Every once in a while I have to return to this video. The interaction between Brad & Billy's dad gives the TurboGrafx's lack of success context that interviews and sales figures often miss. Thanks for providing your informative and unique take on the console's history.
I was born in 1979, and I definitely remember all of these consoles. My parents were very well off (we weren't anything close to "1% rich" but we never lacked money) and we owned a ton of consoles: the NES, SNES, Sega Genesis (w/ Sega CD), Panasonic 3D0, and Sony PlayStation (1 and 2). This was in addition to owning two gaming computers. In other words, my brother and I were set, and it helped that my Dad (a Boomer) was really into technology, computers, and gaming in general. Anyway... the reason I mention all of this isn't to brag, but to say that I never stopped to think about the money they spent. Honestly, as a 40 year-old adult, I feel a little bad about it, so I think I'll call up my Dad and say thanks. :)
your parents had money and bought u anything gaming in the 90s but u didnt get a neogeo the most dreamed about game system by every gen xer? lmao nice bs story
I think the neo geo was only a ‘dream’ console for people who loved their 2D fighters (somehow more than street fighter 2), and even then that was later on. I like the neo geo, but the truth is those games are extremely bland and mediocre. The SNES and Mega Drive both blew away the neo geo in terms of depth, quality, and quantity of games.
@@mrg5559 To be fair, the Neo Geo needed to be known about. Remember the magazine ads were kind of forgettable if you had no idea what they were talking about.
This is so very accurate. I was 9 in 1989 and this was exactly how it was. My friends had NES and SEGA's. I remember when my buddy got a TurboGrafx16 and I thought it was awesome because it was different. I thought the games looked better. I tried to convince my Parents, but my Dad ended up getting me a PC (486) and that was pretty rad and it changed my life. I still always wanted one of these. Maybe I'll get the new mini.
I just got the PC Engine mini yesterday and gotta say love it over the SNES and Genesis mini. I like the cult of personality around the little white box as seen in the menu screen and within some of the games themselves (one in which the console itself is a playable character). The controller is tight and very comfortable. It is a pity the TG-16 did not localise many of its games.
I have to agree. My favorite mini console is the PC Engine/TurboGrafx....there’s so much love and the game library is really good. I love all the shooters!
Yeah that’s a really good point. A lot of these games actually play quite differently because of it too. I also just love the look of the tg16. Thanks for watching dude! 😎
I was the happiest 10 year old Christmas 1989. I received my Tg-16 with Legendary Axe, Alien Crush, and Blazing Lazers. I was a savvy kid who researched the gaming magazines and played Nintendo and SEGA consoles and friends and families houses. I knew the Tg-16 was different and had awesome games. After that Christmas, friends and family members always wanted to come over to play. At the end, I only ended up having 15 games total which I still have to this day. I can’t wait to receive my preorder of the TG-16 mini.
I got the TurboExpress in 1991. The thought of playing the exact same "16-bit" (debatable) home console games blew my mind at 13 years old. I still have it. It works like a charm after getting it recapped recently.
Nice video. Love the exchange between Dad and Brad. I was 12/13 in the summer of 1989. I still had the Nintendo Nintendo and would continue with it for years before upgrading to the Genesis around 1992 or 1993 and brought it with me to University in summer of 1994. I knew no one that had a TG-16 nor do i remember even seeing them at Toys-R-Us or any other store for that matter. I had one friend who talked about wanting one but due to it's price point wasn't allowed near it.
Thank you very much! The first retro console I ever saw was a turbografx. I was in a class for kids about NASA and the teacher brought his new turbografx on the last day. It was remarkable. I never saw one after! I wanted a Nintendo in 1989, but wound up with a Genesis.
I remember saving up my money for a snes in 1992 and considering getting the turbo grafx 16 because it was like 20/30$ less and I was impatient. But I didn’t have a clue what it was or even know anyone who had one so I passed thinking it was some half ass video game system just trying to get a piece of the video game pie. I would have been wrong, but I still loved my snes.
The first time I saw one was actually the summer of 1990. I was at a space camp and on the last day the cool young teacher guy brought his brand new Turbografx, a TV, and a copy of dragon spirit and bonks adventure. I thought it was awesome, but I knew exactly zero people growing up who had one. People who read the magazines knew what it was, but no one actually had one and we mostly ignored it.
Yeah I actually think this was NEC’s biggest hurdle with the Turbo. Other than kids who read magazines, most had never seen a Turbo in person. Name recognition was huge for Nintendo, and even though Sega really didn’t have any yet, they learned a lot from the launch of the Master System, and had already made in-roads in the US industry. NEC had no experience in the US industry, and US consumers didn’t recognize the brand, unlike Japanese consumers who knew NEC already. The combination of a lack of recognition from consumers, with the high price tag almost buried the Turbo out of the gate. The only saving grace for the Turbo would come from Bonk, which would finally give them some IP clout, but by that time, it was too little too late. Despite a successful Genesis launch, Sega was still behind Nintendo’s sales, and was on the way to facing the same fate as NEC, if it hadn’t been for the release of Sonic, which helped them right the ship to make the Genesis a huge success.
I think Sega actually had a ton of name recognition in the late 80s and early 90s through the arcades. Shinobi, outrun, space harrier, and golden axe (just to name a few) were all immensely popular. Back in the day we tended to treat the Genesis like it was for “arcade gamers” due to this. But that wasn’t necessarily an advantage because people wanted a different style of game when it came to home consoles. They wanted Mario. Also the Genesis never really became popular until the price was dropped and they finally got a game that could compete with Mario on his own terms….sonic. That wasn’t until halfway through 1991. A full two years after the console sat dusty on store shelves
It’s a great point about bonk. I really wish they could have gotten him out the door sooner. That game was so good and that character was every bit as good as sonic.
@@creativecatproductions it is a much slower game but it has some neat mechanics. I think turbografx could have benefited from some more television marketing. I don’t think I ever saw one commercial for it.
FINALLY - an explanation that makes sense! Everyone always blames the failure on marketing - but I call shenanigans on that. All I got was marketing on TV and comics for the Turbo and Bonk. They pushed it hard.
I recall something similar. I was really wrapped up in all the gaming magazines at the time, and the TurboGrafx was given a lot of coverage even though its market share was so small. It may be an obscure "lost" console today, but the TurboGrafx in 1989 and 1990 felt like it was EVERYWHERE. You couldn't miss it! At least, just as long as you were paying attention.
@@creativecatproductions it got alot of coverage thatswhy tbey createdturbo magazinecause it didnt get alit of coverage 1or 2 pages out of a magazine is nota lot
It got the same coverage as the Sega Genesis. It was frequently highlighted on the cover of magazines….EGM awarded the Legendary Axe their first game of the year award ever! I think the myth of the console’s poor publicity and obscurity has arisen as a function of its commercial impotence multiplied by the number of years that have gone by. Because the NES and Genesis were so popular, Nintendo and Sega both have repeatedly milked the legacy of those consoles over the years, refreshing our collective memories. Further, because so many millions of people had an NES or a Genesis, there have been far more opportunities for conversation, nostalgic articles, and stuff like RUclips videos discussing those games….again, refreshing our collective memory. People, over time, simply forget about it, or they never hear about it and I think we falsely assume that it just wasn’t a big deal as a consequence. It’s like when I try to explain to my kids that Elvis Presley was massively popular. Because he’s effectively forgotten by people under the age of 40 they assume he must have never been a big deal. Ever. Thanks for watching dude! www.retromags.com/magazines/usa/electronic-gaming-monthly/electronic-gaming-monthly-issue-8/
I owned a TG16 and really loved it. In fact, all of my friends who played it also loved it. We could never understand why it struggled so much. You make great points about the "good, but unknown/unrecognizable games" and the extra cost of peripherals. Nintendo and Sega both already had popular arcade games like Donkey Kong and Altered Beast. So, knowing that you could play these games at home was a big advantage for them. The TG16 only having 1 controller port was pretty lousy. Not only did you need to buy another controller, but you needed to buy the "Turbo Tap" too !! The CD-ROM attachment was absolutely amazing, but at $400, was way too expensive for most families.
@@creativecatproductions Absolutely. I believe it was the only console at the time that supported 5 players. Bomberman was great. We also had a blast with Dungeon Explorer and TV Sports Football.
The only person I know who owned the TurboGrafx was my older cousin. He's an odd case where he was never someone who seemed to take gaming as a serious hobby but would get every major console/game releases as they launched and would completely conquer them like it was a paying job. Watching him play Legend of Zelda in 1988 is what got me into gaming in the first place (and he was cool enough to let my 4 year old self "help" solve dungeon puzzles) and he would always show off the newest stuff to me and let me have it for a few hours. We used to go over his place about once a month for dinner, lived about an hour away, and I remember him showing me both Bonk games and watching me play through them both.
Growing up in the 80's, I remember that Mario's face was plastered all over breakfast cereal boxes, potato chip bags, backpacks, lunchboxes, clothing, you name it. Turbografx16 was already fighting an uphill battle trying to get into the north american market.
Spot on about the box art. No kids even knew if the TG16 was even more powerful than the NES or SMS. No one had heard of Kieth Courage, and NEC didn't bring the TV show over. NEC's box cost $10 more and seemed weak. The controllers looked like NES controllers, and the TV ads were awful. The $400 CDROM and lack of a second control port made NEC seem crazy.
This was a great video. Well done & speaking as a parent myself who’s bought games for his three kids that skit with the father was spot on! That is my mom when she bought my Turbografx -16. If I hadn’t been there to offer my ever patient *ahem* child-like teenage guidance to her there’s no telling the disaster she would have visited upon me & my absolute need for cutting edge video gaming. I do however have one minor quibble with your conclusions; The Japanese PC Engine console is drop dead gorgeous to this day. Compact & svelte. It made sense for it to have the expansion port & mutlitap adapter for additional controllers. Remember that Japanese apartments & even site built homes are much smaller than we are accustomed to here. A typical single family apartment in Japan with one child is around 650 square feet. A typical house is only a little over a thousand square feet. That’s tiny to our western sense of everything must be big big big. When looked at thru this aspect it makes perfect sense for the original Famicom & the PC Engine to be the compact size they were. The follow up Core Grafx & Core Grafx II consoles added additional functions with display & audio outputs in the exact same size chassis. NEC/TTi could have done that in America too & I think it would have been a rather unique differentiator that parents of the day would have been sold on by a mildly savvy retailer who knew how to appeal to their sense of not wanting more “kids toys” laying around the living rooms attached to their TV sets. For sure the choice of what games got a release here was a factor as well. But I honestly think if the console had the footprint of maybe an iPad of today, two controller ports, & the composite video connections built in like the Core Grafx & Core Grafx II follow ups it would have done much better straight away. The cost of all the add-ons, from the ultra expensive for the day CD-ROM to the crazy confusing TurboBooster or TurboBooster PLUS (“Which does what & why were there two of them instead of just one?”), these were self inflicted wounds from the start. I still to this love that hardware & always will. It’s my all-time favorite console. But hold it & a PC Engine in each hand & tell me the PC Engine wasn’t a better design that could have been more successful stateside. The TG-16 with that elongated footprint & massive expansion bay that needed a long shell to cover it up was just ungainly to me. Open one up & the amount of empty space in that shell proves the point. Side note; my dad become hopelessly addicted to Alien Crush & Devil’s Crush when he played them. It became his favorite video games of all time. It was something to see if I went somewhere with my mom only to return home & there my dad sat playing the TG-16 with pinball games at the ready. My dad in fact shelled out the bucks for my very own TurboBooster PLUS so that he could save his high scores on the games with the built memory. Secondary side note; once the TurboBooster PLUS was plugged into the expansion bay this thing became even bigger & more ungainly to handle. Just bad design choices for this hardware. It deserved so much better. Anyway just my thoughts. Great video & I’ll scour your channel for more content. Oh & I’ve had my Turbografx Mini on reserve thru Amazon since the day the listing went live after the E3 announcement last year. Finally the long delay is over as of next week & I can’t wait!
small Japanese homes are why the PC engine couldn't have a 2nd controller port? lol, somebody forgot to tell Nintendo this before releasing the Famicom
It’s very odd. I had the Genesis/CD combo that my best friend and I would play on weekends: Sonic 2, Eternal Champions, Mortal Kombat, Tomcat Alley, and Streets of Rage. My best friend had the SNES and Megaman X, TMNT: Tournament Fighters, etc. The Genesis is still my favorite, but the TG-16 has grown on me through emulation. I think I would have fell madly in love with it if I had one as a kid.
That sucks. I lived in rural Canada and my dad managed to get one at a local Radio Shack. Just to point out how rural I am, we still don't have cable TV, high speed internet or paved streets and it's 2020. I do feel your pain by the way :)
One thing that many analyses miss is the importance of the arcade in the US. If you were a teenager at this point, Sega was dominating the Arcade. Every game looked better than the last. You went to the arcade each week (travelling far) to check out what might be new, and to play the graphicslly advanced ones. And if you wanted to play the arcade at home, you got (or asked for) a Genesis. Altered Beast (yes, Altered Beast was a graphical beast when it came out), Golden Axe, Shinobi, and After Burner (at a time when Top Gun was still a recent memory) - these games sold the Genesis initially.
I think that’s true to an extent, especially as far Golden Axe was concerned. I vividly recall people being legitimately excited for that game on the Genesis. At the same time the home console market never really did become the “arcades at home”…..not really until the PlayStation came out and then that pretty much made the arcades seem obsolete. People had different expectations for home consoles and Nintendo plainly understood that which is why they were so freaking successful. Personally, where Im from (west Texas), arcades were not much of a factor because we simply didn’t have them. Outside of a couple cabinets at the pizzeria, the grocery store, the movies, and a miniature golf course, my hometown severely lacked major arcade games…..and we were always about 10 years behind the curve. I was playing space harrier well in the 90s 😝 I never saw a Golden Axe cabinet, but we did play a lot of Nintendo…..and SEGA Genesis. Thanks for watching dude!
I actually was lucky enough to get the Sega Genesis, any TurboGrafx 16 at the same time Christmas 1989, TurboGrafx 16 as one of the greatest systems of all time, and I also just purchased the mini
That’s a very funny and likely accurate picture of 1989. Well done. I’m glad I got the Turbo16Mini because I completely overlooked this and the Turbo Duo as a kid.
The turbografx 16 mini is so good, easily our favorite mini console. We frequently hook up the turbo tap and have bomber man battles. The turbografx should have done so much better than it did for having as many good games as it did. Thanks for watching dude! 😎
@@creativecatproductions You were lucky. I didn’t jump on the Turbo Tap and extra controllers right away and now those official controllers are never available. I still like my Turbo and I feel lucky I at least got one but for me I enjoy the Genesis Mini a little bit more.
I bought the Turbo Duo from Turbo Zone Direct back in 2002, because it was the only game console during the time to have Fighting Street (Street Fighter 1).
I remember the early "console wars" pretty vividly, and remember being one of those kids that saw the TG16 and thought "....meh" and graduated from my NES to a Genesis. I can attest to some of the things like the crappy box art and poor marketing strategy being a large part of the failure, as well as the whole "everything's a Nintendo to adults" (as my parents were that way 100%). It's funny, though, as time has gone on, I find myself thinking back to the TG16 and how it could have had so much more of a presence than it did, and it makes me kind of sad in a nostalgic sort of way. Since discovering early Falcom titles and playing the original Ys duology thanks to the old Nintendo E-shop hosting some old TGCD games, the system itself has become something of a quiet obsession of mine. Time forgot the poor thing, but I still find myself wishing that I had owned one...or that I could find one and some games for it for less than a small fortune (seeing as how the Mini was so limited a run and people scalp for them online nowadays). It's funny how time and perspective make you look back on things like this that so many people have forgotten and make you pine for them. Also, as a Genesis kid, I appreciate the use of Phantasy Star II BGM in the video! 😁
One thing you missed was that Sega and Nintendo had a much broader retail presence that NEC failed to secure for the Turbo-Grafx. I had one back then, and at least in my town you could get games from Toys R Us, Babbages, and Sears. That was it, not even Best Buy carried them when they opened up in town. Sega and Nintendo were everywhere else, so if you were a parent doing your Christmas shopping @ super stores like Walmart etc. the Turbo-grafx wasn't even on the radar. Plus there wasn't a chance for kids to hang out and window shop while Mom was getting the other shopping done and ask for it. There was also no place to rent games either, not the local video stores, not Blockbuster and Hollywood video which really hurt them by not being able to test games like the other systems. They should have had time to secure these channels before launch. I do have my mini on preorder, can't wait until March!
