 8bit CPU and dual 16-bit video chips that could paint 482 colors on screen the programmable sound generator it used gave the machine a unique synthesis that separated it from its competitors for 1987 this technology in a Home console was extremely impressive and it's game showed that right away those games came on Tiny credit card-like cartridges that were all kinds of cool the PC engine did well in Japan in its formative years in just over 12 months it moved over a million and a half units when 1989 began the PC engine was soaking up 50% of Japan's gaming sales and NEC and Hudson were ready to take that dominance to North America so it was that in August of 1989 the turbor graphic 16 was born NAC sought a redesign of the tiny PC engine into a much larger case and a different controller connection but held on to the controller shape and the game cards though it started out with a ton of promise it was quickly pushed aside by sega's Genesis in the US for 2 years the Genesis grew in market share and by the time Sonic lands the Super Nintendo puts the final nail in the turbor graphics coffin despite having a cdrom add-on and a solid library of titles Western audiences simply didn't take to nec's console a full-blown European launch was cancelled and the turbo Graphics fell into the record books as a failed device scarcely Remembered in the 16-bit war in this episode we are going to attempt to turn around the turbo graphic 16's North American fortunes and change its history for the better like the episode similar to this it's all in good fun and not meant to be taken seriously if anything I'm just hoping for some good spirited discussion among fans of the device we have our work cut out for us in this one so let's get started [Music] our first order of business is to deal with the launch of the turbo since the PC engine is doing well in Japan in 1989 we aren't going to change anything about it standing there NEC and Hudson had crafted a powerful device for its day so we we will also be leaving most of the hardware alone no redesigns to the CPU GPU or sound system it could already display a decent amount of color and I always enjoyed its unique sound chip our focus in this episode will be in dealing with changes largely to do with software retail strategy and consumer Awareness on the hardware front there are only two things that never set well with me and that was nec's decision to try and sell accessories separately that other cons sols had by default and the ludicrous redesign of the PC engine shell that leaves our first change as building two controller ports into the device and leaving them as they were in Japan in terms of size and pin configuration we will also be leaving the original PC engine shell alone safe of the new logo I always felt the PC engine had such an elegant design and we will be doubling down on that we will also adopt the 1989 core Graphics update of RCA connections right out of our console all you will need is a $20 cable to get the better image quality and stereo sound our next change is much larger and requires multiple steps because we are launching right on top of the Sega Genesis we need to consider the value proposition of our package releasing a new console at $199 that doesn't meet a similar value as our competitor is unacceptable we need a pack in title that's going to move Hardware though I always enjoyed Keith courage and Alpha zones it was all wrong as the leadoff hitter for First Impressions we need something that will hook potential buyers with great graphics fun gameplay and an appealing character that we can make our mascot yep you got it Bon Adventure will be our pack in Ace in the Hole but if we are going to do that we will also need to move our North American launch date back a bit which will now be Friday December the 1st 1989 PC gjin the Japanese version was originally released in December of 1989 and we will be bringing it State Side immediately this will give us our pack in and mascot right at Christmas and we will use Bonk heavily in our print and television advertising at $199 we will face the Sega Genesis with a powerful value proposition the move to December also gives us a more potent launch lineup that means we will have our type blazing lasers the legend legendary axe vigilante Galaga 90 and three different sports titles to choose from there will be others available as well giving us a start that hopefully is something special since we are focusing our current energy on the base console the CD ROM attachment will not be launching in [Music] 1989 [Music] since we are launching during the final month of 1989 1990 will be of extreme importance for getting the turbo Graphics into as many homes as possible to do that we need a software lineup that makes people want our device remember we aren't just facing sega's Genesis this year but an entrenched Nintendo Entertainment System that is still selling incredibly well we need to approach the Western Market with a more varied software lineup than was originally attempted this means a US team needs to be established immediately to take Japanese software that may need changes and translations for the US market fire pro wrestling combination tag will be translated and given a mild facelift to make the wrestlers look a little more like the WWF and WCW stars of the time we need that variety and what we are offering and a wrestling game is a great start since Sega has completely skipped the arcade Shinobi in favor of a console specific release we carry that license over from asmic and bring it to the US and publish it ourselves action games sell hardware and seeing a popular Sega arcade game you can't play on any other 16 console is a win for us we will also be bringing