What is the SuperGrafx and why did it fail? - NEC's Unloved Console from 1989
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- Опубліковано 22 лис 2023
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The PC Engine was a roaring success in Japan, but Sega and Nintendo were starting to turn up the heat in 1989. How would NEC keep up? Their answer was the Super Grafx, a turbo charged PC Engine to take on the big hitters of the 4th generation of consoles. Today we meet the system and play every game released for it.
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It was recently discovered (quite accidentally) by Techmoan that the SuperGrafx hardware may have lived a secret life as a gambling device. The z400s has all the chips of there SuperGrafx paired with an LCD and specialized cartridge.
Have a Happy Thanksgiving, Neil!
The calendar looks awesome!
@@grafxgearYes. It would be awesome if @cosam_the_great made a replacement SuperGrafx PCB and a cache of Z’400s were found to salvage chips from. ;)
@@emmettturner9452 or... if you can just adapt the cartridge so you would have a portable SuperGrafx
Bought the Turbo Duo at Toys R Us in 1994, for $49.95 at a massive clearance sale, with all the turbo cards and cd's going for $1.99 each. I got hooked on Hudson games playing the NES and wanted the NEC games as well. Took the visa and bought one of each of all the games that were on sale there. Glad I did. The Turbo Duo still works perfectly today! Hudson's side scroller shoot em ups are fantastic on it. Great video thanks for posting.
I was able to collect a used TG16 console and about 10 hucards around 98 but missed out on that golden timing to really get a ton of brand new stuff like you did (I was a little too young to have real disposable income yet). I came across a lot of TG16 systems in the wild but never a reasonably priced CD unit or Duo. I did what you did with Sega Saturn. Bought two brand new consoles for $50 and pretty much every good US release game for $10-20 in 98 and 99...except for the final few releases I got for full price $50. It's interesting your Duo still works perfect because people all act like the capacitors need replacing 100% of the time.
Whoa!!! I was a Toys R Us rat from 88 to around 95 and only saw the TG 16 for sale for a limited amount of time in late 89 on. I was obsessed with it, being a system that I had only read about up until then, and the way they displayed it (on a plastic stand with purple lights shining under it, making the edges of the stand glow) made me flip out. This was in western Massachusetts, US btw. Afterwards I didn’t see anything besides the usual.
Bought them from the Hayward, California store. What was sad was that even at that tremendous sale, there were still lots left and it wasn't selling! I saw another post of someone who also got theirs at Toys R Us for $79.00 with games going for 79 cents! Amazing, wish you could of caught that sale, we went to Toys R Us a lot back in those days as well.
@@copheart
Thank you for your reply, I also heard that a lot of units had capacitor problems but so far so good with mine. The game system has been re-issued recently, may get one but play them now on a Kinhank Mini PC so I don't have to take the boxes out anymore :)@@caseyhayes4590
I bought one in high school on EBay in 1999, just so I could buy Akumojau Dracula X and finally play it, before emulation was viable for the system. That game certainly shot up in value since then.
That's an RGB output mod. The 5-pin DIN has been replaced with an 8-pin and the extra 3 pins used for RGB.
I was hoping someone in the comments would have the answer!
i'm guessing there a couple of extra wires running underneath the board to allow for RGB.
PC Engine consoles have outstanding composite video quality, and don't need an RGB mod that much. But it is not hard to make and Krikzz sells an adapter.
@@noop9kEasy to make a mini RGB Amp mod for the PCEngines as they all have native RGB available from points on the pcbs or via the big EXT Out port on the rear. Plethora of cheaper china ext port plug ins solutions and others available that also allow Scart or SVideo out too.
1989 I was 8 years old... man I'm getting old
I feel ya. I was 11. Still being a kid in the 80s and partying in the mid-late 90s was great. I wouldnt trade it for anything. Im thankful I didnt grow up in todays.... whatever this is.... 😂
I was four. He said that and I thought, oh good-this’ll be the last time I feel young. Lol. Cheers to us all!