@@creativecatproductions Speaking from my experience in Hanover PA, the Turbografx was impossible to miss. The store demonstrations were everywhere, and they couldn't wait to introduce us to.....Keith Courage, Darkwing Duck, and Impossamole. Because Super Mario Bros. Oh, and they wanted us to know it was the most expensive option, because that'll make it look like sexy future tech.
I completely understand why Nintendo did not want to allow just any developer to sell games for their console. Endless shovelware and a lack of any quality control is what brought down atari in 1983. If they didn’t control who was allowed to develop games, and the manner in which they went about it, then what was to prevent the same fate befalling them?
@@creativecatproductions That bit's fine. And I agree with them, and their restrictions on quantity? Chef's kiss. Genius. Fun fact: The UK would experience their own videogame crash. Don't believe me? How many hardware developers aren't Japanese or American? Because they used to have a lot more. And Sega couldn't be trusted to save the market. These were the comedians who thought Super Thunderblade and Space Harrier II - at full price each, on the smallest possible ROMs, with zero enhancements or actual sprite scaling - was a sane Japanese launch. There's also never been a Mario game as bad as Alex Kidd in High Tech World. And zero Mario games have featured underage strip paper/rock/scissors. Or naked men crapping skulls out of their butts. We weren't getting Sonic without Miyamoto. I could go on, and on, and on.... But. Like I said, Nintendo went further than that. Their whole "You can't make any game that's exactly your game for the NES but better?" That's the exact opposite of giving the consumers quality. That's forcing consumers to accept nearly unplayable slow down, and sprite flicker so bad it can lead to cheap deaths. There's no excuse. It says that Nintendo knew they were selling people an inferior product. One that broke down often, due to that front loading mechanism breaking from ordinary wear and tear - forcing people to buy a second NES. Including people who struggled to afford their first one. Why are you defending this part of it? Imagine if Nintendo had managed to keep this little stranglehold going? For the SNES/ N64/Gamecube? And the Playstation brand had been nowhere near as successful as Sony had hoped? Do you really think this would have been what's best for the consumer?
I have 2 Turbografx systems. 2 Turbo Express and 2 Turbo EverDrives. And a handful of hucards. I LOVE the Turbografx-16. The Turbografx-16 was my introduction to gaming in 93 when I started elementary. It's all we had for a few years Bonks Adventure, Bonks Revenge, Blazing Lazers, R-Type, Dungeon Explorer, The Legendary Axe and even Keith Courage. I loved those games
Rewatching this, I only just noticed "Billy" or perhaps kid John is opening a Sega Genesis on Christmas Eve at 7:27PM. Did his family normally open presents the day before Christmas??
As a kid who's parents bought me the tg 16 one Xmas and the cd add on the following Xmas all the kids in my neighborhood were envious of me lol. What an incredible system loved it then and regret selling it years ago. Amazing video!
The TG 16 really is an incredible system. I was thinking about my favorite games recently for that console and I realize that they all hold up. Now I play the TG16 mini with my children and the love it too....especially bomber man! Thanks for watching!
@@creativecatproductions i had the Turbotap and 5 controllers used to play the hell out of dungeon explorer with my friends, im so happy Konami released the mini picked up one of those and a pc engine mini for good measure.
@@davidhiggins6251 we also have the tg16 mini and we play a lot of bomberman 93’! The shooters are for me, and everyone here loves bonk. We call our youngest 1 year old son “bonk” as a nickname....he’s earned it
Great content!! Really well done. You should have tons of subscribers. I only knew one kid that had a TG16 growing up. I played it a few times and loved it, but they were hard to find, where I lived and expensive. I had an NES, Genesis and Game Boy and then eventually a PS1 by the time I was in high school. I've been a Sony guy since. I went for the Genesis to be different from my friends. I did regret having to trade systems with friends to play Final Fantasy games, but I loved the Genesis. I'm waiting on a TG16 mini. I missed out on it back in the day, and I am stoked to experience it now. Anyhow, I've watched a few of your videos now, and they are quality content!
Thank you very much for watching! I’m glad you like our content. I was a Genesis kid. I went to a space camp once in my hometown where the cool young guy running the class brought his brand new Turbografx to show off on the last day. We played Dragon Spirit and Bonks Adventure.....it was awesome!
And now in 2020 the TurboGrafx 16 still can’t catch a break! Now it’s being delayed because of the Corona Virus! I was so excited to get my hands on it!
I actually thought the Legendary Axe boxart looked badass. I really want one of these things, but they are so dang expensive now. I would probably just get one with an everdrive flash cart.
I love your avatar and user name. Yes they’re sadly expensive now, but hopefully these games will be available by other means one day Thanks for watching!
I loved this system back then Keith's courage blew my young mind with graphics and gameplay. I image the price was high for the regular customer. It was hard for us having a bigger family to afford something like this. But begging and promises of good grades for 3 of us brothers together was willing to forfeit anything else for Christmas! Imagine no TMNT, no new games for the NES or sports cards! Well it was WORTH IT! 😁 turned me into a shmup player even to this day rage quitting is not in my dictionary! 😡🤣
I think I was probably equally blown away when our family got a Sega Genesis packed with Altered Beast. It’s funny how these games have come to be regarded as bad when they were so universally loved at the time of their release! Thanks for sharing and thank you very much for watching!
The dad and mullet Toys r Us employee sketch was hilarious. That is really really funny. You are sure right about the overpriced tg-16 they made great games it's the only console I know that only has one controller for it. Ridiculous.
One controller port in 1989 was ridiculous! Its like but a car without the tires or air conditioning. Thats extra?! It was standard and people felt cheated. 😎
Gosh darn it, as awesome as this video is I can't stop getting hyped about that Valis 3 box behind little Billy! 26:20 Which, coincidentally, was also released on Turbo CD! (though weirdly while in Japan the PCE CD version came first and then the Genesis one a year later, in the US it was the other way around) Anyway thanks for the video. Was looking for some insight as to why the system flopped. I remember wanting Legendary Axe SO BAD as a kid! Apparently it was even declared Game of the Year by a magazine or two. When I finally got a TurboDuo a couple of years ago it was such a surreal delight playing such old CD based games. The REAL meat of the system was in the Super CD ROM games, which were a hard sell in North America.
Was recently collecting some legit hardware (mainly for Bomberman purposes) and kinda found myself in the same boat. Only one controller port? You need the extra TurboTap for multiplayer? You need to get the TurboBooster as well? The CD add-on costs twice as much as the base console? The heck even is this? Except today it's worse in some ways because a lot of these things are broken or malfunctioning and need to be repaired/recapped. Had not heard of this problem being discussed much and upon looking, quickly stumbled across this video. I really feel for that dad.
I can imagine trying to buy a turbografx-16 in 1989 was baffling, even fore videogame astute kids. I think its a great console, but the way they marketed it, as a bunch of separate stuff, was just bananas! Thanks for watching dude 😎
This just popped up on my Home page. Personally, I think you nailed the reason. As someone who was only twelve at the time of the T-16 release (living in Metro Detroit) I can say it looked far cooler than the NES or the Genesis, as it had a very noisy video kiosk when the others did not, so I was able to see how awesome the games looked. But since I (and many kids) had only gotten an NES in late '88 or '89, the T-16 was a hard sell due the adverising, which implied you needed the Turbo-CD for the full experience. No kid was going to risk asking for something like that and jeopardize a possibly lucrative Christmas with their new or year old NES.
I still have my original TurboGrafx-16 console complete in box and my TurboExpress, TurboDuo and almost every game I purchased back in the early 90’s. My first console was the Sega Genesis I bought just before my TG16 due to the Genesis slightly lower price because it was an additional cost to buy a TurboTap for multiplayer and a TurboBooster for AV out whereas Genesis had 2 controller ports and only required an inexpensive AV cable. It was very frustrating as a TG16 owner back then, at least after it’s first year as game releases became few and far between when compared to my Genesis. I recall going to my game store many times not seeing any new TG16 game releases for months upon months while the Genesis game shelves were filled with games and new releases almost every month if not weeks. Another thing is the games we received didn’t have licensed teams/players for the sports games. NEC didn’t believe in that so your Football, Baseball, Basketball and other games had generic players where Sega had full licensed rosters for MLB, NFL, NHL, NBA, Boxing, Golf etc. NEC also didn’t spend much on advertising where Sega was all in. NEC simply didn’t have a lot of experience or understanding the North American market and made a lot of poor decisions when deciding what games to port over to the North American market. NA never got CastleVania, Street Fighter II C.E. and a plethora of other wonderful PC Engine games. And there was a time when TTI was offered an exclusive on Mortal Kombat but NEC Japan turned it down, so many mistakes were made. Another thing you’ll notice is that NA TurboChip cards had 3-4 color plain graphic text whereas PC Engine received beautiful artworks on their HuCards, at least not till TTI took over sales and distribution around 1992 when NA started to see some nice graphics on the TurboChip cards but by then it was too late as Sega & Nintendo we’re running away with the video games market. Yeah, many frustrations that are fresh in my mind as they were back then. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed my TurboGrafx-16 system and games but when compared to my Genesis it’s a stark difference between the two in North America and my Genesis easily was played and enjoyed 10x as much if not more. Today you’ll find so many wonderful PC Engine games that NA never received thinking how in the world did NEC not port them over to North America.
Thanks for the video with all the information on the system. I bought a base system back in the 90’s and a few games. Later in the 90’s when the company went out of business a local game store was selling base turbo graft systems for $5 and games for $1. I bought 4 used base systems and a lot of the games. NEC Technologies was 20 minutes from where I lived and I used to go there and play games before they were released in return for filling out a survey. One time they even gave me my favorite game for the system, Neutopia II. I still have the game factory sealed in the box. They also gave me some promotional material which consisted of 5 by 7 inch cards which had the artwork of the box of the game and a written description of the game. I still have these cards too. It is interesting to find out now that some of the games are worth over $100 now because I remember seeing those turbo graft game cards for $1 in used game bins at small game stores in the 90’s. Back then you could also buy a converter that attached to the Turbo Grafx that played PC Engine games. I bought a lot of those too for $1 back in the late 90’s at small game stores with used games...
Wow! That’s a pretty cool personal story about the TG-16! For me it was a pretty remote thing, being from west Texas, but I did see and play one early after the US launch. I went to a space camp and one of the counselors leading the class, who was probably about 19 years old, bought and brought his brand new TG-16 on the last day of the camp. We all took turns playing. It was awesome. Thanks for watching!
Creative Cat Productions - the real tough shooter game was Blazing Lazers and it is one of the great classic games for the system. First few levels of the game are easy then it gets impossibly hard. I could never finish the game because I always died and ran out of continues. Then Electronic Gaming Monthly published an invincibility code for the game and I was finally able to see the later levels and finish it. I still have my old video game magazines from the 90's. One of the best was Die Hard gaming magazine put out by the owner of a video game store of the same name. The magazine had a monthly contest for who submitted the best Pro Action Replay code. I won it one month and won cash and free games. I submitted a PAR code for the game Breath of Fire and won.
Creative Cat Productions - turbo Grafx had a deluxe controller with slow motion that enabled an average gamer to get a little farther in the game but not until Electronic Gaming Monthly published an invincibility code could the average gamer finish the game.
Great video/upload. “The genesis Nintendo!!!” Priceless. Nintendo has a stronghold on the market & it appeared that TG16 prices w/ less amount of games didn’t help. As for the mini versions. Gen-X’ers will enjoy the nostalgia. Along with a few hardcore gamers. Hopefully companies will break even. In this time of a pandemic, with everyone stuck indoors, this should lead to selling more consoles.
I was born in '78. I already had a Nintendo Nintendo and most other kids had one too. The TurboGraphx games looked a little more colorful, but I could tell that they were a little dated. There were less games and nowhere to rent games. You couldn't trade games with friends if you were the only one who had the TurboGrafx. I wasn't really interested in saving up and shelling out my allowance money for an entirely new console when I already had a console. I think that Billy's dad would have already purchased a Nintendo Nintendo from Bradley at least a year prior.
We were one of those families where, for whatever reason, we just never got an NES. I think because it was so common it was less necessary. My brother’s best friend had it, several of my friends in our neighborhood had it, and we played it all the time…..just not at home. We had an Atari 2600, skipped ownership of the NES and went straight to the Sega Genesis at its launch in 1989. I think my older brother read about it in Wizard magazine. I personally really wanted the NES, but I learned to love the Genesis.
When we went in Christmas of 1989 to get my Genesis which I had my eyes on because I read about it in a newspaper article and saw that it included Altered Beast which I used to play at the Bowling Alley so I was determined to get it. When we went to Toys R Us the funny part is my Dad noticed the Turbo Grafx -16 had a $50 instant mail rebate and almost tried to convince me to get that instead. I stayed true to my guns and still wanted the Genesis so got that. I also used my left over bday Christmas money to get Revenge of Shinobi. About a year or more later the Turbo Grafx dropped in price to $69 and I convinced my dad to get it with Keith Courage pack in. I loved both systems.
That’s awesome! My brother and I also got a Genesis Christmas of 89’ and we got Revenge of Shinobi and Golden Axe as soon as we could. I love the early Genesis, and the TurboGrafx-16 as well. Thanks for watching dude! 😎
Yup, still my favorite video on RUclips I’d love to know which TG16 games the music in this video is from. I can recognize Bonk and Dungeon Explorer, but not the other music
I’m glad you like it! The opening song is from Ninja Spirit....I’ll get back to you about the others. At 9:15 I use a song from revenge of Shinobi. I love that soundtrack!
Creative Cat Productions That is very interesting, I guess I need to play more genesis games. I thought this was all music from TG16 games I hadn’t played yet. What’s the game music that plays during the topic on Hudson pitching their hardware to Nintendo?
The Sega Genesis was probably the better choice, but the TG16 was just awesome too. It looks like M2 bought the rights to a bunch of NEC avenue games. It looks like we’re getting more TG16 stuff
My first console was a TurboGrafX16. My dad bought it for me for my 4th birthday. I even remember drawing about it in my journal in Kindergarten. We got it at our local Radio Shack. I loved Keith Courage, it was actually the reason my dad got me the TG16 over the NES or Genesis. He said Mario was stupid you just walked around hitting your head on blocks, but Keith Courage had a sword that could be upgraded and you changed into a robot. So apparently from what I've heard between your video and info from my dad, my dad is cooler than most peoples dad in 89/90 😌 I borrowed games from my moms friend Al, that's how I found out about Military Madness, JJ & Jeff, Victory Lane, Bloody Wolf and Vigilante. I would also go to Radio Shack with my folks every so often to look at the spining rack of TG16 games. I only knew one other kid in my school with one and we where friends lol. I've preordered the Mini and can't wait for March. The down side is the shipping and change over, I'm Canadian and Amazon.ca didn't offer the console here. 😑
@@creativecatproductions don't get me wrong my dad thought video games where a scam. He figured all the different consoles where cash grabs and they didn't need that many so often. So I was always told to wait for the next one, cuz there will always be a next one. So I had the TG16, then Genesis, N64 and Dreamcast. Those where the consoles my folks bought me over the years. Only ones I still have are the Genesis and Dreamcast. TG16 died in storage after I got my Genesis, I was so hurt I held onto the Genesis for dear life and never let it go into storage. The N64 met with an unfortunate fate at the hands or paws of my aunts dog, he tugged the power corn and the system landed on that big old power brick in back and snapped the PCB. 😭 Those two events shaped me into the hoarder...I mean collector I am today.
So...I finally got the chance to finish this video and the ending is fantastic. I had what you would call an unconventional childhood. My parents were divorced but did their best to get along for me and I had/still have quite a few medical problems. I wasn't able to enjoy many of the things normal kids did so my parents were elated that I found something I loved. When you couple that with my parents always trying to one up each other over everything...it was different. So when the Sega Genesis came out in 1989 I had both an Nes and Master System. I remember being torn between the Genesis and TG-16 but when I saw a friend playing his shiny new 16-bit console running Ghouls n' Ghosts I knew that was my pick. Hell, my mother was just relieved I managed to choose one so she got it for me. My dad bought the games (Ghouls n' Ghosts, Space Harrier 2, and Phantasy Star II when we finally found one). However, I did have friends with parents just like you described to a tee. Actually, I am the very reason one of my closest friends wound up getting a Genesis on Christmas morning of '89. My mom and his mom went to the store together that day to pick up my Genesis and his mother had the very same reaction as the animated guy in your video. My mom talked her into springing a little extra for a Genesis over an Nes with Ghouls n' Ghosts. The reasoning she used was the same I employed with her. Yes, you can buy the older one that's cheaper but the newer one will stay current longer saving you money in the long run. Unfortunately, that line of reasoning failed in '91 when the Snes launched. My dad on the other hand went for it and I wound up with both. At any rate, you have yourself one helluva channel here. I may not agree with you on a few things but I respect you just the same. You may consider me a new subscriber and an upvote (of which I already did). You have a great night my friend.
