The TurboGrafx 16, The story of how NEC lost the console war

despite a solid foundation with every advantage provided with what could have been an immense success was squandered and relegated to the back end caps of history the turbografx-16 is what happens when a player is given a perfect hand with all the cards needed for victory but the player lacks the prerequisite knowledge the player the turbografx-16 was a perfect marriage of the video game industry and attack industry leader a large tech giant wanting to enter the console gaming space with a system that outpace its primary competition this combination would make you believe the system with a surefire hit however unlike Sony with its immensely successful PlayStation NEC played its hand completely wrong and turbo graphics 16 never reached its full potential in the United States [Music] but until Famicom was released in 1983 in Japanese market and it dominated it and would continue to do so the next several years despite advancements in technology the Japanese home console market stagnated around the family complementation console makers Sega was also on the market in time but they never quite made a large enough dent in the Japanese market to really impact the might of the Famicom the turbo graphics then known as the PC engine in Japan was developed by Hudson soft as the next logical step of the Japanese home console market puffin soft is Nintendo's first third-party developer and publisher thought they could potentially pitch a new compliment ender in a Gamasutra article rich O'Keefe discusses a relationship the Hudson soft had with Nintendo after they had released the family basic a keyboard and cart that allowed for the creation of software on the Famicom the family basic relationship is why they thought they could get away with designing Nintendo's next video game system O'Keefe says the problem was Nintendo wasn't interested in Hudson's design and the company wasn't large enough to manufacture our console on its own just engineer one in the same article it stated that Hudson soft even a purchase a go with their confidence on but was turned down as Elson on the Hudson soft pitch the huge card game format the Nintendo as well which it's been sinew ated that it inspired and tendo's disk drive but that's another story Hudson soft turned down by just about every game company looked an EC the company Hudson sauce had experience with creating software for any season line of personal computers any seeds tend to have been eager to jump to the idea NEC had been looking for a way to expand its reach into the home console space and up to that point had been dominated by Nintendo NEC said had been talked into the deal ahead since off because big were shelling how much money in the tenant was making the deal between the tech giant and a gaming pioneer made the perspective console on like a before it the resulting deal basically made the system have two masters NEC and Hudson soft who would both support the system as software publishers Hudson soft would be the driving force behind original content for the console while NEC would focus on finding games to pour it over to the platform however in this deal Hudson South took the lion's share of the treasure because having the soft had been the ones who primarily developed the console the CPU and GPU Hudson soft would get real T's on every system manufactured and in every game sold because that's the sauce that also developed a hue car technology the games for the platform were sold on NEC would make their money off selling the hardware primarily as NEC would handle the console production so right out of the game the deal with NEC wasn't completely advantageous but NEC saw the now named PC engine as an opportunity to get into console gaming space which had potential for great reward so they took the risk the PC engine when it launched in 1987 was almost an instant hit in 1988 it even went on down sell a Famicom which had seemingly ruled the Japanese island since 1983 once NEC was sure the pc engine would have legs to stand on they decided the console would be exported to the united states to challenge the ante a stand-in Tendo seemingly undisputed playground of north america NEC decided that it would launch the BC engine in the United States and it tasked American offices in Chicago to do just that however NEC needed to help Hudson South to help market the system and software like NEC hudson stop had to build a team to sell the pc engine to americans thought since i've created an international division because at that point in time they had very limited english-speaking staff at the company and I set up a division to start the process of selling the system because the nature of the partnership between NEC and Hudson soft Hudson soft needed to help NEC in this endeavor as NEC had no real experience in the gaming industry at this point once NEC send the marching orders for the PC engine to be sold the American office has started to build up and launch the system NEC technologies in Chicago led by Keith Schaeffer started by putting together a launch team for the VC engine the thought of the American offices was that they already had people from the game industry in the company Shaffer along with Bob Farber and Ken Wert had come to NEC from Atari however this wasn't from Ataris gaming division they were from Ataris home computer division [Music] at the time we went to NEC we didn't have any idea about doing video games stuff anymore than words the issue was billing team from former Atari employees was that coming from the computer division they saw the market as a hardware business and primarily focused on hardware instead of software as a means to move units so software was already behind hardware in terms of the team's growing priorities as a result of no one on the launch team having software experience that key piece of a home gaming console was largely ignored and will become a reoccurring theme with the system's North American debut the launch team didn't however know that VC enter was a great system because it already proven itself a Nintendo's homeland so the team set out right away to encode is testing on the console because it was already an existing product it was easy begin that phase of the operation and start showing at the