I really feel you all - I was 15! 😮
And I was 20 lol
It’s so great to watch the videos that we lived through
In France, what we got were modded versions of the japanese models (modded for RGB via SCART), which retained the name PC-Engine. It was distributed by a bespoke company named Sodipeng, which stands for Société de Distribution de la PC-Engine (meaning PC-Engine distribution company), a subsidiary of Guillemot Corporation. And if the name Guillemot rings a bell, it's totally normal: it's the same Guillemot family that went on to create Ubisoft, of which Yves Guillemot is still the CEO.
Thank you. I have massive admiration of the 1980s French computing scene and wish I knew more detail like you have just mentioned. So many fascinating and hidden pieces of regional tech history to explore!
One of my nieces had a Turbo Grafx16 in the mid-late 90s - I think I enjoyed it more than she did. What I thought impressive about the Turbo Express handheld was that it used the same cards as the full sized console, much like how the Sega Nomad used the same cartridges as the Genesis/Mega drive so if you already owned the consoles and a lot of games, buying the handhelds didn't mean having to build up a library of games for them.
The PC engine shuttle was meant to appeal to young kids. The lower price was meant to help sell it parents. The reason they pushed the CD unit so hard was because they had a bad licensing deal with Hudson for the technology in the hucards. Switching to CD got them out of paying for that since they jointly owned CD technology with Sony and I forget the other company but maybe Philips
Interestingly enough, the Shuttles "door" cover probably influenced the Duo model's door cover design.
Not true... while in Japan in the 80s videogames were still seen a kids entertainment, the notion that you push that it was meant for "young kids" is misleading given the vast array of fast paced and intense arcade style shooters on the system and how it ramped up with platformers early on as well as attempts at arcade to home conversions... it was meant to compete, challenge and possibly take first place and it almost did in Japan very early on which was why Sega struggled as the Mark III aka SMS ended up vanishing and the Sega MegaDrive got off to a rough start then stuck in third place.
NEC already had their fanbase with the PC-88 users in Japan and gradually those same users who either were late teens and twenties or may have had children were immediately able to see the PC Engine as a good solution for videogames with hardware specs that stepped away from the 1983 Nintendo FamiCom when released in 1987 Japan... remember that year cause every year there was a struggle for all the companies involved
Switching to CD was not really about licensing deals but pushing technology.. if your post was true then the Super GraFX games would have all been CD-ROM games and later the 32X would have all been CD-ROM games too and it was not and never was the case.
Super GraFX was a response to the Sega MegaDrive or fear it would succeed but also rumors and official Nintendo news since either 1987 or 1988 of a "Super FamiCom" coming soon to showing prototype designs in Japanese magazines back when in North America the gamer magazines had yet to exist, most american magazines had a bias towards PCs and computers and Nintendo Power Magazine was about to launch nationwide in 1988
Also, he acted like it inexplicably ditched the “Core” naming convention. It’s actually conforming to it since it doesn’t serve as the “core” to an upgraded CD-ROM² system (doesn’t fit CD-ROM² Interface Unit or Super CD-ROM²).
@@emmettturner9452 not even physical dimensions.. but the Shuttle doesn't have the necessary pins on the reduced backplane to even interact with a CD unit. You'd have to do an internal mod to bring a couple of signals -> external. NEC really didn't want the shuttle connecting to the CD unit.
@@TurboXray Yep. They definitely didn’t want it to be used with CD hardware at all, so they made it to only be what it is instead of being the “core” of something larger. I wonder if it has the pins for stereo with the Turbo Everdrive Pro’s EXT dongle or maybe TurboNanza.
The Turbo-Grafx was a nice little machine. The handheld they made was spectacular.
Yeah I loved it. But the QC on those screens was abyssmal. I ended up returning mine multiple times for dead pixels, out of the box 💀
@@TexasHollowEarth - Oh wow! I guess I got lucky then. Mine's still in mint condition other than needing to re-solder the DC jack.