Thank you very much for watching our video and subscribing. Your kind words are very motivating and you have made my day. Also thank you very much for sharing your Sega story as well. For me the console is special for similar reasons because it was something I bonded over with my older brother. He was 18 and I was 8, so he was kind of like a father figure for me. That summer after we got the Genesis he left for the navy and we were never really close ever again….but the memories of playing Herzog Zwei, beating phantasy star 2, ghouls n ghosts, altered beast? They were great. I still remember that time, and it’s my brother that I love, but it was Sega that gave us some common ground to be together in the first place
That’s awesome! I ended up with the Sega Genesis that same year, but I still love the TurboGrafx-16 anyway. Especially for the shooters. Thanks for watching dude! 😎
The Turbografx CD wasn't even going to be out for another year, did they really have to advertise it so aggressively so soon? It didn't even have Sewer Shark on it.
The TurboGrafx CD launched with the TurboGrafx 16 in 1989.... I don’t think anyone knew what to do with it? It had few games and was incredibly expensive for the time. The NEC US team were more or less cynical marketing experts who didn’t grasp what made their own product special. All they knew was that they had to sell expensive computer games to kids and I think they expected people to just line up and buy it. Thanks for watching!
@@creativecatproductions I could have sworn the Turbografx CD came out in 1990. That just makes things even worse. Why didn't they just delay it until they had more impressive software, and not launch with so much underwhelming garbage?
@@creativecatproductions Apparently they had plans to release it and a bunch of other games, but they were still beholden to the Japanese branch for funding, and they just wanted to let the Turbografx die.
Came here because of a Twitter post meme were each month had different classic game. One you born with is the console stuck with for life. Never heard of turbo grafx
It was the games. The US games market was still focused on arcade ports. It's the reason the 2600 beat out all its competitors, and ended up being the reason for the Genesis success. The NES was an anomaly for the time as it was the first console to be a hit mostly due to non-arcade games. The big arcade ports for the TG16 usually weren't the ones that were big in the US. Even when they got Street Fighter they decided to call it Fighting Street, as if Yoda did the port.
It's easy to forget that the Mega Drive failed almost as badly as the TurboGrafx-16 during those first few months. Neither console was available at key retail chains like Wal-Mart because of Nintendo's inseparable business relations. As you mentioned in the video, Nintendo invested deeply in brand loyalty with video game isles practically being shrines, and as such, neither console did super well. In fact, 1990 was actually the NES' most profitable year. The battle between the Mega Drive and the TurboGrafx-16 was more of a fight for local territory than the mainstream living room. The Mega Drive's regional victory was only decided by small margins among hardcore gamers who actively sought the next generation. The only factor from there is that Sega crawled out of obscurity by finally getting stocked in Wal-Mart by 1991, just in time for the release of Sonic the Hedgehog, while NEC didn't. Its market was doomed to be limited.
Right! From what I understand the Genesis pretty much floundered until the price drop and the launch of Sonic. It was America’s second most popular home console, but probably by a very wide margin. Everyone seems to have had a Nintendo. I think NEC/Hudson were probably relatively successful within the wealthier urban test markets....which were similar to Nintendo’s in 1985, NYC or LA. This might explain why they thought it was a good idea to invest 750,000 units. But as you say, Walmart by 1990 was the store that would make all the difference. In 1989 the store didn’t exist in the northeast. By the mid 90s it was far and away America’s largest and most ubiquitous retailer. For rural America and people like me, being from El Paso, Wal Mart was a big deal. But I think the real killer was NEC strategy of up selling the TG16 as high end technology for an older demographic. The $400 CD attachment and advertising aimed at teens and adults were divorced from the reality that the wider videogame market in 1989 was still that of a kid’s toy. Almost NO ONE was going to pay $200 + $300 + all the money on extra attachments. Even today, a console with a perceived $700 price tag would be dead in the water. Even if the TG16 made it out of the toy stores and Sears, into Wal-Marts growing retail dominance, it would have still completely tanked at that perceived price tag.
@@creativecatproductions It wasn't just the "We're luxury porn." approach. It was the fact that you need to actually back up that claim. Imagine if the PS5 launched with a terrible licensed pack-in game with the copyright filed off, box art drawn by an untalented 5th grader, and missing features that came standard in the competition. (But you could pay more for.) Imagine if its western titles were terrible mobile ports. Now imagine if, instead of sexy new raytracing, it had to awkwardly explain to enthusiast publications that it could totally fake it, if you didn't pay attention to the limitations. (AKA: Exactly how the Turbografx handled parallax.) Nobody would take the PS5 seriously. Especially not if it was Sony's first console, in this hypothetical. Basically, team Turbo were confused - you can't reach the high end market if you're doing this on the cheap and you're underpowered, and you can't reach the casual family market if you're charging a lot of money for terrible games designed for kids in the laziest way possible. So who were they really selling it to? Blind, gullible idiots with lots of money and no serious interest in gaming? Tech savvy contrarians who believed in the underdog? Art majors who really appreciated the pop of Blazing Lasers? I mean, I was those last two, but that does me no good when I can't afford your console. Ironically, the Atari 2600/7800 were doing better than your animation suggested in the late 80's, because they knew their market. They were the budget/nostalgia option. Both sold better than the Master System in the states. And that was despite Atari also trying to sell the XE, and their TIA soundchips torturing innocent victims. (Guess which consoles my family ended up with?)
Here was my reasoning for going with the Sega Genesis over the TurboGrafx-16. Also my reasoning I was thinking about market share and what console would be a better long term investment. Sega Genesis had three buttons better for gameplay, two Sega was well know for great arcade games that would come to the Sega Genesis, three the Sega Genesis was ten dollars cheaper then the TurboGrafx-16. Also more stores had the Sega Genesis and some stores that did have the TurboGrafx-16 stop stocking them less then a year like Bradlees.
I think the frame rate is so bad on super thunder blade that it’s basically unplayable. The music is great though. The Last Battle is awful too. As a kid, however, I definitely preferred the Last Battle…..it has a quirky off beat charm and, at the very least, is mostly playable up to a point.
The clip of Jordan Burroughs mauling Ben Askren was hilarious! I actually thought I had multiple windows open, with some of my wrestling stuff playing. 😄😄😄
You realise that in 1987 the A500 was available in Europe for £500, which would have been about $700 and it's more than twice as good as the woeful C128.
I had a chance to buy this during clearances for like 50 or 60 bucks... I ended up picking a Genesis game every time. My reason was... I’d just get one controller and Keith Courage. I would then have to buy a turbo tap, another controller, and a CD-ROM drive to have what I wanted. It was insane for so little. Had the cd had more games... maybe I’d have been more motivated. That being said I love this console and the games... but at the time... it seemed like a money pit, for likely failure.
The Turbografx had great hardware. It was 8 bit but Hudson's 6502 ran much faster than Sega's and Nintendo's at the time and their GPU's were leaps and bounds ahead of the competition with pixel resolution, on-screen colors and numbers of sprites. I think a major failing was in the lack of diversity of games. They had way too many shooters and not enough RPG's. And their marketing was terrible.
Overall, this video essay is pretty good, and makes some valid points. That said, it isn't perfect: 9:00 - While some members of the NEC HE US team did come from Atari, they came from Tramiel Atari's computer division, (the console division under Michael Katz had separate employees) and didn't really know much about marketing a game console, which proved to be a problem later on. 19:05 - The reason R-Type wasn't the pack in was likely due to memory costs. 512K games were more expensive to produce compared to 256K ones, and the capacity was somewhat new for PCE/TG-16 games. The difference in mass producing them would likely be small, but would add up when making hundreds of thousands of them. Also Keith Courage was chosen for arbitrary reasons that made little sense and wouldn't have happened had anyone in NEC HE US had experience with (marketing) video games. 20:15 - Your audio clips off there. 20:17 - The cover art issue can maybe be attributed to the US team wanting the art be more consistent. That said, this didn't mean they couldn't have used many of the good original pieces of over art, but that would have required a fair bit of further coordination with Hudson Japan, let alone other companies, to get the untouched cover art. Even then, they didn't need to be that consistent, considering TG-16 games came in cardboard sleeves with a border stating the system name. As for Legendary Axe's US cover art, it is definitely muddled, but understandable enough on a game box. 28:57 - Brad's smock has a modern TRU logo, but finding high-quality artwork, let alone vector art, of old company logos is hard, so I will give you a pass. Overall, this video makes some reasonable points in an exaggerated manner. The points about the TurboGrafx-CD is valid, although it is questionable in some aspects. NEC US tried (key word being tried) to emphasize that the CD was optional in both print advertising and the console box. Even the box of the TG-CD (which you showed) calls it the "total SuperSystem" because the TG-16 console is called the "SuperSystem" and the console, CD, and its interface unit are shown in a vertical stack like a math problem. Still, having a prominently advertised $400 peripheral didn't create a good marketing image, and I could definitely understand why a parent would be reluctant to buy a console with an expensive add-on because their kids might want it someday. That said, NEC HE US wasn't super hot on the TG-CD, as the Gamasutra article notes. Also, the TG-CD was at least a bit staggered from the console launch, so yeah. As for the "mandatory" peripherals that confused consumers, of course stuff like the TurboStick wasn't mandatory, and while it's extremely annoying now to not have composite out or an extra controller port, composite wasn't super commonplace on the older TVs many people (especially kids) had, even if it was standard on new models. As for additional controller ports, that's a flaw in the PC Engine's design that forces a multitap without kludging around it a way that also feels clunky, I'll give you that. For the depicted visualization of a (clueless) parent buying a game system for their kids, it's exaggerated heavily, with a store employee misrepresenting product to the point of ridiculousness, with showing you "needed" all of the peripherals for the TG-16 but not for the Nintendo (which had quite a few games requiring certain peripherals) nor the Sega Genesis. (which had some optional peripherals, including the A/V cable that might not be available at retail at the time) Oh yeah, and you made an error regarding the NES Action set that you handwaved. Not to say your video makes valid points, including NEC's poor cover art, the TurboGrafx-CD, (which NEC US was required to launch without anything resembling a killer app) and the one controller port, but there's a lot of exaggeration that hurts these points. Sorry for the rant-like length, but I just felt like doing a long breakdown of this video's points.
Given how big the TG16 is over the original PC Engine, NEC USA should have just built-in a whole 5 player turbo tab into the console, man what a selling point that would have been. The problem with separate products like the Turbo Booster and Tap is they create an image of nickel n dime-ing the customer. That combined with the $400 Turbo CD, it’s no wonder the TG16 seemed so much more expensive than the Genesis and NES.
Compelling argument. I was one of the very few that got the CD add on and I only knew only one other kid in school who had it. It was a very lonely place.
The CD was a hard sell I think. Ys was great, but back then it was such a niche game, and fighting street was just not as good as it should have been. I love the PC Engine CD though, and I’m glad the TurboGrafx mini included some CD games like Dracula X. Thank you very much for watching!
Creative Cat Productions, I don’t even remember why I wanted it so much. I got it with Monster Lair and later got Y’s. I didn’t regret it at the time but I feel sorry to my parents. lol, we weren’t well off either. Just discovered your channel. I love how you include your kids in the videos. Keep it up my man.
I can add a few things to this as someone who grew up during that time. The biggest problem was that I never even heard of the turbo graphics 16 until the late 90s when I saw things about it on the internet. I even at least heard of the atari lynx and jaguar and the 3do. I didn't know anyone who had a tbg16.I can say that even if I did hear about it back in the late 80s and early 90s that I wouldn't have wanted one. It came out at the wrong time similar to the dreamcast. It was more powerful than the nes but not quite as powerful as the genesis and super nintendo just like the dreamcast was more powerful than the n64 and ps1 but not quite as powerful as the ps2 Xbox and gamecube. The tbg16 also had too many shooters. Back then when tb16 came out it was all about mario 3 like you said and a few years later it was all about mortal kombat and street fighter games for genesis and super nintendo and beatem ups like streets of rage and final fight. Tbg16s shooter games would have seemed boring compared to these new fighting games. The big final nail in the coffin is why would I pay more for the tbg16 when the genesis has more advanced hardware and is cheaper. I will tell you that now I am 39 years old, I did buy a turbo mini, I think the minis will sell well.
I am also 39 years old! I actually remember the TG-16 pretty vividly because I had a 17 year old brother who read all the gaming and nerd magazines. I was only like 7 years old at the time…. I think the TG-16 was pretty well known. I just think that many of us were too young to remember it, and it sold so poorly that it had no permanent lasting legacy. We probably only remember the Genesis so well because Sega never let us forget it. I think the TG16 was dead prior to the release of street fighter 2 and mortal kombat, but it did have a few old school beat em ups….just nothing that could compete with final fight or streets of rage. But again, those games came out in 1991, in the west. NEC pulled the plug on the TG 16 in that same year. It DID get a really outstanding port of Street fighter 2, and some neo geo fighters, but those all stayed in Japan and required all that expensive hardware I mentioned. Personally I love the TG16 and its unique game library….but that was such a competitive time for games. Thank you very much for your thoughtful comments and for watching our video!
@@creativecatproductions Oddly enough, one of my Patrons wants me to corrupt a TG16 game, and I've been seriously considering that as an option. I think he wanted Bonk.
I remember the TG-16 and I also remember turning my nose up at it for a Genesis in '89. I also remember passing on it again when I got an Snes in '91, and again when I got a Sega CD in '92. I was completely brainwashed into thinking it was a lesser machine until I started collecting in late 2008. When the PC Engine/Core Grafx/TG-16 mini dropped I was able to second a Core Grafx Mini and it is still the best any company has made thus far. On a side note, I wish SNK would release a consolized mini AES with like 50+ games instead of the endless mini cabs. Fun Fact: The Atari 2600 had a 6507 running at 1.19MHz. It maybe a version of the 6502 but the Nes had far more going for it than that. It had more of everything (RAM, speed, better VDP, ect...) and was built as a modular design. This is why it stayed so viable for as long as it did. That and utilizing illegal predatory forced licensing agreements on all 3rd parties. I believe this was a big part of the reason the TG-16 and Genesis didn't leave Nintendo in their dust at the very beginning together (both had excellent launch titles). Sega had the wherewithal to hang in as Nec floundered.
I agree the TG-16 mini is the best retro mini console of them of all! I was an early adopter of the Genesis in 1989, though I really wanted an NES…..my older brother was an arcade goer and he was into Golden Axe, so he convinced my parents that the Genesis would be a better Christmas gift for our family over an NES. It was, in fact, awesome from our perspective….but I also had some exposure to the TG-16 and loved it too. We just weren’t allowed to get it, and it was pretty hard for us to find anyway. I don’t really despise Nintendo’s licensing agreements with their 3rd party developers as much as other people. I know its often used as an explanation as to why companies like SEGA and NEC failed to trounce Nintendo, or even reduce its share of the market to less than half in the 80s, but Nintendo through the 1990s (and really beyond that) just made a much more consistently high quality product. Their licensing limitations helped ensure that the NES, and the console market in general, wasn’t flooded with shovelware and horrible knock off games…..a tendency that largely caused the 1983 videogame crash in North America. It also ensured that owning a particular console meant access to a unique library of games. That would, I think, actually enhance the chances that people might want to buy a Mega Drive or a PC-Engine in the long run. If the PC-Engine was just flooded with ALL of the exact same games available on the famicom (3rd party) then what, really, is the point of buying a PC-Engine? Especially if you already own a famicom? Look at European PC games in the 80s and how their market was flooded with low quality trashy ports? It makes the videogame industry look scammy and predatory. By contrast, the NES seemed like a bastion of quality and polish….and consumers responded accordingly. Plus everyone really wanted to play the Mario brothers games. They so incredibly popular, and probably for really good reason. It’s not a coincidence that SEGA was finally competitive once they had their own well made take on the mascot platformer. Anyway, thank you very much for watching dude! 😎
@@creativecatproductions Their licensing agreement was illegal and predatory. Atari sued them for it and won in 1990. This is what released Nintendo's death grip from the US market. While it us true that their licensing agreements were done to avoid another Atari crash of '83 by the late 1980's ot became something different. Under Nintendo's licensing agreement companies were only allowed to make 5 games per year in the US and were absolutely not permitted to make games for anyone else inside the country. This is why many third parties made fake companies just to release more games beyond the 5 limit. For example Konami created Ultra games for this. Further, it is my belief Sega would have put up a much bigger fight during the 3rd had they not been starved of 3rd party games. The Genesis rose to prominence in 1990 because Sega was no longer held back. I also (respectfully) disagree with your assessment of Nintendo's quality over everyone else. From the 4th generation until the 7th they landed in dead last. Sega and Atari broke their death grip on the American market at the end of the third. Sega opened the market for everyone to enter. They stopped Nintendo and Joseph Liberman's attempt to have the US government censor all mature themed games. Then Sony came to prominence and wiped the floor with everyone. All of that doesn't happen without Atari's suit and Sega's tenacity. I'm not saying Nintendo is bad...just they have done some truly horrible things in the industry...