potential customers the console was met with a mixed reaction PC engine the first graphics were a hit with anyone who saw them however the name PC engine was met with less than enthusiastic focus groups can work with quoted as saying the name PC engine was a tad confusing for American consumers [Music] NEC decided to redesign the system for North America what was so unique about the PC engine at the time was its form factor it was dramatically smaller than just about any other major console that had come before it this would thanks to the hue car technology and the efficiency of hudson cells designed but the thought at the time was that something that smaller came off like a toy and not a serious home entertainment device the resign of the system had to reflect the power of the system and how it was deserving a place in the American living room alongside systems like the NES the name change was the easiest part of the process the name turbo drive 216 was chosen because it emphasized the system's speed and power in the cleaner graphics and the 16 meaning the graphical bits the system brought to the table the addition of the word turbo fell well into the marketing material and let itself well the accessories the turbo tap the turbo pad and the cue cards are even renamed to the turbo chips the physical redesign of the console however was a much more in-depth affair it's something to be considered when doing a redesign although it can be good to localize a design there's always a ticking clock over the head of the perspective console the pc engine was already out the timber graphics as it's now called had to now wait for a complete redesign of its plastic shell which only increase the lead time until the console could hit store shelves and face off against an tendo's NES NEC one of the redesign to be perfect at a times during this phase the company went down rabbit holes wasting months attempting to create a rubber light coating for the rear expansion slot which ultimately had to be abandoned he was nothing that tried worked out the design of turbine graphics is said to have been disliked by Hudson soft NEC America were attempting to emulate a piece of hi-fi electronics instead of a kid's game console because the NEC staff were considered the American market experts the changes were ultimately accepted in push forward John brand said ur joined any scene later in the system's life around 1991 and wasn't ashamed to share his dislike of the system's redesign their idea was a dumb American stereotype bigger is better that's all it is and you see one of the turbot or ethics to be huge in more ways than one NEC Japan gave the reason efforts blessing and the time they asked for this was because they were complacent in the success that it had with the PC engine Japan leave her confidence within NEC only served to distract them and further lay the system getting the market ahead of any potential rival well NEC handle the North American console hardware Hudson soft pushed ahead with software for the system nothing soft had to make a large number of titles for the system in Japan and once NEC readied for launch in North America Hudson soft set out the localized titles for the American market but nothing soft also set out to create tools for software development for western suit yet porting their tools to das for ease of entry for American developers the duper graphics was facing an uphill battle in North America the NES dominated the field in terms of retailers and developers Nintendo had locked in most developers and made it rather difficult for companies to jump to other platforms thanks to Nintendo's rather brutal licensing agreements Hutton Salaf thanks to its agreement with NEC was the primary in terms of software development early in the process of the consoles launched in North America they attempted so interest in the console and hosted a conference for prospective developers the conference didn't lead to any Western developers signing onto the system but it did however have one catastrophic event that impacted prospects of Electronic Arts ever becoming a third-party developer for the platform 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 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 the PC engine enjoyed a number of third-party developers in Japan the system's game lineup wasn't dominated by Hudson soft like it was in the United States the Japanese market for NEC had the advantage of a home computer ecosystem the companies that had developed for any C's PC 98 platform followed NEC over into the console market NEC however did not have the kind of support in the United States causing the system in North America to lag behind the Japanese market in terms of software support any seen Chicago was overconfident in their product they saw the American market is ripe for the taking however the delay in release of a turbo graphics cost valuable time retailers were excited for the prospect of a new system to sell to consumers in 10 days NES was a dominant platform but was showing its age the Sega Master System was effectively dead thanks in Nintendo's aggressive control of the market and Sega's partnership with Tonka failing to get inroads in with American retailers to make it viable the staff and EC didn't realize that they should have been watching for Sega during this time the Mega Drive did launch in 1988 in Japan but it didn't break Nintendo's grip or really challenged the PC engine however the mega drive renamed the Genesis in the United States managed to hit store shelves two weeks before the turbo graphics Sega didn't want to waste time with a complete mold redesign and push straight to market with only basic cosmetic changes to the console any advantage NEC had with the early arrival of PC engine was lost and the potential momentum somewhat derailed Sega even began attacking the turbo graphics nads designed to question the system 16-bit credentials Sega had been planning for the next war after the Master System was defeated and rather lackluster fashion Sega was ready for a fight and NEC was already starting to get cold feet one of the most daunting things were any console its launch titles something that would drive dramatic demand for your console Nintendo had lucked out with her all-star plumber second sided to go with an