over night rider special this was a car combat title that was based on the popular 80s TV show it put you in mind of something out of the chase HQ series both in how it looks and plays and I think it will make a solid early title for us and speaking of solid releases we will be scooping up power drift for a US releases well this is another one Sega skipped for the Genesis so there shouldn't be any resistance to us putting it front and center in our software lineup we will also begin an aggressive advertising campaign that extols the virtues of our Hardware we will put heavy emphasis on the amount of color our system can display on screen and the fact we have not one but two 16bit Graphics chips in our machine since we have a number of arcade ports coming in 1990 we also play up that angle and make it clear that with our color and 16-bit power our machine is where you want to be and 1990 comes to a close we lower the price of our base unit to $150 just in time for Christmas without the cdrom attachment on the market and the software needed to support it we should be able to absorb this price drop and have the capital to translate the games I have added to our us Library I feel the turbo CD is still not needed at this point so we will again push it out to allow its library to mature in Japan 1990 was important but 1991 is when we have to contend with the release of the Super Nintendo and sega's new mascot Sonic the Hedgehog our strategy begins with making sure we are iterating and improving among our sports games so we need to Market our new TV sports lineup properly it will be clear by this point that celebrity endorsements are huge for these types of games so we need some well-known players backing our products the TV sports lineup has football basketball and hockey plus we will pull in volleyball golf baseball tennis and soccer from other franchises and Japanese releases and Rebrand them power 11 will become TV sports soccer corga will become TV sports baseball super volleyball will become TV sports volleyball Jack Nicholas greatest 18 holes of Championship golf will become TV sports golf starring Jack Nicholas and final match tennis will become TV sports tennis our celebrity endorsements will be added at the end of every TV sports title so something like TV sports football becomes TV sports football starring Jerry Rice sports games are a very important part of the North American market and we need to not only make sure we have a steady lineup but that we have to improve upon each version until they are competitive with our peers the TV sports lineup will be a first step in that direction we will also get a few more Japanese only releases out in the US in 1991 we will continue our firepro Series in the US by releasing firepro wrestling second bout the sequel to combination tag we will also have a lineup of super Graphics games that are going to be ported down to the turbo Graphics the super Graphics had some Sprite background and memory advantages over the base turbo Graphics but the game should be very similar since the bulk of the hardware is exactly the same this will give us a Home Port of 1941 Counterattack and Ghouls and ghost to our lineup as well as a few exclusives in the way of all D and Grand zort our big summer game will be Bon revenge and we will release it the same day Sonic releases in the US along with the heavily advertise Standalone version for those that already own a turbo Graphics it will again become our packin title and replace the original our new Bonks Revenge pack will go head-to-head with Sega Sonic pack at the same price we will also be launching the turbo CD unit at the end of the year just in time for Christmas and early December at $299 the unit will come with the super CD ROM card standard and the packin game R type complete CD and position us to push CD gaming hard in 1992 this price should be doable since the original timeline saw NEC lower the price of the turbo CD to 299 around this point releasing sooner would have been a mistake since we needed to focus on getting our base console up and running and we needed to focus on the software we've gone over so far I also feel that there was no need to release the turbo CD before the availability of the super CD card 1991 is also the year I Inc a deal with SNK to bring their Neo Geo arcade games to the PC engine and turbo Graphics there will be magician Lord on the turbo Graphics sen Goku will see a port I'll even try and get craw swords on our platform I feel there is a certain level of high-end respect for SNK software and with the color capabilities of our machine I think we are a perfect place to bring these games home and having them still look fantastic SNK software was no stranger to the PC engine in the original timeline but we will bring it much earlier and support far more releases all of this sets up a 1992 that will make or break our market and I have some big changes to give us the best shot [Music] with Christmas 1991 behind us we have two full years on the market our super CD ROM is finally out and we are facing our first full calendar year of two 16-bit competitors this means we will need to be highly aggressive with our Western software releases starting with bringing more Japanese made games over liquid kids will see a US release in early 1992 as will ninja giden our us software team will lock those funky backgrounds up into a single plane that eliminates that terrible shimmering G of Thunder will move from an end of the year release to a March or April release in the US so we can trumpet how incredible our super City ROM is the same with Valas the fantasm soldier and forgotten worlds we are also going to continue our fire proo love with an English translation of