I guess I don’t really know enough about law to know why it would be “illegal”, but I can certainly see why it’s something that would be undesirable for some companies…like Atari? It’s kind of funny that the complaint in this cases comes from “Atari” because that name was hardly relevant in 1990. It wasn’t even the same company, Atari went out of business and people have been trading the rights to the brand and logo ever since. But despite what people say about 3rd party developers not being able to develop games on consoles other than Nintendo, they (3rd parties) actually did develop or license a ton of games on other consoles….just not the exact same games. Sega was well supported by companies like capcom, and Namco. The same was true with the TurboGrafx which was heavily supported by Namco, and Konami. I think the truth is actually that 3rd party developers didn’t actually want to develop for consoles other than the famicom because the famicom had overwhelming market share. Why in the world would you waste time and money porting Forgotten Worlds for the Genesis (I’m pretty sure the answer is that Sega coded it themselves) when you could focus on games for a console that most gamers already have? I would have to really get into the specifics of all the supposed Nintendo restrictions but it does fly in the face of my lived experience. I do remember when capcom had to release Street Fighter 2:championship edition for the Genesis in order to get around their deal with Nintendo…..the game was the same but somehow different enough. I still don’t understand what’s either “wrong” or “illegal” about making this kind of agreement between two parties. But that’s me 😆
@@creativecatproductions I also found it quite funny when I found out Atari was the one's that sued Nintendo for it. Oh yes because everyone was clamoring for an Atari 7800 in 1990! Poor us with our Sega Genesis's just missed all the fun. Thinking about that smooth 2600 sound just makes me so envious for Atari owners (the 7800 used the 2600 sound chip for backwards compatibility). ;)
I do totally remember Ultra games so that konami could get around the 5 game deal with Nintendo…..I’m also pretty sure Nintendo remembers too, but probably supported the work around on the part of konami because (1) konami was one of their most important developers and (2) at one time konami was the largest and most productive game developer in the world. Konami could have produced many more than just 5 quality games a years. But what about “Atari”? I’m pretty sure those guys didn’t produce one good game in 10 years at that point. 😛
Brad had good intentions….sadly, almost 30 years later, as a member of the board of directors, Brad made some decisions that brought down toys r us as well. Some think he might be a mole working for KB toys….but he brought that down too
That parent shopping reenactment would only be accurate if you parent was a moron. My mom knew good and well she didn't know anything about games or consoles so she TOOK ME WITH HER and told me to get whatever it was that I had been bugging her about.
I got mine for 50 bucks with 3 games packed in and then picked 2 more up for 20 bucks a piece, in 1993. I used to play bonks revenge for hours and hours. Plus battle royal.
I got the SEGA Dreamcast in about just the same way. The console was already declared dead by the gaming press and it was being liquidated at stores like Toys R Us. I bought the console for $50 and it was easy to pick up a bunch of games for less than $10 a piece. I was getting games on ebay for like $5. It was a crazy time. After a few months I had a top notch Dreamcast collection, one of the best video-game libraries I ever acquired. I played it far more than my PS2.
That’s not a bad deal! By 91’ there were probably a lot of really good games abandoned on the shelves to choose from. That’s how I got my Dreamcast. It was discontinued and ultra cheap....like $50. I got so many great games for a really good deal.
R Type not being the pack in game is THE puzzling fact. It tells me the team didn't really understand the games they were shipping. Also, as far as I know, TG16 was the only one that had proper port of Side Arms. Very unique co-op arcade game.
True! I think that’s why NEC decided to put the TG16 in a big black case.....like the Sega Genesis.....because it looked more like the kind of high end electronics people might be able to place in their living rooms. It was a missed opportunity not to include the 2nd controller port out of the box. No one will buy your console, even if it has good games, if they perceive it’s a bad value
That's the exact reason why my parents bought me a NES when I was a kid XD. I wanted a snes but my parents went to the shop and they were convinced by the seller that the NES was better for less money. And you know what? For me it was ok, I felt down for a few minutes but then I accept it. After all, it was my first console and any console was better than no console at all. I barely knew anything about videogames anyway, I was like 5 years old. Surprising enough was that I knew about the existence of NES and SNES and that one was better than the other. But I think that the exclusivity deals by Nintendo were actually a problem for many people despite your point of view. You say that the new console had the potential for a whole new library too, but that's not enough. The games that people knew and wanted already existed. They were on Nintendo and they were not going anywhere else. Starting with new games is much harder.
This is wrong in SO many levels it hurts. I was an 80's kid who had an NES ...yes, Nintendo DID have exclusivity contracts. Major companies like Konami, Capcom, etc. had to release many games a year for the system. As a matter of fact, while the A team was working on a game, B team was making ANOTHER Nintendo game. Even after PC Engine proved successful in Japan, Konami didn't work for them until 1991, when they released a lazy port of Gradius in their free time under a C team..a game made in 1985! Capcom only released three quick arcade ports and that's EVERYTHING they've done for the PCE. So stop talking about companies having to be "creative" for other systems, ok? It took a crapload of time for Capcom and Konami to be able to release A games for the Genesis. That's why, at first, SEGA just released arcade games and EA ported some computer games for the Genesis..yes, the same EA Turbografx wanted on board because it wasn't tied to Nintendo. Anyway, the worst part of this is seeing every freaking american on youtube spewing pro-nintendo revisionism.The idea that the Genesis sold on christmas because parents were clueless about what Nintendo and Sega were, and the NES was sold out so they had to buy a Genesis....a freaking NES which came in 1985, mind you...is so mindnumbingly retarded that needs no further mention. I bought Super Mario Bros 3, yes...because I had the system and was cheap.....but I dreamed of the Sega Genesis like every other kid at the time. When my best friend bought the Sonic bundle I was out of my fucking mind!. So yeah, if you plan on releasing more videos, mind the revisionist bullshit. BTW, You should do a research about Hudson Soft, they made a shitload of money with the Turbografx because of NEC's inexperience and optimism. It's hilarious.
Konami and capcom didn’t have to “produce many games for Nintendo” but rather they were limited to producing only around 5. Everyone wanted to produce games for the famicom and in order to avoid the shovelware culture that ruined atari, Nintendo established their exclusivity license and the Nintendo seal of quality.
Konami established a secondary company called “ultra” in order to get around the game limit. They weren’t required to produce more games, they desperately wanted to because the nes was a billion dollar selling product and it was the best place to sell software. With ultra, Konami could get around their contract and make more games than Nintendo normally allowed.
Truth be told, the Genesis was barely relevant at all in the US UNTIL the sonic the hedgehog pack-in. Not many people knew what it was until that became a thing. I knew. I was an early adopter and loved the genesis. But the genesis was small potatoes for a while.
I was born in 1980. I remember TG-16 when it came out. I didn't own it. I seen the ad's, but I didn't know any of the games. Nintendo had the cool titles. I only knew one person that had Sega Master System. I wouldn't get my Genesis until 1992.
It’s a classic! Of the 16 bit systems I think I still like the snes most, but the TG16 is truly fantastic. Especially when supplemented with the PC Engine and CD game libraries.
Creative Cat Productions the CD games are wonderful, but when you include the Japanese library, i still think all my favorite games are HuCARDs! For example, Hana Taka Daka
CDs were known in 1989, your average parent would have seen CD decks at Sears for a few years yet the idea of giving your kid a CD player when most where still rocking tape decks and turn table would be a very hard sell in 1989. Even if the parent was an audiophile, the TurboGrafx CD player would seem inferior to normal CD players and impractical to use in a stereo tower (like the SegaCD after it).
You’re right! I think what was confusing the Dad character most was the context “CD” was being used in. He was more or less thinking “CDs play music, what do CDs have to do with a kid’s videogame cassettes?” I used to be equally confused by the use of the term “CD” when it was used at the bank! I think a few people owned CDs in 1989, but almost no one knew about their potential as it pertained to computers. The Turbografx CD was ahead of its time. Thanks for watching!
@@creativecatproductions I'd argue that they learned their lessons with the CD. Some really high quality localizations (at first), some great pack-in games (Gate of Thunder!)....we'll just ignore that bit where they went all in on Streetfighter 1 magazine ads.... They won some much needed rave reviews...but it was just too expensive. And the games didn't offer (to casual audiences) any kind of next generation upgrade worth that price. (Ys was an anime action-RPG with bump combat....that was nowhere near mainstream.) By contrast, if you look at the Sega CD, the hardware was exciting - arcade quality sprite scaling! Cinematic live action streaming! A faster processor! The price was more reasonable. People were legitimately excited for this thing. Good thing too, since hype would have to do a lot of work.... Because the launch library/pack-in selection was a bad joke, that the system wouldn't ever recover from. The more it failed to live up to sales expectations, the more third parties couldn't justify giving it their best efforts. Especially when Sega was showing up their own best title with Sonic 2.
It has an 8-bit cpu, but it also has two 16-bit gpu’s which is how it was able to push so many more colors and sprites than, say an NES or a Master System, without flickering or slowdown. The cpu itself was actually an enhanced 8-bit chip designed by Hudson soft themselves and it helped push the console far above the limits of 8-bit consoles of the time. Since the turbografx 16 offered so many major technical improvements to its predecessors, since it had two 16-bit gpu’s, and since it launched in 1987 almost side by side with the Sega Mega Drive, I have to count it as a full blown representative of the 16-bit generation. It produced games that look every bit as good as those that appeared on the MegaDrive, even though it was technically doing so with an 8-bit cpu. Thanks for watching!
Yup the turbografx 16 CD should of waited to be released until consumers knew alittle more about the technology!! And once people knew more about it then they could've dropped it before the Sega CD and beat Sega to the market with a bunch of games for it since by that time Japan's PC engine CD would've had a bunch of CD games ready for the American market!!! And if they would've added two controller port's and av cables!! It could've been a incredible battle for the number two spot between Sega and NEC!!!!! Man turbografx 16 was my favorite console of all time! I just wish NEC and Huston would've done a better job releasing it here in the states!!!! Damn!!!!! 😔
Imagine if they had just released something like a Duo right at launch instead of scattering the system across all those separate purchases? I think they had a chance! Thanks for watching dude! 😎
Me and. My friend where the only ones to have turbo grafx 16 . He had china warrior and I had splatter house. And even then we couldn't play 2 players cause of the 1 controller port.
They really should have made a second controller port for the Turbografx. They spent all this time making it so much bigger and there was no room for a second port? What a missed opportunity!
As an 80's kid with Boomer parents with my own kids now...your Toys R' Us scenario is rock solid. Well done.
Thank you very much! I really appreciate it 😎
Yup. Sad waste of tech.
Every once in a while I have to return to this video. The interaction between Brad & Billy's dad gives the TurboGrafx's lack of success context that interviews and sales figures often miss. Thanks for providing your informative and unique take on the console's history.
Thank you very much for watching!
I was born in 1979, and I definitely remember all of these consoles. My parents were very well off (we weren't anything close to "1% rich" but we never lacked money) and we owned a ton of consoles: the NES, SNES, Sega Genesis (w/ Sega CD), Panasonic 3D0, and Sony PlayStation (1 and 2). This was in addition to owning two gaming computers. In other words, my brother and I were set, and it helped that my Dad (a Boomer) was really into technology, computers, and gaming in general. Anyway... the reason I mention all of this isn't to brag, but to say that I never stopped to think about the money they spent. Honestly, as a 40 year-old adult, I feel a little bad about it, so I think I'll call up my Dad and say thanks. :)
That's awesome! Thanks for watching
your parents had money and bought u anything gaming in the 90s but u didnt get a neogeo the most dreamed about game system by every gen xer? lmao nice bs story
I think the neo geo was only a ‘dream’ console for people who loved their 2D fighters (somehow more than street fighter 2), and even then that was later on. I like the neo geo, but the truth is those games are extremely bland and mediocre. The SNES and Mega Drive both blew away the neo geo in terms of depth, quality, and quantity of games.
Fuckin Turbografx had no arcade recognitiion, also their advertising was thin and what they had for ads SUCKED. Other than that they were real sharp.
@@mrg5559 To be fair, the Neo Geo needed to be known about. Remember the magazine ads were kind of forgettable if you had no idea what they were talking about.
The clueless dad shopping for the Nintendo(s) had me laughing my ass off. Amazing video
Thanks for watching!
This is so very accurate. I was 9 in 1989 and this was exactly how it was. My friends had NES and SEGA's. I remember when my buddy got a TurboGrafx16 and I thought it was awesome because it was different. I thought the games looked better. I tried to convince my Parents, but my Dad ended up getting me a PC (486) and that was pretty rad and it changed my life. I still always wanted one of these. Maybe I'll get the new mini.
The turbografix mini is great! Check out our review....
Thanks for watching!
I just got the PC Engine mini yesterday and gotta say love it over the SNES and Genesis mini. I like the cult of personality around the little white box as seen in the menu screen and within some of the games themselves (one in which the console itself is a playable character). The controller is tight and very comfortable. It is a pity the TG-16 did not localise many of its games.
I have to agree. My favorite mini console is the PC Engine/TurboGrafx....there’s so much love and the game library is really good. I love all the shooters!
Id like the PC Mini for portability reasons but The Turbografx one had well, TURBO on the controller
Yeah that’s a really good point. A lot of these games actually play quite differently because of it too. I also just love the look of the tg16.
Thanks for watching dude! 😎
I was the happiest 10 year old Christmas 1989. I received my Tg-16 with Legendary Axe, Alien Crush, and Blazing Lazers. I was a savvy kid who researched the gaming magazines and played Nintendo and SEGA consoles and friends and families houses. I knew the Tg-16 was different and had awesome games. After that Christmas, friends and family members always wanted to come over to play. At the end, I only ended up having 15 games total which I still have to this day. I can’t wait to receive my preorder of the TG-16 mini.
Did you ever get the turbo CD?
@@creativecatproductions unfortunately no. It still evades me. Its still expensive.
It really is!
I got the TurboExpress in 1991. The thought of playing the exact same "16-bit" (debatable) home console games blew my mind at 13 years old. I still have it. It works like a charm after getting it recapped recently.
Nice video. Love the exchange between Dad and Brad. I was 12/13 in the summer of 1989. I still had the Nintendo Nintendo and would continue with it for years before upgrading to the Genesis around 1992 or 1993 and brought it with me to University in summer of 1994. I knew no one that had a TG-16 nor do i remember even seeing them at Toys-R-Us or any other store for that matter. I had one friend who talked about wanting one but due to it's price point wasn't allowed near it.
Thank you very much!
The first retro console I ever saw was a turbografx. I was in a class for kids about NASA and the teacher brought his new turbografx on the last day. It was remarkable. I never saw one after!
I wanted a Nintendo in 1989, but wound up with a Genesis.
I remember saving up my money for a snes in 1992 and considering getting the turbo grafx 16 because it was like 20/30$ less and I was impatient. But I didn’t have a clue what it was or even know anyone who had one so I passed thinking it was some half ass video game system just trying to get a piece of the video game pie. I would have been wrong, but I still loved my snes.
The first time I saw one was actually the summer of 1990. I was at a space camp and on the last day the cool young teacher guy brought his brand new Turbografx, a TV, and a copy of dragon spirit and bonks adventure. I thought it was awesome, but I knew exactly zero people growing up who had one. People who read the magazines knew what it was, but no one actually had one and we mostly ignored it.
Yeah I actually think this was NEC’s biggest hurdle with the Turbo. Other than kids who read magazines, most had never seen a Turbo in person.
Name recognition was huge for Nintendo, and even though Sega really didn’t have any yet, they learned a lot from the launch of the Master System, and had already made in-roads in the US industry. NEC had no experience in the US industry, and US consumers didn’t recognize the brand, unlike Japanese consumers who knew NEC already. The combination of a lack of recognition from consumers, with the high price tag almost buried the Turbo out of the gate. The only saving grace for the Turbo would come from Bonk, which would finally give them some IP clout, but by that time, it was too little too late.