established arcade hit altered thieves to drive sales and you seen Hudson soft had no such title in their library they lacked something the company could rally behind in the form of a mascot a turbo graphics team selected Keith's courage and alpha zone as the pack in title for the system problem was that game didn't have any following outside of Japan the game wasn't even a big hit in Japan as well in a got mosquito article it stated the game was named water route in the Japanese market and was renamed the Keith courage as a way to butter up the Keith Schaeffer at NEC issue of packing titles for the turbo graphx 16 is only further exacerbated we look at titles and available as alternate options one example is stated to have been a great potential pack in is our type the side scrolling shmup title the game was already successful in arcades and the port on the theory of graph 16 was in top form being incredibly smooth and responsive but the focus testing at NEC didn't like the title because our type didn't test well with both boys and girls the problem of this was that any new system needs a game that really pushes the hardware and shows the consumer that the consoles worth their investment Keith's courage didn't provide the right incentive it wasn't an arcade title like art type so the audience wasn't there so Keith's courage couldn't get the crowd on board and needed and it wasn't well known franchise so name recognition wouldn't carry it anywhere perhaps one of the strangest things about the selection of Keith's courage as the primary of hacking title is that the North American offices at NEC spent a great deal of time changing the hardware to fit their idealized localization concept yet the game they ultimately selected is perhaps the most Japanese option that could have picked something else that might have impacted game sales for the system was at NEC America decided that they needed to change the packaging on the games coming from Japan believing that they knew the American market better this is a very common thing that happened in North America in the late 80s and 90s game boxes that looked perfectly fine in Japan were often changed to something at the time that looked almost like a fourth-grader droid this really didn't help much with the game's appeal the turbo graphx at 16 despite having a set of impressive looking games of launch faced an entrenched opponent the American market have been long dominated by Nintendo and even Sega had failed to break in at first the turbo graphx 16 was not only up against Nintendo but Sega as well at this point Sega was determined to be successful and they didn't pull any punches the turbo graphics was a hybrid of 16 and 8-bit so the system offered considerably more attractive graphics but at the cost of system performance the genesis in the other hand was a fully 16-bit system with all the advantages that provided but that being said turbo graphics titles at points still look better than some of the earlier Genesis feelings but that wasn't enough for the system and sales of the system quickly slowed in their new war against the Genesis and Nintendo's still viable any ask but both systems were close in retail price with 189 for the Genesis and 199 for the turbo graphics Nintendo would always used a system of controlled shortages to artificially drive demand for their products and intended routinely shorted orders to retailers in order to make sure there was always extra incentive to order more and for that extra push to customers to buy a Nintendo products while store supplies lasted what are the main crippling factors was that NEC was overconfident in the Forgotten 16 and produced an estimated 750,000 units NEC was clicked to send the system to retailers however the massive number of consoles created didn't sell as fast as NEC thought they would the drawback to that was now NEC had less money on marketing because they'd spent all that money on manufacturing systems and it only added fuel to a growing fire of bad decisions it was either run the risk of running out of consoles and missing the wave of demand or they produce more and hope their limited marketing budget could pay off for them the gamble on the larger supply did not pay off and NEC now had a huge supply of systems that were not selling the effect was NEC was starting to get cold feet about investing more money in the marketing Sega on the other hand and Michael Katz was successful with fares and invested more money in marketing as they were seeing a return on investment the problem for NEC of america only got worse because NEC japan didn't really have an understanding of a situation in north america this was because a pc engine in japan was released with no real competition aside from the famicom an aging platform that had already been on the market for a number of years the Mega Drive in Japan was a distant third falling further behind music came out later than the pc engine which had made successful gains in the 16 that market before any other console came into play in the united states the situation was reversed the Genesis had the edge in North America and was leaving the turbografx-16 behind the situation was strained further by the fact Hudson soft was receiving a considerable amount of money from the deal any seat set up Hudson staff was not only receiving money for each system manufactured but also was getting a cut of every hue card sold there's an astronomically good deal for Hudson saw who quite frankly evens NEC was floundering was still doing quite well with next to no real risk of their own these problems were compounded with the Japanese headquarters adopting a wait-and-see type policy about the turbo graphics they didn't want to invest any more serious capital in the console because it was getting savagely beaten and this is after the first month where the sell-through rate was absolutely dismal NEC said that more product was going to hit the market and make an impact the CD add-on and eventually a handheld materially changed a tide however ultimately this wouldn't prove enough to draw more attention to the console and sell more units [Music] the dipper graphics-based a serious game supply problem the Japanese market had loads of third-party support for the pc engine but the turbo graphx 16 was not drawing any