Legends Bel snatcher CD romantic will also see a state side release and full English translation our $300 turbo CD needs games that will grab people's attention and a 1992 snatcher will be pushed heavily in our media packages our largest and most challenging mission in 1992 however is securing third parties that we desperately need with Nintendo those ridiculous Monopoly and marketing practices coming to an end we should now have access to developers and Publishers willing to work with us since companies like Konami are already making games for the PC engine in Japan we work closely with them in the US to secure some of their most popular franchises even if we need to develop and publish them under the NEC Avenue label we aren't going to get everything but a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and a contra would do wonders for our platform we also need to aggressively pursue Electronic Arts not just for their sports lineup but also to have a shot at the massive amount of computer games they have access to I'd love to work up a deal to secure modern updates to skat or Die the BS tail and the starflight series anything else that would come of that deal would be icing on the cake other third parties we'd need would be virgin interactive a claim and Activision again we aren't going to get them all nor would we get all their Gams but it's really important for us to work closely with development and Publishing arms of these companies to secure what we can even if some of it needs to be developed in-house or published under our label the 16-bit era saw a massive proliferation of multiplatform software and the changes we have made will hopefully give us a better position in the market to draw some of these games our way the previous Neo Geo collaboration will also give us more options in 1992 we'll pick up last Resort and Baseball Stars 2o for release at some point in the year our Sports titles will also see updates for the calendar year we will also go after the league licenses for each sport where available TV sports NFL football 93 starring Jerry Rice is the natural progression of the series and the other sports games will follow the same strategy where we cannot secure a league license we will make sure all the cities from those leagues are represented and we will add create a team options where needed Again Sports will be a huge reason some people gravitate towards our platform and we will make sure options are there we close out in 1992 with a price drop of our Bon Revenge pack which will now move for a mere $129 our turbo CD will come down significantly to 1999 to prepare for the December 1992 release of the turbo Duo which will retail for an attractive $299 our Duo packin software will be two discs the first is a special cdrom edition of Azon with new story cinematics an extra stage and of course a new remix soundtrack we will also include an arcade compilation disc that has four popular games Splatterhouse Galaga 90 gradius and fighting Street this will kick off an aggressive Christmas campaign where we will Market TV and magazine ads heavily promoting our price drops and new turbo Duo Hardware [Music] hopefully our changes so far will give the turbo Graphics brand a larger footprint in the North American Market the competition is fierce so I still expect 1993 to be an uphill battle every step of the way we will start by making sure a number of once Japanese only games are brought over to the US Double Dragon 2 for the super CD ROM will be first among those it was such a different experience and we need that for our device Street Fighter 2 Champion Edition will be a huge Focus for us in June of 93 and that strategy starts by packing it in with a special fight edition of our turbo Graphics Hardware this unit will come with two Avenue pads six controllers the game and the system for $149 making it the cheapest way to play Street Fighter 2 at home in North America for newcomers we continue the trend of moving Japanese games over to the US by also securing Dracula X Chino Rondo hopefully our changes have made it attractive enough for Konami themselves to handle this but if they don't we license the North American release under the NEC branding and publish it as Castlevania Rondo of Blood 1993 will also see our TV sports lineup get another upgrade expanding our features and keeping step with our competitors and speaking of competitors I am anticipating that Electronic Arts is fully on board with us at this point and we have a number of their largest franchises already if not this is the year that the turbo received John Matten football for a cdrom add-on so we should have a wealth of sports options at this point the Neo Geo partnership will be a gift that keeps on giving and Viewpoint and S Goku 2 is set for a 1993 release to prepare for the Christmas holiday season we will make a special sports pack for our turbo Duo which will come with a CD of all this year's TV sports titles we will push the value of this pack and all other packs heavily during the end of the year rush with a big Sports Pack for our Duo and the special Street Fighter 2 pack for our base unit we should be scoring big with consumer interest keep in mind this includes a slew of other big 1993 releases that should give our brand a boost cotton fantastic night dreams Bon 3 Bon's big adventure Lords of Thunder rainbow Islands super air zon Bomberman 94 and gang ground SX will all see a calendar year 93 release setting us up for a showdown in 1994 that will be our final major push of that [Music] generation one of our major issues to contend with in 1994 is the sheer number of games released only for the CD format in Japan this means we must focus on Huard releases for North America