Despite a successful Genesis launch, Sega was still behind Nintendo’s sales, and was on the way to facing the same fate as NEC, if it hadn’t been for the release of Sonic, which helped them right the ship to make the Genesis a huge success.
I think Sega actually had a ton of name recognition in the late 80s and early 90s through the arcades. Shinobi, outrun, space harrier, and golden axe (just to name a few) were all immensely popular. Back in the day we tended to treat the Genesis like it was for “arcade gamers” due to this. But that wasn’t necessarily an advantage because people wanted a different style of game when it came to home consoles. They wanted Mario.
Also the Genesis never really became popular until the price was dropped and they finally got a game that could compete with Mario on his own terms….sonic. That wasn’t until halfway through 1991. A full two years after the console sat dusty on store shelves
It’s a great point about bonk. I really wish they could have gotten him out the door sooner. That game was so good and that character was every bit as good as sonic.
@@creativecatproductions it is a much slower game but it has some neat mechanics. I think turbografx could have benefited from some more television marketing. I don’t think I ever saw one commercial for it.
FINALLY - an explanation that makes sense!
Everyone always blames the failure on marketing - but I call shenanigans on that. All I got was marketing on TV and comics for the Turbo and Bonk. They pushed it hard.
I recall something similar. I was really wrapped up in all the gaming magazines at the time, and the TurboGrafx was given a lot of coverage even though its market share was so small. It may be an obscure "lost" console today, but the TurboGrafx in 1989 and 1990 felt like it was EVERYWHERE. You couldn't miss it! At least, just as long as you were paying attention.
@@creativecatproductions it got alot of coverage thatswhy tbey createdturbo magazinecause it didnt get alit of coverage 1or 2 pages out of a magazine is nota lot
It got the same coverage as the Sega Genesis. It was frequently highlighted on the cover of magazines….EGM awarded the Legendary Axe their first game of the year award ever!
I think the myth of the console’s poor publicity and obscurity has arisen as a function of its commercial impotence multiplied by the number of years that have gone by.
Because the NES and Genesis were so popular, Nintendo and Sega both have repeatedly milked the legacy of those consoles over the years, refreshing our collective memories. Further, because so many millions of people had an NES or a Genesis, there have been far more opportunities for conversation, nostalgic articles, and stuff like RUclips videos discussing those games….again, refreshing our collective memory.
People, over time, simply forget about it, or they never hear about it and I think we falsely assume that it just wasn’t a big deal as a consequence. It’s like when I try to explain to my kids that Elvis Presley was massively popular. Because he’s effectively forgotten by people under the age of 40 they assume he must have never been a big deal. Ever.
Thanks for watching dude!
www.retromags.com/magazines/usa/electronic-gaming-monthly/electronic-gaming-monthly-issue-8/
@@creativecatproductions
Not to mention all the TV ads and ads in the major comic books. I still have them all.
I owned a TG16 and really loved it. In fact, all of my friends who played it also loved it. We could never understand why it struggled so much. You make great points about the "good, but unknown/unrecognizable games" and the extra cost of peripherals. Nintendo and Sega both already had popular arcade games like Donkey Kong and Altered Beast. So, knowing that you could play these games at home was a big advantage for them. The TG16 only having 1 controller port was pretty lousy. Not only did you need to buy another controller, but you needed to buy the "Turbo Tap" too !! The CD-ROM attachment was absolutely amazing, but at $400, was way too expensive for most families.
Thank you very much for watching!
One nice thing about the turbo tap was the ability to play bomberman 93’. That game is so much fun!
@@creativecatproductions Absolutely. I believe it was the only console at the time that supported 5 players. Bomberman was great. We also had a blast with Dungeon Explorer and TV Sports Football.
This is the best and most truthful video on the failure of the Turbo Grafx16 I've ever seen. An entertaining and informative work of art.
Thank you very much for watching and for your kind words dude! 😎
@@creativecatproductionsI agree with everything you said. Especially with the expensive ad on and the Turbo CD
Thank you very much for watching dude! 😎
The only person I know who owned the TurboGrafx was my older cousin. He's an odd case where he was never someone who seemed to take gaming as a serious hobby but would get every major console/game releases as they launched and would completely conquer them like it was a paying job. Watching him play Legend of Zelda in 1988 is what got me into gaming in the first place (and he was cool enough to let my 4 year old self "help" solve dungeon puzzles) and he would always show off the newest stuff to me and let me have it for a few hours. We used to go over his place about once a month for dinner, lived about an hour away, and I remember him showing me both Bonk games and watching me play through them both.
When I bought my Genesis 16 my friend got a TG 16. I remember playing Bonks on it. If Bonks is on the TG 16 Mini I’ll get it.
It sure is! And so is the sequel Bonks Revenge
Recommend the Japanese rom of Bonk over the American. The US edited out a transformation in which Bono becomes ‘cute’ and blows kisses as an attack.
Your animation and editing reminds me of Liquid Television from the 90's. Hellz Yeah :D Good vid.
Thank you very much! You don’t know how much this comment means to me because I love Liquid Television 😂
Growing up in the 80's, I remember that Mario's face was plastered all over breakfast cereal boxes, potato chip bags, backpacks, lunchboxes, clothing, you name it. Turbografx16 was already fighting an uphill battle trying to get into the north american market.
My super mario brothers underware from 1988 knows your right!
Spot on about the box art. No kids even knew if the TG16 was even more powerful than the NES or SMS. No one had heard of Kieth Courage, and NEC didn't bring the TV show over. NEC's box cost $10 more and seemed weak. The controllers looked like NES controllers, and the TV ads were awful. The $400 CDROM and lack of a second control port made NEC seem crazy.
Thanks for watching dude! 😎
@@creativecatproductions Thank you. One of the most insightful videos on the console wars.
This was a great video. Well done & speaking as a parent myself who’s bought games for his three kids that skit with the father was spot on! That is my mom when she bought my Turbografx -16. If I hadn’t been there to offer my ever patient *ahem* child-like teenage guidance to her there’s no telling the disaster she would have visited upon me & my absolute need for cutting edge video gaming. I do however have one minor quibble with your conclusions;
The Japanese PC Engine console is drop dead gorgeous to this day.
Compact & svelte. It made sense for it to have the expansion port & mutlitap adapter for additional controllers. Remember that Japanese apartments & even site built homes are much smaller than we are accustomed to here. A typical single family apartment in Japan with one child is around 650 square feet. A typical house is only a little over a thousand square feet. That’s tiny to our western sense of everything must be big big big. When looked at thru this aspect it makes perfect sense for the original Famicom & the PC Engine to be the compact size they were. The follow up Core Grafx & Core Grafx II consoles added additional functions with display & audio outputs in the exact same size chassis. NEC/TTi could have done that in America too & I think it would have been a rather unique differentiator that parents of the day would have been sold on by a mildly savvy retailer who knew how to appeal to their sense of not wanting more “kids toys” laying around the living rooms attached to their TV sets. For sure the choice of what games got a release here was a factor as well. But I honestly think if the console had the footprint of maybe an iPad of today, two controller ports, & the composite video connections built in like the Core Grafx & Core Grafx II follow ups it would have done much better straight away. The cost of all the add-ons, from the ultra expensive for the day CD-ROM to the crazy confusing TurboBooster or TurboBooster PLUS (“Which does what & why were there two of them instead of just one?”), these were self inflicted wounds from the start. I still to this love that hardware & always will. It’s my all-time favorite console. But hold it & a PC Engine in each hand & tell me the PC Engine wasn’t a better design that could have been more successful stateside. The TG-16 with that elongated footprint & massive expansion bay that needed a long shell to cover it up was just ungainly to me. Open one up & the amount of empty space in that shell proves the point.
Side note; my dad become hopelessly addicted to Alien Crush & Devil’s Crush when he played them. It became his favorite video games of all time. It was something to see if I went somewhere with my mom only to return home & there my dad sat playing the TG-16 with pinball games at the ready. My dad in fact shelled out the bucks for my very own TurboBooster PLUS so that he could save his high scores on the games with the built memory. Secondary side note; once the TurboBooster PLUS was plugged into the expansion bay this thing became even bigger & more ungainly to handle. Just bad design choices for this hardware. It deserved so much better.
Anyway just my thoughts. Great video & I’ll scour your channel for more content. Oh & I’ve had my Turbografx Mini on reserve thru Amazon since the day the listing went live after the E3 announcement last year. Finally the long delay is over as of next week & I can’t wait!
Wow! Thanks for watching and thanks for the excellent feedback. We really appreciate it!
small Japanese homes are why the PC engine couldn't have a 2nd controller port? lol, somebody forgot to tell Nintendo this before releasing the Famicom
Good point!
Thanks for watching dude 😎
It’s very odd. I had the Genesis/CD combo that my best friend and I would play on weekends: Sonic 2, Eternal Champions, Mortal Kombat, Tomcat Alley, and Streets of Rage. My best friend had the SNES and Megaman X, TMNT: Tournament Fighters, etc. The Genesis is still my favorite, but the TG-16 has grown on me through emulation. I think I would have fell madly in love with it if I had one as a kid.
Agreed! I think a lot of us would have lived the TG16 if we only had the chance to get acquainted.
Thanks for watching dude! 😎
The Turbografx was difficult to get in rural areas of the country. I ordered mine by mail order and only one local store carried games.
To be fair, everything is difficult to get in rural areas!
That sucks. I lived in rural Canada and my dad managed to get one at a local Radio Shack.
Just to point out how rural I am, we still don't have cable TV, high speed internet or paved streets and it's 2020.
I do feel your pain by the way :)
One thing that many analyses miss is the importance of the arcade in the US. If you were a teenager at this point, Sega was dominating the Arcade. Every game looked better than the last. You went to the arcade each week (travelling far) to check out what might be new, and to play the graphicslly advanced ones. And if you wanted to play the arcade at home, you got (or asked for) a Genesis. Altered Beast (yes, Altered Beast was a graphical beast when it came out), Golden Axe, Shinobi, and After Burner (at a time when Top Gun was still a recent memory) - these games sold the Genesis initially.
I think that’s true to an extent, especially as far Golden Axe was concerned. I vividly recall people being legitimately excited for that game on the Genesis. At the same time the home console market never really did become the “arcades at home”…..not really until the PlayStation came out and then that pretty much made the arcades seem obsolete. People had different expectations for home consoles and Nintendo plainly understood that which is why they were so freaking successful. Personally, where Im from (west Texas), arcades were not much of a factor because we simply didn’t have them. Outside of a couple cabinets at the pizzeria, the grocery store, the movies, and a miniature golf course, my hometown severely lacked major arcade games…..and we were always about 10 years behind the curve. I was playing space harrier well in the 90s 😝
I never saw a Golden Axe cabinet, but we did play a lot of Nintendo…..and SEGA Genesis.
Thanks for watching dude!
The baby boomer dramatic reenactment completely sold me on the video. Fantastic.
Thanks for watching!
the eyes and tongue you put on Bill Clinton had me ROLLING LMAO
Thank you very much for watching dude! 😎
I think I just found the most slept on channel on RUclips. Great stuff btw man subbed and bell ringed 👌🏻
Thank you very much for watching!
I actually was lucky enough to get the Sega Genesis, any TurboGrafx 16 at the same time Christmas 1989, TurboGrafx 16 as one of the greatest systems of all time, and I also just purchased the mini
That’s incredible! And I absolutely love that mini console.
Thanks for watching dude 😎
Nice video. Wish you wouldn't mess with the aspect ratios on stuff, tho. Do you play your retro games stretched to widescreen on current monitors?
Thanks for watching dude! 😎
I play retro games at their original aspect ration on contemporary monitors.
That’s a very funny and likely accurate picture of 1989. Well done. I’m glad I got the Turbo16Mini because I completely overlooked this and the Turbo Duo as a kid.
The turbografx 16 mini is so good, easily our favorite mini console. We frequently hook up the turbo tap and have bomber man battles.
The turbografx should have done so much better than it did for having as many good games as it did.
Thanks for watching dude! 😎
@@creativecatproductions You were lucky. I didn’t jump on the Turbo Tap and extra controllers right away and now those official controllers are never available. I still like my Turbo and I feel lucky I at least got one but for me I enjoy the Genesis Mini a little bit more.
I bought the Turbo Duo from Turbo Zone Direct back in 2002, because it was the only game console during the time to have Fighting Street (Street Fighter 1).
Have you played the outstanding port of Street Fighter 2?
Creative Cat Productions Yes, had to pay extra for the adapter and six button controller, but man it was worth it.
That game is so fantastic. I love the PC engine port. It’s unbelievable what they were able to get out of that little machine.
Been looking for a TG16 for years. Just bought one. Good video explaining to a friend why he never heard of it.
Thanks for watching!
I remember the early "console wars" pretty vividly, and remember being one of those kids that saw the TG16 and thought "....meh" and graduated from my NES to a Genesis. I can attest to some of the things like the crappy box art and poor marketing strategy being a large part of the failure, as well as the whole "everything's a Nintendo to adults" (as my parents were that way 100%). It's funny, though, as time has gone on, I find myself thinking back to the TG16 and how it could have had so much more of a presence than it did, and it makes me kind of sad in a nostalgic sort of way. Since discovering early Falcom titles and playing the original Ys duology thanks to the old Nintendo E-shop hosting some old TGCD games, the system itself has become something of a quiet obsession of mine. Time forgot the poor thing, but I still find myself wishing that I had owned one...or that I could find one and some games for it for less than a small fortune (seeing as how the Mini was so limited a run and people scalp for them online nowadays). It's funny how time and perspective make you look back on things like this that so many people have forgotten and make you pine for them.
Also, as a Genesis kid, I appreciate the use of Phantasy Star II BGM in the video! 😁
Thank you for watching and for the thought provoking comment dude! 😎
I love phantasy star 2. First rpg I ever beat. It was waaaay too hard 😝
One thing you missed was that Sega and Nintendo had a much broader retail presence that NEC failed to secure for the Turbo-Grafx. I had one back then, and at least in my town you could get games from Toys R Us, Babbages, and Sears. That was it, not even Best Buy carried them when they opened up in town. Sega and Nintendo were everywhere else, so if you were a parent doing your Christmas shopping @ super stores like Walmart etc. the Turbo-grafx wasn't even on the radar. Plus there wasn't a chance for kids to hang out and window shop while Mom was getting the other shopping done and ask for it. There was also no place to rent games either, not the local video stores, not Blockbuster and Hollywood video which really hurt them by not being able to test games like the other systems. They should have had time to secure these channels before launch. I do have my mini on preorder, can't wait until March!
Great points!
@@creativecatproductions
Speaking from my experience in Hanover PA, the Turbografx was impossible to miss. The store demonstrations were everywhere, and they couldn't wait to introduce us to.....Keith Courage, Darkwing Duck, and Impossamole.
Because Super Mario Bros.
Oh, and they wanted us to know it was the most expensive option, because that'll make it look like sexy future tech.
that black design in an oversized plastic casing certainly was futuristically sexy! 😆
Thanks for watching dude 😎
I completely understand why Nintendo did not want to allow just any developer to sell games for their console. Endless shovelware and a lack of any quality control is what brought down atari in 1983. If they didn’t control who was allowed to develop games, and the manner in which they went about it, then what was to prevent the same fate befalling them?
@@creativecatproductions
That bit's fine. And I agree with them, and their restrictions on quantity? Chef's kiss. Genius.
Fun fact: The UK would experience their own videogame crash. Don't believe me? How many hardware developers aren't Japanese or American?
Because they used to have a lot more.
And Sega couldn't be trusted to save the market. These were the comedians who thought Super Thunderblade and Space Harrier II - at full price each, on the smallest possible ROMs, with zero enhancements or actual sprite scaling - was a sane Japanese launch.
There's also never been a Mario game as bad as Alex Kidd in High Tech World. And zero Mario games have featured underage strip paper/rock/scissors. Or naked men crapping skulls out of their butts.
We weren't getting Sonic without Miyamoto.
I could go on, and on, and on....
But.
Like I said, Nintendo went further than that. Their whole "You can't make any game that's exactly your game for the NES but better?"
That's the exact opposite of giving the consumers quality.
That's forcing consumers to accept nearly unplayable slow down, and sprite flicker so bad it can lead to cheap deaths.
There's no excuse.
It says that Nintendo knew they were selling people an inferior product. One that broke down often, due to that front loading mechanism breaking from ordinary wear and tear - forcing people to buy a second NES.