support in the West and the console continued to suffer from a lack of native homegrown content the problem of no Western interest was only compounded by the Western systems for sales which had another computing factor of no western developer wanting to risk investing in a system because not only that but because the Hugh Card production runs were also prohibit expensive so the upfront cost getting a game to market on whatever ground 16 was looking less and less attractive as the system continued to sit on store shelves NEC at least had some clever ideas to try and boost the consoles appeal NEC had never really had a coin-op division but thanks to the turbografx-16 it looked like something that could have been a possibility NEC partnered with an American arcade distributor called United amusements and marketed a concept that would allow for existing arcade cabinets to be modified with a tg16 turning the cabinet into a new game for considerably lower cost than buying a new cabinet the impressive feat of interpretive 16 kits was that they only cost around eighteen hundred dollars and came with four games and offered the owner the ability to change out games on the fly as they saw fit after installation there was a great deal of hype behind the project initially with NEC stating that they spent more money on R&D for games than in tendo's entire income the dream of arcade turbo graphx 16 games seemingly died in 1990 along with much of the system's initial momentum there is speculation that any C's attempt to enter the coin op space actually impacted their ability to license other arcade hits as a result unfortunately the arcade conversion kits are very rare is theorized that maybe only a hundred to a thousand of these units actually sold during the run the systems were actually pc engines that were modified but it was a unique attempt to gather more attention for the system it's not often you see a home console try to invade the arcade space the belief in a new technology innovating and making something more attractive to consumers is a gamble some companies had made successfully NEC japan was betting that a CD add-on to the turbo graphx 16 would change the plight of the console cd's were not only a much larger storage medium also considerably cheaper to produce in Hue cards the Rivergate of 16 was facing a simple battle of economics Cobra gravity 16 games were often more expensive than their rivals the introduction of CD add-on was thought to be a game changer for the system and make it more attractive to consumers however that was any se of Japan's take on NEC of America was starting to be hesitant about releasing another add-on for the system the thurber grabbed 16 suffered a basic design holdover from the economically sleep PC engine that system had one control report due to the system's smaller size dramatically larger tg16 kept the same single controller port and required an adapter for an additional controller so the system was already in a losing battle of utility it gets an established dynamic of two ports on the rival consoles so economically the systems that are priced is advantage straight out of the box in comparison to its competition NEC America's hesitation came from the CD add-ons price tag they tried to get a lower price for the unit but eventually it was put to market at a price of $399 and that was towards the end of 89 1990 the add-on also had no packin titles and the only two games available for fighting Street and monster lair I mean the hardware was decent enough right and we added the cd-rom we should have been able to do a lot more with that but we didn't pursue it that much because it just added too much cost to the game unit I guess O'Keefe says NEC face to face a problem with publishers that being NEC was just about the only company publishing games for the turbo graphics even companies that have made games for the PC engine in Japan and had publishing arms in the United States we're not porting their games to the turbo graphics NEC was forced to localize many of the titles of the system themselves a number of those Japanese game developers were instead choosing to publish their games on the Genesis issues that NEC ran into is that when they tried to license game to the system and she was not willing to front the cost required to get a real sports icon for a game franchise EA had the John Madden franchise in 1990 and Sega was working with Joe Montana for his franchise in 1991 NEC didn't have the will to spend the money required for a Sports Personality that would boost game sales so instead NEC went forward with TV sports a game franchise with no player license or even league licenses NEC even chose to use icon and sin aware to port games from their PC titles to the tg16 which at the cost of two games from them could have paid to localized six pc engine titles in north america he was a factor of the turbografx-16 just didn't have a library of titles that was growing fast enough to attract more customers surberg rabbit was failing to a large install days and was beginning to look like a financial risk for anyone wanting to publish a game for as a result many companies started to licensed games Danny C for them to publish this resulted in a misconception that there was no actual publishers in the West aside from an EC which was not helping them attract more publishers the pc engine in contrast had an expansive library of games that grew every year surberg f/16 however was constantly fighting to give more Sega had experience with its arcade library a new what worked well as a home title NEC lacked this experience it's even stated that some NEC staff would take games home and let their kids decide on what games the court over NEC had a fundamental lack of experience in the game specs and it only continued to hurt them the staff at ACC America also gravely underestimated Sega staying power before that point Sega had the advantage of a growing collection of third-party publishers to support their console EA being a large player in that arena NEC thanks to the work of Hudson soft didn't have a growing library of first party titles I gave the system enough energy to keep the flight going it wasn't until 1990 that NEC finally had its mascot however bollocks Adventure Blanc's adventure was a great platformer that finally