to make sure we continue to support our product with a wide variety of options for every customer we have our yearly TV sports lineup on ukart already and our work with third parties should yield more releases from that sector to help with this we will also be bringing over once Japanese exclusive hu cards for North America starting with battle load runner for puzzle game Fanatics tat suen for the shoot them up crowd and the Tower of draga for those that like RPG elements in their action titles our Neo Geo connection will also allow us to bulk up our Huard offerings by grabbing ports of Samurai Showdown Spin Master and Wind Jammers while the power of the super CD ROM would be a natural fit for these games we need to make sure that our customers that only own the base turbo Graphics have Hue card options of great titles available of course we will still have Neo geop ports to our CD ROM system and there is no question that the cdrom format will see a huge push in 1994 we have a number of Japanese releases to bring over and an arcade card to Market as a massive upgrade with some outstanding arcade ports we'll be bringing over fatal Fury 2 art of fighting poo poo CD World Heroes 2 Dynasty Wars Mega twins pop full male mad stalker Full Metal Force Strider fatal Fury special East 4 the dawn of East and for the first time on us Shores an English translation of emerald dragon the idea here is variety quality and focusing on games that make our customers feel like they are getting something special realistically 1994 will be the final year of the turbor graphic 16 in the US and we will need to start thinking about where we are going for a new generation that's right around the [Music] corner many of you are likely sitting there wondering about a European release of the turbo graphic essentially I would not alter the North American Plan here and simply follow suit by establishing a distribution arm in Europe and releasing the platform in early 1990 across the UK France and Germany then rolling it out slowly in other nations as 1990 continues this will give us access to the millions of Gamers available in that part of the world which is absolutely imperative to Our Success I really do feel that the pow territory was a missed opportunity by NEC originally and they should have pursued that market aggressively we will advertise our system and games as unique alternatives to Sega and Nintendo's Wares playing up our titles that cannot be played anywhere else hopefully my changes will trigger better sales in both North America and Europe giving NEC and Hudson more money to keep developing games and securing third party support well above what the platform originally accomplished [Music] [Music] I really hope you guys guys enjoyed this episode and I'd love to hear what you would have done differently with the turbo Graphics to sum up my strategy I wanted to get the right pack in advertise more aggressively bring over more Japanese releases license more popular IPS and develop them inhouse under the NEC branding and finally focus on signing more third-party development these things are of course easier said than done but I feel a proper start with the right pack in game and more Japanese conver verions would have been an excellent motivator you also have to remember the huge amount of games that would come to the platform that I didn't addressed directly here I left that stuff alone because I wanted it to release as it was originally the turbo Graphics would get the legendary act series for instance games I feel a larger audience would really appreciate newtopia was another one I felt was really good and adds the variety of Adventure to our catalog of offerings there are also a number of s license games that I didn't mention that the turbo would get early space Harrier was a solid port and I think fantasy Zone would do well as a release window option it might be in our best interest to pursue outrun and columns as well simply to spread out the amount of genres we have available especially since they would be available so early in the console's North American run I think establishing firepro wrestling in a big way is super important to our brand and getting Konami games out in the West would be key to our images offering something different from Sega Nintendo especially with snatchers so early in 1992 publishing Street Fighter 2 in the west and packing it in with our Hardware is another big move we need we have a very good version of the game and it would be crazy not to give it every chance to succeed and really that's the entire Focus here giving the turbo Graphics a real chance by putting its best foot forward I always felt any treated the US market like it was scared to go all in scared it wouldn't pay off so they played it safe and didn't do the things the console needed to give it its best chance so many games left in Japan so many choices made that didn't appeal to potential buyers had they come in more sure of themselves and with a greater will to put up a real fight the turbo Graphics may have had a much different history than the one we have today I'm sealord X thank you guys for watching and I will catch you next [Music] [Music] [Music] time

Channel: Sega Lord X

Views: 45,662

Keywords: pc engine, turbografx, nec, segalordx, sega lord x, sega saturn, sega genesis, sega dreamcast, mega drive, megadrive, game gear, 32x, mega cd, genesis, saturn, master system, sega, sega cd, gameplay, review, movies, retro games, retro gaming, video games, ps4, xbox, wii, nintendo, gamecube, n64, ps1, ps2, ps3, psp, vita, switch, atari, pc engine cd, pc engine duo, nec pc engine

Id: Knlsnz4pvXc

Length: 28min 36sec (1716 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 26 2024