Including people who struggled to afford their first one.
Why are you defending this part of it?
Imagine if Nintendo had managed to keep this little stranglehold going? For the SNES/ N64/Gamecube? And the Playstation brand had been nowhere near as successful as Sony had hoped?
Do you really think this would have been what's best for the consumer?
I have 2 Turbografx systems. 2 Turbo Express and 2 Turbo EverDrives. And a handful of hucards. I LOVE the Turbografx-16.
The Turbografx-16 was my introduction to gaming in 93 when I started elementary. It's all we had for a few years
Bonks Adventure, Bonks Revenge, Blazing Lazers, R-Type, Dungeon Explorer, The Legendary Axe and even Keith Courage. I loved those games
The Turbografx might be the single most underrated console in the history of all gaming
Rewatching this, I only just noticed "Billy" or perhaps kid John is opening a Sega Genesis on Christmas Eve at 7:27PM. Did his family normally open presents the day before Christmas??
Yes! That is true to life! Of course it’s a historical reenactment 😂
Legendary Axe should have been the pack-in game.Plus, it was EGM 1989 Game of the Year!
It makes a lot of sense. It looked great and it made you want more of what the system could offer. Also people love platformers.
Thanks for watching!
As a kid who's parents bought me the tg 16 one Xmas and the cd add on the following Xmas all the kids in my neighborhood were envious of me lol. What an incredible system loved it then and regret selling it years ago. Amazing video!
The TG 16 really is an incredible system. I was thinking about my favorite games recently for that console and I realize that they all hold up. Now I play the TG16 mini with my children and the love it too....especially bomber man!
Thanks for watching!
@@creativecatproductions i had the Turbotap and 5 controllers used to play the hell out of dungeon explorer with my friends, im so happy Konami released the mini picked up one of those and a pc engine mini for good measure.
@@davidhiggins6251 we also have the tg16 mini and we play a lot of bomberman 93’! The shooters are for me, and everyone here loves bonk. We call our youngest 1 year old son “bonk” as a nickname....he’s earned it
I really enjoyed your act with Bradley and the customer.😂 Worth watching again!
Thank you very much for watching! Bradley has more or less become our mascot because everyone loves him so much. We do too! 😎
Great content!! Really well done. You should have tons of subscribers.
I only knew one kid that had a TG16 growing up. I played it a few times and loved it, but they were hard to find, where I lived and expensive.
I had an NES, Genesis and Game Boy and then eventually a PS1 by the time I was in high school. I've been a Sony guy since.
I went for the Genesis to be different from my friends. I did regret having to trade systems with friends to play Final Fantasy games, but I loved the Genesis.
I'm waiting on a TG16 mini. I missed out on it back in the day, and I am stoked to experience it now.
Anyhow, I've watched a few of your videos now, and they are quality content!
Thank you very much for watching! I’m glad you like our content. I was a Genesis kid. I went to a space camp once in my hometown where the cool young guy running the class brought his brand new Turbografx to show off on the last day. We played Dragon Spirit and Bonks Adventure.....it was awesome!
"I don't know exactly what a CD is, dude, but it must be a big deal if it costs $400"
It’s probably totally badass......I can’t wait to play Fighting Street! Game of the year? Lol
My gosh what an enjoyable video. I don't understand how why you don't have more subs!
Thanks for watching!
Final Lap's RPG mode was so impressive for its time. I remember being excited to come home from school to continue my game.
The idea of sports rpgs is such a good one. The tennis game was also great!
Thanks for watching dude 😎
And now in 2020 the TurboGrafx 16 still can’t catch a break! Now it’s being delayed because of the Corona Virus! I was so excited to get my hands on it!
Indeed! I’ll probably post a follow up video about that today or early tomorrow
I actually thought the Legendary Axe boxart looked badass. I really want one of these things, but they are so dang expensive now. I would probably just get one with an everdrive flash cart.
I love your avatar and user name.
Yes they’re sadly expensive now, but hopefully these games will be available by other means one day
Thanks for watching!
I loved this system back then Keith's courage blew my young mind with graphics and gameplay. I image the price was high for the regular customer. It was hard for us having a bigger family to afford something like this. But begging and promises of good grades for 3 of us brothers together was willing to forfeit anything else for Christmas! Imagine no TMNT, no new games for the NES or sports cards! Well it was WORTH IT! 😁 turned me into a shmup player even to this day rage quitting is not in my dictionary! 😡🤣
I think I was probably equally blown away when our family got a Sega Genesis packed with Altered Beast. It’s funny how these games have come to be regarded as bad when they were so universally loved at the time of their release!
Thanks for sharing and thank you very much for watching!
Also, I really enjoyed the video. I've watch half of it. Watching the other half tomorrow. I'm really looking forward to the TG16 Mini!
Thank you very much for watching!
The dad and mullet Toys r Us employee sketch was hilarious. That is really really funny. You are sure right about the overpriced tg-16 they made great games it's the only console I know that only has one controller for it. Ridiculous.
One controller port in 1989 was ridiculous! Its like but a car without the tires or air conditioning. Thats extra?! It was standard and people felt cheated. 😎
Gosh darn it, as awesome as this video is I can't stop getting hyped about that Valis 3 box behind little Billy! 26:20
Which, coincidentally, was also released on Turbo CD! (though weirdly while in Japan the PCE CD version came first and then the Genesis one a year later, in the US it was the other way around)
Anyway thanks for the video. Was looking for some insight as to why the system flopped. I remember wanting Legendary Axe SO BAD as a kid! Apparently it was even declared Game of the Year by a magazine or two. When I finally got a TurboDuo a couple of years ago it was such a surreal delight playing such old CD based games. The REAL meat of the system was in the Super CD ROM games, which were a hard sell in North America.
Thanks for watching!
Was recently collecting some legit hardware (mainly for Bomberman purposes) and kinda found myself in the same boat. Only one controller port? You need the extra TurboTap for multiplayer? You need to get the TurboBooster as well? The CD add-on costs twice as much as the base console? The heck even is this? Except today it's worse in some ways because a lot of these things are broken or malfunctioning and need to be repaired/recapped. Had not heard of this problem being discussed much and upon looking, quickly stumbled across this video. I really feel for that dad.
I can imagine trying to buy a turbografx-16 in 1989 was baffling, even fore videogame astute kids. I think its a great console, but the way they marketed it, as a bunch of separate stuff, was just bananas! Thanks for watching dude 😎
This just popped up on my Home page. Personally, I think you nailed the reason. As someone who was only twelve at the time of the T-16 release (living in Metro Detroit) I can say it looked far cooler than the NES or the Genesis, as it had a very noisy video kiosk when the others did not, so I was able to see how awesome the games looked. But since I (and many kids) had only gotten an NES in late '88 or '89, the T-16 was a hard sell due the adverising, which implied you needed the Turbo-CD for the full experience. No kid was going to risk asking for something like that and jeopardize a possibly lucrative Christmas with their new or year old NES.
Thank you very much for watching dude! 😎
I really think they should have just focused on the core system….and added a second controller port. 😆
I still have my original TurboGrafx-16 console complete in box and my TurboExpress, TurboDuo and almost every game I purchased back in the early 90’s. My first console was the Sega Genesis I bought just before my TG16 due to the Genesis slightly lower price because it was an additional cost to buy a TurboTap for multiplayer and a TurboBooster for AV out whereas Genesis had 2 controller ports and only required an inexpensive AV cable. It was very frustrating as a TG16 owner back then, at least after it’s first year as game releases became few and far between when compared to my Genesis. I recall going to my game store many times not seeing any new TG16 game releases for months upon months while the Genesis game shelves were filled with games and new releases almost every month if not weeks. Another thing is the games we received didn’t have licensed teams/players for the sports games. NEC didn’t believe in that so your Football, Baseball, Basketball and other games had generic players where Sega had full licensed rosters for MLB, NFL, NHL, NBA, Boxing, Golf etc. NEC also didn’t spend much on advertising where Sega was all in. NEC simply didn’t have a lot of experience or understanding the North American market and made a lot of poor decisions when deciding what games to port over to the North American market. NA never got CastleVania, Street Fighter II C.E. and a plethora of other wonderful PC Engine games. And there was a time when TTI was offered an exclusive on Mortal Kombat but NEC Japan turned it down, so many mistakes were made. Another thing you’ll notice is that NA TurboChip cards had 3-4 color plain graphic text whereas PC Engine received beautiful artworks on their HuCards, at least not till TTI took over sales and distribution around 1992 when NA started to see some nice graphics on the TurboChip cards but by then it was too late as Sega & Nintendo we’re running away with the video games market. Yeah, many frustrations that are fresh in my mind as they were back then. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed my TurboGrafx-16 system and games but when compared to my Genesis it’s a stark difference between the two in North America and my Genesis easily was played and enjoyed 10x as much if not more. Today you’ll find so many wonderful PC Engine games that NA never received thinking how in the world did NEC not port them over to North America.
Thanks for watching dude! 😎
I pre-ordered the tg16 mini the day it went on sale in the US. I can’t wait for 3/20!!
Us too!
Thanks for the video with all the information on the system. I bought a base system back in the 90’s and a few games. Later in the 90’s when the company went out of business a local game store was selling base turbo graft systems for $5 and games for $1. I bought 4 used base systems and a lot of the games. NEC Technologies was 20 minutes from where I lived and I used to go there and play games before they were released in return for filling out a survey. One time they even gave me my favorite game for the system, Neutopia II. I still have the game factory sealed in the box. They also gave me some promotional material which consisted of 5 by 7 inch cards which had the artwork of the box of the game and a written description of the game. I still have these cards too. It is interesting to find out now that some of the games are worth over $100 now because I remember seeing those turbo graft game cards for $1 in used game bins at small game stores in the 90’s. Back then you could also buy a converter that attached to the Turbo Grafx that played PC Engine games. I bought a lot of those too for $1 back in the late 90’s at small game stores with used games...
Wow! That’s a pretty cool personal story about the TG-16! For me it was a pretty remote thing, being from west Texas, but I did see and play one early after the US launch. I went to a space camp and one of the counselors leading the class, who was probably about 19 years old, bought and brought his brand new TG-16 on the last day of the camp. We all took turns playing. It was awesome.
Thanks for watching!
Creative Cat Productions - the real tough shooter game was Blazing Lazers and it is one of the great classic games for the system. First few levels of the game are easy then it gets impossibly hard. I could never finish the game because I always died and ran out of continues. Then Electronic Gaming Monthly published an invincibility code for the game and I was finally able to see the later levels and finish it. I still have my old video game magazines from the 90's. One of the best was Die Hard gaming magazine put out by the owner of a video game store of the same name. The magazine had a monthly contest for who submitted the best Pro Action Replay code. I won it one month and won cash and free games. I submitted a PAR code for the game Breath of Fire and won.
Blazing lazers is a true classic!
Creative Cat Productions - turbo Grafx had a deluxe controller with slow motion that enabled an average gamer to get a little farther in the game but not until Electronic Gaming Monthly published an invincibility code could the average gamer finish the game.
Great video/upload. “The genesis Nintendo!!!” Priceless.
Nintendo has a stronghold on the market & it appeared that TG16 prices w/ less amount of games didn’t help.
As for the mini versions. Gen-X’ers will enjoy the nostalgia. Along with a few hardcore gamers.
Hopefully companies will break even. In this time of a pandemic, with everyone stuck indoors, this should lead to selling more consoles.
Thanks for watching....We really liked the TG 16 mini, check out our review of it!
I was born in '78. I already had a Nintendo Nintendo and most other kids had one too. The TurboGraphx games looked a little more colorful, but I could tell that they were a little dated. There were less games and nowhere to rent games. You couldn't trade games with friends if you were the only one who had the TurboGrafx. I wasn't really interested in saving up and shelling out my allowance money for an entirely new console when I already had a console. I think that Billy's dad would have already purchased a Nintendo Nintendo from Bradley at least a year prior.
We were one of those families where, for whatever reason, we just never got an NES. I think because it was so common it was less necessary. My brother’s best friend had it, several of my friends in our neighborhood had it, and we played it all the time…..just not at home. We had an Atari 2600, skipped ownership of the NES and went straight to the Sega Genesis at its launch in 1989. I think my older brother read about it in Wizard magazine. I personally really wanted the NES, but I learned to love the Genesis.
When we went in Christmas of 1989 to get my Genesis which I had my eyes on because I read about it in a newspaper article and saw that it included Altered Beast which I used to play at the Bowling Alley so I was determined to get it. When we went to Toys R Us the funny part is my Dad noticed the Turbo Grafx -16 had a $50 instant mail rebate and almost tried to convince me to get that instead. I stayed true to my guns and still wanted the Genesis so got that. I also used my left over bday Christmas money to get Revenge of Shinobi. About a year or more later the Turbo Grafx dropped in price to $69 and I convinced my dad to get it with Keith Courage pack in. I loved both systems.
That’s awesome! My brother and I also got a Genesis Christmas of 89’ and we got Revenge of Shinobi and Golden Axe as soon as we could. I love the early Genesis, and the TurboGrafx-16 as well.
Thanks for watching dude! 😎
Yup, still my favorite video on RUclips
I’d love to know which TG16 games the music in this video is from. I can recognize Bonk and Dungeon Explorer, but not the other music
I’m glad you like it!
The opening song is from Ninja Spirit....I’ll get back to you about the others. At 9:15 I use a song from revenge of Shinobi. I love that soundtrack!
At 20:40 I’m using a song from the Last Battle for Genesis
Around 24:00 I’m using music from the Kung Fu
The music from the dialogue between the dad and Brad the toys r us clerk is from Phantasy Star 2 on the Genesis.....that song is great
Creative Cat Productions That is very interesting, I guess I need to play more genesis games. I thought this was all music from TG16 games I hadn’t played yet. What’s the game music that plays during the topic on Hudson pitching their hardware to Nintendo?
Fantastic video. I was always curious about the TG16 when it showed up at my local Radio Shack, but I ultimately went with the Sega Genesis.
Thank you very much for watching dude! 😎
The Sega Genesis was probably the better choice, but the TG16 was just awesome too. It looks like M2 bought the rights to a bunch of NEC avenue games. It looks like we’re getting more TG16 stuff
My first console was a TurboGrafX16. My dad bought it for me for my 4th birthday. I even remember drawing about it in my journal in Kindergarten. We got it at our local Radio Shack.
I loved Keith Courage, it was actually the reason my dad got me the TG16 over the NES or Genesis. He said Mario was stupid you just walked around hitting your head on blocks, but Keith Courage had a sword that could be upgraded and you changed into a robot. So apparently from what I've heard between your video and info from my dad, my dad is cooler than most peoples dad in 89/90 😌
I borrowed games from my moms friend Al, that's how I found out about Military Madness, JJ & Jeff, Victory Lane, Bloody Wolf and Vigilante. I would also go to Radio Shack with my folks every so often to look at the spining rack of TG16 games.
I only knew one other kid in my school with one and we where friends lol.
I've preordered the Mini and can't wait for March. The down side is the shipping and change over, I'm Canadian and Amazon.ca didn't offer the console here. 😑
Your dad definitely sounds like he’s cooler than the pack!
I love my dad, he was a great guy, but he thought all video-games were a fraudulent fad.
@@creativecatproductions don't get me wrong my dad thought video games where a scam. He figured all the different consoles where cash grabs and they didn't need that many so often. So I was always told to wait for the next one, cuz there will always be a next one. So I had the TG16, then Genesis, N64 and Dreamcast. Those where the consoles my folks bought me over the years.
Only ones I still have are the Genesis and Dreamcast. TG16 died in storage after I got my Genesis, I was so hurt I held onto the Genesis for dear life and never let it go into storage. The N64 met with an unfortunate fate at the hands or paws of my aunts dog, he tugged the power corn and the system landed on that big old power brick in back and snapped the PCB. 😭
Those two events shaped me into the hoarder...I mean collector I am today.
I bet your dad had a blast with the system. 😉
@@retroforce6919 he did actually. I think it's the only games console I've really ever seen him play.
So...I finally got the chance to finish this video and the ending is fantastic. I had what you would call an unconventional childhood. My parents were divorced but did their best to get along for me and I had/still have quite a few medical problems. I wasn't able to enjoy many of the things normal kids did so my parents were elated that I found something I loved. When you couple that with my parents always trying to one up each other over everything...it was different.