gave the tg16 something the company could get behind and push the console forward where Keith's courage had failed to give the system a unique identity bonk provided something that had a much wider appeal I slipped platformer that was more akin to Mario than Keith Courage's unique flavor of platformer bonks arrival didn't herald the rise of the tg16 however it was just a little too late to really give the system the shove it needed NEC had always seemingly been against license deals but there was an attempt to change that with getting the Madden franchise onto the platform however this deal ended up as a large mistake for NEC as the Madden game itself wouldn't be coming from EA rather it would buy the rights to the name and then Hudson south in Japan would develop the game which in hindsight was another mistake because instead of inviting EA to start making games on the platform they simply bought the name and moved forward with that to top that off the Madden title wouldn't even be out on the available based system he would come out on the CD at all [Music] 1990 could have been the turning point for any scene it's boring in Sega Nintendo only it wasn't the Year dished out more defeats to the company the warehouses were still packed with unsold systems and NEC thought it could change its favor by introducing the turbo Express a handheld unit that was very impressive for the time given it could play the same hue cards used by the tg16 console only it wasn't selling at a price tag of 249 it wasn't faring well against the Game Boy and Game Gear respectively NEC was adrift not wanting to invest more in the marketing because of the bad sales and the bad sales because the system didn't have much of a marketing budget needed to defeat Sega or Nintendo a Nintendo was gearing up to release the Super Famicom which NEC was beginning to get nervous as the only real saving grace through 1990 was their success with a PC engine in Japan and that too wasn't the last there was discussion among NEC North America but trying to rebrand to a higher end - appliance and trying to market a few places like sharper image or other high-end establishments but that thinking came too late in NEC was getting ready to withdraw from the game market in North America the fight had been something they were optimistic about but that optimism was unfortunately met with a harsh reality what ended up killing the rubber grabbed the 16 for NEC was the massive stock of systems they still had on hand and the fact that they failed to understand the fundamental argument for game consoles that was you make money by selling the games and lose money on the hardware NEC America is culture was that they thought they were selling a hi-fi piece of electronics and not a game system the company never brought on someone with real contemporary game industry experience to act as the chief over the division and push it to make it work Sega despite Kats success brought on tom kalinske to push the system because they felt they needed a change in order to be successful it paid off it there was never such a shake-up at NEC and they stagnated because of it they chose to stay the course and slowly wore themselves down by a death of a thousand cuts as the system's lingered on store shelves and NEC refused to invest more money in marketing to stall the system [Music] any c1r doubt they manage to make it through 1991 releasing titles and supporting the system but it wasn't long before NEC started to negotiate with Hudson soft but since often made out of the tg16 arrangement very well given they made money off just about every aspect of the system NEC had taken a beating and wanted to back away from the North American market a deal was worked out that a new company would be formed and support the turbo graphx of 16 in an effort to save face for NEC and Hudson sock and the company would support the remaining loyal users of turbo graphics this new company would primarily fall under Hudson sauce control tower graphics technologies inc was created pti for short the company began operation in Los Angeles and a move that would take it away from Chicago the staff at NEC who stayed were then transferred over to TTI and they thought this would be their chance to change the fate of disturber graphics bringing the system back into the console war with full force that however wasn't the case after a few attempts by the staff in North America to bring over multiple titles it just wasn't happening the Japanese side of the business just wasn't allowing him or allowing TTI to push the system because they didn't want to spend any more money or the money required to make it viable there were instances of TTI creating lists of ten to fifteen games that they wanted ported in North America and it would often only get one it was something that continued to frustrate the American offices of TTI who knew they could be successful if only they would be given the funds to rival that a Nintendo or Sega by the time the Masters at Hudson softs were ready to release the turbo graphics do well despite promising excitement in Japan none of the support required to launch a system in North America was given from 1992 to 1993 TTI continued the business with next to no support the company limped on trying to sell the embattled turbo graphics once 1993 hit most retailers are no longer even carrying the system of games most games at this point we're now being sold by mail order and in 1994 at summer CES TTI officially ended the turbo graphics the dipper grab that sixteen is a tragic tale it's a system that could have freely shifted the North American landscape but too many mistakes were made and it ultimately fell too far behind to ever take advantage of what it truly had to offer [Music] well thank you for watching historic nerd today hope you have a wonderful day evening night or whatever it is you're doing bye [Music]

Channel: HistoricNerd

Views: 54,816

Keywords: TurboGrafx 16, NEC america, Turbografx mini, Hudsonsoft, NEC, Nintendo, PC engine, Japanese gaming industry, Historicnerd, The Engine that should, PC-Engine, TurboDuo, Video game history, TG16, Turbografx 16 history, Bonk's Adventure, Turbografx 16 fails in america

Id: ygHqTFbpbjg

Length: 31min 11sec (1871 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 29 2020