So when the Sega Genesis came out in 1989 I had both an Nes and Master System. I remember being torn between the Genesis and TG-16 but when I saw a friend playing his shiny new 16-bit console running Ghouls n' Ghosts I knew that was my pick. Hell, my mother was just relieved I managed to choose one so she got it for me. My dad bought the games (Ghouls n' Ghosts, Space Harrier 2, and Phantasy Star II when we finally found one). However, I did have friends with parents just like you described to a tee. Actually, I am the very reason one of my closest friends wound up getting a Genesis on Christmas morning of '89. My mom and his mom went to the store together that day to pick up my Genesis and his mother had the very same reaction as the animated guy in your video. My mom talked her into springing a little extra for a Genesis over an Nes with Ghouls n' Ghosts. The reasoning she used was the same I employed with her. Yes, you can buy the older one that's cheaper but the newer one will stay current longer saving you money in the long run. Unfortunately, that line of reasoning failed in '91 when the Snes launched. My dad on the other hand went for it and I wound up with both.
At any rate, you have yourself one helluva channel here. I may not agree with you on a few things but I respect you just the same. You may consider me a new subscriber and an upvote (of which I already did). You have a great night my friend.
Thank you very much for watching our video and subscribing. Your kind words are very motivating and you have made my day.
Also thank you very much for sharing your Sega story as well. For me the console is special for similar reasons because it was something I bonded over with my older brother. He was 18 and I was 8, so he was kind of like a father figure for me. That summer after we got the Genesis he left for the navy and we were never really close ever again….but the memories of playing Herzog Zwei, beating phantasy star 2, ghouls n ghosts, altered beast? They were great. I still remember that time, and it’s my brother that I love, but it was Sega that gave us some common ground to be together in the first place
Have a great night too!
I remember playing this system with my friend back in the day. It was a great system but of course I became a sega fan and later Nintendo.
It really was great
I was a diehard Sega fan. Now I only buy ("the new/next") Nintendo systems to play Mario Karts
@@kaimln I feel ya
This is my life now 😆
I got a TG16 for xmas 1989! Been a huge fan ever since.
That’s awesome! I ended up with the Sega Genesis that same year, but I still love the TurboGrafx-16 anyway. Especially for the shooters.
Thanks for watching dude! 😎
Very well done. Thorough and entertaining! I laughed at the dad at Toys r' Us! Sounds convincing to me. Thank you!
Thank you very much for watching! We really appreciate it
@@creativecatproductions Absolutely! Thanks for the great video and information. :)
The Turbografx CD wasn't even going to be out for another year, did they really have to advertise it so aggressively so soon? It didn't even have Sewer Shark on it.
The TurboGrafx CD launched with the TurboGrafx 16 in 1989.... I don’t think anyone knew what to do with it? It had few games and was incredibly expensive for the time. The NEC US team were more or less cynical marketing experts who didn’t grasp what made their own product special. All they knew was that they had to sell expensive computer games to kids and I think they expected people to just line up and buy it.
Thanks for watching!
@@creativecatproductions I could have sworn the Turbografx CD came out in 1990. That just makes things even worse. Why didn't they just delay it until they had more impressive software, and not launch with so much underwhelming garbage?
I still can’t believe they didn’t release Rondo of Blood in North America. The CD was such wasted potential here
@@creativecatproductions Apparently they had plans to release it and a bunch of other games, but they were still beholden to the Japanese branch for funding, and they just wanted to let the Turbografx die.
Came here because of a Twitter post meme were each month had different classic game. One you born with is the console stuck with for life. Never heard of turbo grafx
the TurboGrafx has basically become the ultimate hidden gem of its time period!
It was the games. The US games market was still focused on arcade ports. It's the reason the 2600 beat out all its competitors, and ended up being the reason for the Genesis success. The NES was an anomaly for the time as it was the first console to be a hit mostly due to non-arcade games. The big arcade ports for the TG16 usually weren't the ones that were big in the US. Even when they got Street Fighter they decided to call it Fighting Street, as if Yoda did the port.
I always thought the cover art for the Turbo Graphics looked like Zack Morris
He does! He had that generic blonde kid from the late 80s look, and thats Zack Morris in a nutshell
I discovered this channel through this video and watch it on a regular basis.
Thank you so much for watching, this comment made our day!
@@creativecatproductions By the way, nice use of Phantasy Star II music!
That soundtrack is a treasure. It’s so good!
It's easy to forget that the Mega Drive failed almost as badly as the TurboGrafx-16 during those first few months. Neither console was available at key retail chains like Wal-Mart because of Nintendo's inseparable business relations. As you mentioned in the video, Nintendo invested deeply in brand loyalty with video game isles practically being shrines, and as such, neither console did super well. In fact, 1990 was actually the NES' most profitable year.
The battle between the Mega Drive and the TurboGrafx-16 was more of a fight for local territory than the mainstream living room. The Mega Drive's regional victory was only decided by small margins among hardcore gamers who actively sought the next generation. The only factor from there is that Sega crawled out of obscurity by finally getting stocked in Wal-Mart by 1991, just in time for the release of Sonic the Hedgehog, while NEC didn't. Its market was doomed to be limited.
Right! From what I understand the Genesis pretty much floundered until the price drop and the launch of Sonic. It was America’s second most popular home console, but probably by a very wide margin. Everyone seems to have had a Nintendo.
I think NEC/Hudson were probably relatively successful within the wealthier urban test markets....which were similar to Nintendo’s in 1985, NYC or LA. This might explain why they thought it was a good idea to invest 750,000 units.
But as you say, Walmart by 1990 was the store that would make all the difference. In 1989 the store didn’t exist in the northeast. By the mid 90s it was far and away America’s largest and most ubiquitous retailer. For rural America and people like me, being from El Paso, Wal Mart was a big deal.
But I think the real killer was NEC strategy of up selling the TG16 as high end technology for an older demographic. The $400 CD attachment and advertising aimed at teens and adults were divorced from the reality that the wider videogame market in 1989 was still that of a kid’s toy. Almost NO ONE was going to pay $200 + $300 + all the money on extra attachments. Even today, a console with a perceived $700 price tag would be dead in the water. Even if the TG16 made it out of the toy stores and Sears, into Wal-Marts growing retail dominance, it would have still completely tanked at that perceived price tag.
@@creativecatproductions
It wasn't just the "We're luxury porn." approach.
It was the fact that you need to actually back up that claim. Imagine if the PS5 launched with a terrible licensed pack-in game with the copyright filed off, box art drawn by an untalented 5th grader, and missing features that came standard in the competition. (But you could pay more for.) Imagine if its western titles were terrible mobile ports.
Now imagine if, instead of sexy new raytracing, it had to awkwardly explain to enthusiast publications that it could totally fake it, if you didn't pay attention to the limitations. (AKA: Exactly how the Turbografx handled parallax.)
Nobody would take the PS5 seriously. Especially not if it was Sony's first console, in this hypothetical. Basically, team Turbo were confused - you can't reach the high end market if you're doing this on the cheap and you're underpowered, and you can't reach the casual family market if you're charging a lot of money for terrible games designed for kids in the laziest way possible.
So who were they really selling it to? Blind, gullible idiots with lots of money and no serious interest in gaming? Tech savvy contrarians who believed in the underdog? Art majors who really appreciated the pop of Blazing Lasers?
I mean, I was those last two, but that does me no good when I can't afford your console.
Ironically, the Atari 2600/7800 were doing better than your animation suggested in the late 80's, because they knew their market. They were the budget/nostalgia option. Both sold better than the Master System in the states. And that was despite Atari also trying to sell the XE, and their TIA soundchips torturing innocent victims. (Guess which consoles my family ended up with?)
Here was my reasoning for going with the Sega Genesis over the TurboGrafx-16. Also my reasoning I was thinking about market share and what console would be a better long term investment. Sega Genesis had three buttons better for gameplay, two Sega was well know for great arcade games that would come to the Sega Genesis, three the Sega Genesis was ten dollars cheaper then the TurboGrafx-16.
Also more stores had the Sega Genesis and some stores that did have the TurboGrafx-16 stop stocking them less then a year like Bradlees.
I too went with the Genesis! Thanks for watching dude 😎
Super Thunder Blade isn’t awful.
The Last Battle on the other hand…
I think the frame rate is so bad on super thunder blade that it’s basically unplayable. The music is great though. The Last Battle is awful too. As a kid, however, I definitely preferred the Last Battle…..it has a quirky off beat charm and, at the very least, is mostly playable up to a point.
Thanks for watching dude! 😎
The clip of Jordan Burroughs mauling Ben Askren was hilarious! I actually thought I had multiple windows open, with some of my wrestling stuff playing. 😄😄😄
I couldn’t think of a better image of ‘dominance’!
Thanks for watching dude 😎
You realise that in 1987 the A500 was available in Europe for £500, which would have been about $700 and it's more than twice as good as the woeful C128.
I’ve actually never heard of this computer!
Thanks for watching dude 😎
@@creativecatproductions that's the just the stock Amiga with 512K.
That I do recall. The amiga was very impressive indeed.
@@creativecatproductions in 1987 very dope. The A1000 in 85 was more expensive.
I had a chance to buy this during clearances for like 50 or 60 bucks... I ended up picking a Genesis game every time. My reason was... I’d just get one controller and Keith Courage. I would then have to buy a turbo tap, another controller, and a CD-ROM drive to have what I wanted. It was insane for so little. Had the cd had more games... maybe I’d have been more motivated. That being said I love this console and the games... but at the time... it seemed like a money pit, for likely failure.
True!
The Turbografx had great hardware. It was 8 bit but Hudson's 6502 ran much faster than Sega's and Nintendo's at the time and their GPU's were leaps and bounds ahead of the competition with pixel resolution, on-screen colors and numbers of sprites.
I think a major failing was in the lack of diversity of games. They had way too many shooters and not enough RPG's. And their marketing was terrible.
It really was great hardware!
Thanks for watching dude 😎
Overall, this video essay is pretty good, and makes some valid points. That said, it isn't perfect:
9:00 - While some members of the NEC HE US team did come from Atari, they came from Tramiel Atari's computer division, (the console division under Michael Katz had separate employees) and didn't really know much about marketing a game console, which proved to be a problem later on.
19:05 - The reason R-Type wasn't the pack in was likely due to memory costs. 512K games were more expensive to produce compared to 256K ones, and the capacity was somewhat new for PCE/TG-16 games. The difference in mass producing them would likely be small, but would add up when making hundreds of thousands of them. Also Keith Courage was chosen for arbitrary reasons that made little sense and wouldn't have happened had anyone in NEC HE US had experience with (marketing) video games.
20:15 - Your audio clips off there.
20:17 - The cover art issue can maybe be attributed to the US team wanting the art be more consistent. That said, this didn't mean they couldn't have used many of the good original pieces of over art, but that would have required a fair bit of further coordination with Hudson Japan, let alone other companies, to get the untouched cover art. Even then, they didn't need to be that consistent, considering TG-16 games came in cardboard sleeves with a border stating the system name. As for Legendary Axe's US cover art, it is definitely muddled, but understandable enough on a game box.
28:57 - Brad's smock has a modern TRU logo, but finding high-quality artwork, let alone vector art, of old company logos is hard, so I will give you a pass.
Overall, this video makes some reasonable points in an exaggerated manner. The points about the TurboGrafx-CD is valid, although it is questionable in some aspects. NEC US tried (key word being tried) to emphasize that the CD was optional in both print advertising and the console box. Even the box of the TG-CD (which you showed) calls it the "total SuperSystem" because the TG-16 console is called the "SuperSystem" and the console, CD, and its interface unit are shown in a vertical stack like a math problem. Still, having a prominently advertised $400 peripheral didn't create a good marketing image, and I could definitely understand why a parent would be reluctant to buy a console with an expensive add-on because their kids might want it someday. That said, NEC HE US wasn't super hot on the TG-CD, as the Gamasutra article notes. Also, the TG-CD was at least a bit staggered from the console launch, so yeah. As for the "mandatory" peripherals that confused consumers, of course stuff like the TurboStick wasn't mandatory, and while it's extremely annoying now to not have composite out or an extra controller port, composite wasn't super commonplace on the older TVs many people (especially kids) had, even if it was standard on new models. As for additional controller ports, that's a flaw in the PC Engine's design that forces a multitap without kludging around it a way that also feels clunky, I'll give you that. For the depicted visualization of a (clueless) parent buying a game system for their kids, it's exaggerated heavily, with a store employee misrepresenting product to the point of ridiculousness, with showing you "needed" all of the peripherals for the TG-16 but not for the Nintendo (which had quite a few games requiring certain peripherals) nor the Sega Genesis. (which had some optional peripherals, including the A/V cable that might not be available at retail at the time) Oh yeah, and you made an error regarding the NES Action set that you handwaved. Not to say your video makes valid points, including NEC's poor cover art, the TurboGrafx-CD, (which NEC US was required to launch without anything resembling a killer app) and the one controller port, but there's a lot of exaggeration that hurts these points. Sorry for the rant-like length, but I just felt like doing a long breakdown of this video's points.
Thank you very much for this thoughtful feedback and thank you for watching!
Given how big the TG16 is over the original PC Engine, NEC USA should have just built-in a whole 5 player turbo tab into the console, man what a selling point that would have been. The problem with separate products like the Turbo Booster and Tap is they create an image of nickel n dime-ing the customer. That combined with the $400 Turbo CD, it’s no wonder the TG16 seemed so much more expensive than the Genesis and NES.
What does IP mean in its use @ 7:21? (pretty sure its not IP like IP address)
I probably meant “intellectual property” like how Sega owns the sonic characters and Alex Kidd
Thanks for watching dude! 😎
@@creativecatproductions thanks for replying!!!
@@kaimln no worries dude! Thanks for watching 😎
Compelling argument. I was one of the very few that got the CD add on and I only knew only one other kid in school who had it. It was a very lonely place.
The CD was a hard sell I think. Ys was great, but back then it was such a niche game, and fighting street was just not as good as it should have been. I love the PC Engine CD though, and I’m glad the TurboGrafx mini included some CD games like Dracula X. Thank you very much for watching!
Creative Cat Productions, I don’t even remember why I wanted it so much. I got it with Monster Lair and later got Y’s. I didn’t regret it at the time but I feel sorry to my parents. lol, we weren’t well off either.
Just discovered your channel. I love how you include your kids in the videos. Keep it up my man.
Thank you very much!
I can add a few things to this as someone who grew up during that time. The biggest problem was that I never even heard of the turbo graphics 16 until the late 90s when I saw things about it on the internet. I even at least heard of the atari lynx and jaguar and the 3do. I didn't know anyone who had a tbg16.I can say that even if I did hear about it back in the late 80s and early 90s that I wouldn't have wanted one. It came out at the wrong time similar to the dreamcast. It was more powerful than the nes but not quite as powerful as the genesis and super nintendo just like the dreamcast was more powerful than the n64 and ps1 but not quite as powerful as the ps2 Xbox and gamecube. The tbg16 also had too many shooters. Back then when tb16 came out it was all about mario 3 like you said and a few years later it was all about mortal kombat and street fighter games for genesis and super nintendo and beatem ups like streets of rage and final fight. Tbg16s shooter games would have seemed boring compared to these new fighting games. The big final nail in the coffin is why would I pay more for the tbg16 when the genesis has more advanced hardware and is cheaper. I will tell you that now I am 39 years old, I did buy a turbo mini, I think the minis will sell well.
I am also 39 years old! I actually remember the TG-16 pretty vividly because I had a 17 year old brother who read all the gaming and nerd magazines. I was only like 7 years old at the time….
I think the TG-16 was pretty well known. I just think that many of us were too young to remember it, and it sold so poorly that it had no permanent lasting legacy. We probably only remember the Genesis so well because Sega never let us forget it.
I think the TG16 was dead prior to the release of street fighter 2 and mortal kombat, but it did have a few old school beat em ups….just nothing that could compete with final fight or streets of rage. But again, those games came out in 1991, in the west. NEC pulled the plug on the TG 16 in that same year.
It DID get a really outstanding port of Street fighter 2, and some neo geo fighters, but those all stayed in Japan and required all that expensive hardware I mentioned.
Personally I love the TG16 and its unique game library….but that was such a competitive time for games.
Thank you very much for your thoughtful comments and for watching our video!
This is now my favourite video on RUclips
Thanks for watching!
Ah yes. I remember receiving my Nintendo Nintendo GameCube purchased from Toys "R" Us for one of my birthdays.
I once got a Nintendo Nintendo Gameboy for my birthday!
Thanks for watching dude 😎
28:50 I feel personally attacked.
Thanks for watching Brad! 😂
@@creativecatproductions Oddly enough, one of my Patrons wants me to corrupt a TG16 game, and I've been seriously considering that as an option. I think he wanted Bonk.
Bonks Adventure is a great game!
I remember the TG-16 and I also remember turning my nose up at it for a Genesis in '89. I also remember passing on it again when I got an Snes in '91, and again when I got a Sega CD in '92. I was completely brainwashed into thinking it was a lesser machine until I started collecting in late 2008. When the PC Engine/Core Grafx/TG-16 mini dropped I was able to second a Core Grafx Mini and it is still the best any company has made thus far. On a side note, I wish SNK would release a consolized mini AES with like 50+ games instead of the endless mini cabs.
Fun Fact: The Atari 2600 had a 6507 running at 1.19MHz. It maybe a version of the 6502 but the Nes had far more going for it than that. It had more of everything (RAM, speed, better VDP, ect...) and was built as a modular design. This is why it stayed so viable for as long as it did. That and utilizing illegal predatory forced licensing agreements on all 3rd parties. I believe this was a big part of the reason the TG-16 and Genesis didn't leave Nintendo in their dust at the very beginning together (both had excellent launch titles). Sega had the wherewithal to hang in as Nec floundered.
I agree the TG-16 mini is the best retro mini console of them of all! I was an early adopter of the Genesis in 1989, though I really wanted an NES…..my older brother was an arcade goer and he was into Golden Axe, so he convinced my parents that the Genesis would be a better Christmas gift for our family over an NES. It was, in fact, awesome from our perspective….but I also had some exposure to the TG-16 and loved it too. We just weren’t allowed to get it, and it was pretty hard for us to find anyway.
I don’t really despise Nintendo’s licensing agreements with their 3rd party developers as much as other people. I know its often used as an explanation as to why companies like SEGA and NEC failed to trounce Nintendo, or even reduce its share of the market to less than half in the 80s, but Nintendo through the 1990s (and really beyond that) just made a much more consistently high quality product. Their licensing limitations helped ensure that the NES, and the console market in general, wasn’t flooded with shovelware and horrible knock off games…..a tendency that largely caused the 1983 videogame crash in North America.
It also ensured that owning a particular console meant access to a unique library of games. That would, I think, actually enhance the chances that people might want to buy a Mega Drive or a PC-Engine in the long run. If the PC-Engine was just flooded with ALL of the exact same games available on the famicom (3rd party) then what, really, is the point of buying a PC-Engine? Especially if you already own a famicom? Look at European PC games in the 80s and how their market was flooded with low quality trashy ports? It makes the videogame industry look scammy and predatory. By contrast, the NES seemed like a bastion of quality and polish….and consumers responded accordingly. Plus everyone really wanted to play the Mario brothers games. They so incredibly popular, and probably for really good reason. It’s not a coincidence that SEGA was finally competitive once they had their own well made take on the mascot platformer.
Anyway, thank you very much for watching dude! 😎
@@creativecatproductions
Their licensing agreement was illegal and predatory. Atari sued them for it and won in 1990. This is what released Nintendo's death grip from the US market. While it us true that their licensing agreements were done to avoid another Atari crash of '83 by the late 1980's ot became something different. Under Nintendo's licensing agreement companies were only allowed to make 5 games per year in the US and were absolutely not permitted to make games for anyone else inside the country.
This is why many third parties made fake companies just to release more games beyond the 5 limit. For example Konami created Ultra games for this. Further, it is my belief Sega would have put up a much bigger fight during the 3rd had they not been starved of 3rd party games. The Genesis rose to prominence in 1990 because Sega was no longer held back. I also (respectfully) disagree with your assessment of Nintendo's quality over everyone else. From the 4th generation until the 7th they landed in dead last. Sega and Atari broke their death grip on the American market at the end of the third. Sega opened the market for everyone to enter. They stopped Nintendo and Joseph Liberman's attempt to have the US government censor all mature themed games. Then Sony came to prominence and wiped the floor with everyone. All of that doesn't happen without Atari's suit and Sega's tenacity. I'm not saying Nintendo is bad...just they have done some truly horrible things in the industry...
I guess I don’t really know enough about law to know why it would be “illegal”, but I can certainly see why it’s something that would be undesirable for some companies…like Atari? It’s kind of funny that the complaint in this cases comes from “Atari” because that name was hardly relevant in 1990. It wasn’t even the same company, Atari went out of business and people have been trading the rights to the brand and logo ever since.
But despite what people say about 3rd party developers not being able to develop games on consoles other than Nintendo, they (3rd parties) actually did develop or license a ton of games on other consoles….just not the exact same games.
Sega was well supported by companies like capcom, and Namco. The same was true with the TurboGrafx which was heavily supported by Namco, and Konami. I think the truth is actually that 3rd party developers didn’t actually want to develop for consoles other than the famicom because the famicom had overwhelming market share. Why in the world would you waste time and money porting Forgotten Worlds for the Genesis (I’m pretty sure the answer is that Sega coded it themselves) when you could focus on games for a console that most gamers already have?
I would have to really get into the specifics of all the supposed Nintendo restrictions but it does fly in the face of my lived experience. I do remember when capcom had to release Street Fighter 2:championship edition for the Genesis in order to get around their deal with Nintendo…..the game was the same but somehow different enough.
I still don’t understand what’s either “wrong” or “illegal” about making this kind of agreement between two parties. But that’s me 😆
@@creativecatproductions
I also found it quite funny when I found out Atari was the one's that sued Nintendo for it. Oh yes because everyone was clamoring for an Atari 7800 in 1990! Poor us with our Sega Genesis's just missed all the fun. Thinking about that smooth 2600 sound just makes me so envious for Atari owners (the 7800 used the 2600 sound chip for backwards compatibility). ;)
I do totally remember Ultra games so that konami could get around the 5 game deal with Nintendo…..I’m also pretty sure Nintendo remembers too, but probably supported the work around on the part of konami because (1) konami was one of their most important developers and (2) at one time konami was the largest and most productive game developer in the world. Konami could have produced many more than just 5 quality games a years. But what about “Atari”? I’m pretty sure those guys didn’t produce one good game in 10 years at that point. 😛
Turbografx was my introduction to gaming.
It was my introduction to the concept “next generation” when it comes to gaming. I was really impressed.....but I needed me some Mario bros!
So an entire company was brought to its knees by a kid named Brad.
Brad had good intentions….sadly, almost 30 years later, as a member of the board of directors, Brad made some decisions that brought down toys r us as well. Some think he might be a mole working for KB toys….but he brought that down too
Thanks for watching dude! 😎
That parent shopping reenactment would only be accurate if you parent was a moron. My mom knew good and well she didn't know anything about games or consoles so she TOOK ME WITH HER and told me to get whatever it was that I had been bugging her about.
My favorite game was Googledy Ghosts!
Thanks for watching
I got mine for 50 bucks with 3 games packed in and then picked 2 more up for 20 bucks a piece, in 1993. I used to play bonks revenge for hours and hours. Plus battle royal.
I got the SEGA Dreamcast in about just the same way. The console was already declared dead by the gaming press and it was being liquidated at stores like Toys R Us. I bought the console for $50 and it was easy to pick up a bunch of games for less than $10 a piece. I was getting games on ebay for like $5. It was a crazy time. After a few months I had a top notch Dreamcast collection, one of the best video-game libraries I ever acquired. I played it far more than my PS2.
In my case, my parents bought me the TG16 cuz it was 16bit and Cheaper than the Genesis. I think it was the 91 Xmas...
That’s not a bad deal! By 91’ there were probably a lot of really good games abandoned on the shelves to choose from. That’s how I got my Dreamcast. It was discontinued and ultra cheap....like $50. I got so many great games for a really good deal.
Cheaper until you want to play any game multiplayer. It was very shortsighted of NEC to continue to one controller slot tradition.
@@cinnamondan4984 Kept it around even for the Japanese Duo, which they really did have no excuse for.
There is definitely something to be said about the boxart of games being absolutely puzzling and unattractive at the time.
R Type not being the pack in game is THE puzzling fact. It tells me the team didn't really understand the games they were shipping. Also, as far as I know, TG16 was the only one that had proper port of Side Arms. Very unique co-op arcade game.
True! I had a decent port of Side Arms on the Commodore 64 but it was nowhere near what sidearms was on the TurboGrafx-16 or arcade
2 player was a big deal too, parents would play with their kids. A game console was a family appliance like a tv in a lot of households.
True! I think that’s why NEC decided to put the TG16 in a big black case.....like the Sega Genesis.....because it looked more like the kind of high end electronics people might be able to place in their living rooms. It was a missed opportunity not to include the 2nd controller port out of the box. No one will buy your console, even if it has good games, if they perceive it’s a bad value
That's the exact reason why my parents bought me a NES when I was a kid XD. I wanted a snes but my parents went to the shop and they were convinced by the seller that the NES was better for less money. And you know what? For me it was ok, I felt down for a few minutes but then I accept it. After all, it was my first console and any console was better than no console at all.
I barely knew anything about videogames anyway, I was like 5 years old. Surprising enough was that I knew about the existence of NES and SNES and that one was better than the other.
But I think that the exclusivity deals by Nintendo were actually a problem for many people despite your point of view. You say that the new console had the potential for a whole new library too, but that's not enough. The games that people knew and wanted already existed. They were on Nintendo and they were not going anywhere else. Starting with new games is much harder.
Did you know there's a bootleg version of Mario Bros made for the PC Engine? Its actually pretty good!
@@creativecatproductions I didn't! I need to take a look at that XD
This is wrong in SO many levels it hurts. I was an 80's kid who had an NES ...yes, Nintendo DID have exclusivity contracts. Major companies like Konami, Capcom, etc. had to release many games a year for the system. As a matter of fact, while the A team was working on a game, B team was making ANOTHER Nintendo game. Even after PC Engine proved successful in Japan, Konami didn't work for them until 1991, when they released a lazy port of Gradius in their free time under a C team..a game made in 1985! Capcom only released three quick arcade ports and that's EVERYTHING they've done for the PCE. So stop talking about companies having to be "creative" for other systems, ok? It took a crapload of time for Capcom and Konami to be able to release A games for the Genesis. That's why, at first, SEGA just released arcade games and EA ported some computer games for the Genesis..yes, the same EA Turbografx wanted on board because it wasn't tied to Nintendo.
Anyway, the worst part of this is seeing every freaking american on youtube spewing pro-nintendo revisionism.The idea that the Genesis sold on christmas because parents were clueless about what Nintendo and Sega were, and the NES was sold out so they had to buy a Genesis....a freaking NES which came in 1985, mind you...is so mindnumbingly retarded that needs no further mention. I bought Super Mario Bros 3, yes...because I had the system and was cheap.....but I dreamed of the Sega Genesis like every other kid at the time. When my best friend bought the Sonic bundle I was out of my fucking mind!.
So yeah, if you plan on releasing more videos, mind the revisionist bullshit.
BTW, You should do a research about Hudson Soft, they made a shitload of money with the Turbografx because of NEC's inexperience and optimism. It's hilarious.
Konami and capcom didn’t have to “produce many games for Nintendo” but rather they were limited to producing only around 5. Everyone wanted to produce games for the famicom and in order to avoid the shovelware culture that ruined atari, Nintendo established their exclusivity license and the Nintendo seal of quality.
Konami established a secondary company called “ultra” in order to get around the game limit. They weren’t required to produce more games, they desperately wanted to because the nes was a billion dollar selling product and it was the best place to sell software. With ultra, Konami could get around their contract and make more games than Nintendo normally allowed.
The pc Engine was relatively successful until the release of the Super Nintendo
Thanks for watching!
Truth be told, the Genesis was barely relevant at all in the US UNTIL the sonic the hedgehog pack-in. Not many people knew what it was until that became a thing. I knew. I was an early adopter and loved the genesis. But the genesis was small potatoes for a while.
I was born in 1980. I remember TG-16 when it came out. I didn't own it. I seen the ad's, but I didn't know any of the games. Nintendo had the cool titles. I only knew one person that had Sega Master System. I wouldn't get my Genesis until 1992.
I got a Genesis the Christmas of 1989
Thanks for watching!
I have all the 16 bit systems, including the NEO•GEO. I play the TG16 most of all.
It’s a classic! Of the 16 bit systems I think I still like the snes most, but the TG16 is truly fantastic. Especially when supplemented with the PC Engine and CD game libraries.
Creative Cat Productions the CD games are wonderful, but when you include the Japanese library, i still think all my favorite games are HuCARDs! For example, Hana Taka Daka
Only my older teenage cousin had a TG16 and no one else and now I understand why.
Your older teenage cousin was probably the coolest kid on his street!
Thanks for watching dude 😎
Your videos deserve more views, that skit with Brad was hilarious. Well done.
Thank you very much dude, we really appreciate it! 😎
Maybe the dad could've reserved an NES set in advance. Unless they didn't do that back then.
This poor dad was clueless haha
CDs were known in 1989, your average parent would have seen CD decks at Sears for a few years yet the idea of giving your kid a CD player when most where still rocking tape decks and turn table would be a very hard sell in 1989. Even if the parent was an audiophile, the TurboGrafx CD player would seem inferior to normal CD players and impractical to use in a stereo tower (like the SegaCD after it).
You’re right! I think what was confusing the Dad character most was the context “CD” was being used in. He was more or less thinking “CDs play music, what do CDs have to do with a kid’s videogame cassettes?” I used to be equally confused by the use of the term “CD” when it was used at the bank! I think a few people owned CDs in 1989, but almost no one knew about their potential as it pertained to computers. The Turbografx CD was ahead of its time. Thanks for watching!
@@creativecatproductions
I'd argue that they learned their lessons with the CD. Some really high quality localizations (at first), some great pack-in games (Gate of Thunder!)....we'll just ignore that bit where they went all in on Streetfighter 1 magazine ads....
They won some much needed rave reviews...but it was just too expensive. And the games didn't offer (to casual audiences) any kind of next generation upgrade worth that price. (Ys was an anime action-RPG with bump combat....that was nowhere near mainstream.)
By contrast, if you look at the Sega CD, the hardware was exciting - arcade quality sprite scaling! Cinematic live action streaming! A faster processor!
The price was more reasonable. People were legitimately excited for this thing. Good thing too, since hype would have to do a lot of work....
Because the launch library/pack-in selection was a bad joke, that the system wouldn't ever recover from. The more it failed to live up to sales expectations, the more third parties couldn't justify giving it their best efforts. Especially when Sega was showing up their own best title with Sonic 2.
I didn’t know much about the system until recently. The titles on the system dont really entice me for a retro system now but cool history video 👍
Thanks for watching!
Despite the American name, the TurboGrafx-16 is 8-bit.
It has an 8-bit cpu, but it also has two 16-bit gpu’s which is how it was able to push so many more colors and sprites than, say an NES or a Master System, without flickering or slowdown. The cpu itself was actually an enhanced 8-bit chip designed by Hudson soft themselves and it helped push the console far above the limits of 8-bit consoles of the time. Since the turbografx 16 offered so many major technical improvements to its predecessors, since it had two 16-bit gpu’s, and since it launched in 1987 almost side by side with the Sega Mega Drive, I have to count it as a full blown representative of the 16-bit generation. It produced games that look every bit as good as those that appeared on the MegaDrive, even though it was technically doing so with an 8-bit cpu.
Thanks for watching!
Yup the turbografx 16 CD should of waited to be released until consumers knew alittle more about the technology!! And once people knew more about it then they could've dropped it before the Sega CD and beat Sega to the market with a bunch of games for it since by that time Japan's PC engine CD would've had a bunch of CD games ready for the American market!!! And if they would've added two controller port's and av cables!! It could've been a incredible battle for the number two spot between Sega and NEC!!!!! Man turbografx 16 was my favorite console of all time! I just wish NEC and Huston would've done a better job releasing it here in the states!!!! Damn!!!!! 😔
Imagine if they had just released something like a Duo right at launch instead of scattering the system across all those separate purchases? I think they had a chance!
Thanks for watching dude! 😎
I like how the boomer dad is Tom Kalinske
I think youre actually the first to ever point it out! 😂 yes, I based the father on Tom Kalinske.
Thanks for watching dude! 😎
@@creativecatproductions no, thank YOU for making this hilarious shit! funny and accurate, my parents called consoles a "nintendo" too
Me and. My friend where the only ones to have turbo grafx 16 . He had china warrior and I had splatter house. And even then we couldn't play 2 players cause of the 1 controller port.
They really should have made a second controller port for the Turbografx. They spent all this time making it so much bigger and there was no room for a second port? What a missed opportunity!
@@creativecatproductions I agree 100%