One thing missing in the mention of the various 'Super' CD-Rom^2 systems (and the Duo) is the mention of the significant amount of extra main memory that they came equipped with compared to the base PC-Engine or PC-Engine and CD-Rom^2; 256kbytes of extra RAM was a huge amount of extra capacity for code and data for a console of the time. This made a lot of the Super CD-Rom titles stand out massively compared to the earlier non-Super games.
Don't forget the Arcade card with 2MB as well
@@RMCRetro I've got that too... but when you have a real NeoGeo AES and MVS next to your PC-Engine Duo, well, you tend not to play much of the Arcade Card ports! That leaves Ginga Fukei Densetsu Sapphire.... and that's about it! One key difference with the Arcade Card Duo/Pro (difference being the Duo only has the memory expansion built in, the Pro has the bios built in that the Duo base machines came with) is that it was never built in to a machine; it was always an addon, whereas the Super CD-Rom^2 memory and bios extension was found in the Super CD-Rom^2 and both Duo machines (and could be bought as a card for owners of older, non-Super CD-Rom^2 hardware).. so you could count on an installed base of users.
On the other hand, you actually had to go out of your way to buy an Arcade Card Duo/Pro specifically for one of the Arcade Card titles you wanted to play.
NEC/Hudson definitely didn't seem to have a grasp of what their strategy was with the PC-Engine range though. It was crazy.
@@johnsnowdon2939 I'd say that was more NEC than Hudson's fault.
@@johnsnowdon2939 Most people have never owned a Neo Geo, though. If anything, they still don't; it's library is too small, niche, and expensive to be anything more, especially if you don't care about fighting games that are more or less indistinguishable from each other.
Reducing the last PC Engine upgrade down to just Sapphire is downright criminal. Shoot 'em ups are not the only genre that matters.
Love 16-bit pixel graphics on those shoot'em ups
+ insane, pumpin music in the hu-card shooters. Dragon Spirit's Kazan (stage 2) sounds better on PCE than the arcade version. Blazing Lazers, Aero Blasters, and Super Star Soldier also had phenomenal soundtracks. Cotton on PCE Super CD has a Redbook soundtrack that's mind-blowing 👍
Actually 8 bit.
The turbo GrafX 16 did very well in the U.S. initially with Bonk's adventure selling quite well, and then they introduced Splatter House and people were literally lined up at Toys R Us and every major retailer who sold video games to buy their copy of gruesome blood splattering goodness, but then they hit a bit of a slump for a bit and The Sega Genesis hit the scene and with all their licensing deals they took hold of the market and the Turbo GrafX 16 quietly fizzled away, but it wasn't as unpopular as you state here given that it had 686 games made and released for it.
As well, their GAME "CARDS" WERE LIGHT YEARS AHEAD OF EVERYONE ELSE BY A GREAT MARGIN!!!!
They were literally the prototype for SD cards and evnetually Flash Drives and the SSD. Static storage in such a compact and tight package had never been done to such a grand (minuscule) scale before and storing games on your little game card rack was so crazy compact… it really was a thing of beauty!
Wish I still had mines it would be worth a fortune right now with everything I had for it and about 60 games in about a 2 year period. Great vid for sure!
This was a system that I only ever saw in the pages of Electronic Gaming Monthly. The games looked amazing, but it was completely unfeasible to have one, just like the Neo Geo.
I had one friend with a Turbografx 16, nobody had a Supergrafx.
First time I've seen one of your videos, very informative.
0:59 The odd thing is that NEC already had the answer to how it could keep up with the Mega Drive and Super Famicom: the Super CD (and Arcade CD to a lesser extent). Those who know the PC Engine know that it actually ended up with more games in its library on CD than on Hu Card. It's the rare example of a successful add-on that is actually needed to really enjoy what the console had to offer. While the base PC Engine was never going to match the Mega Drive or Super Famicom in graphical effects, it more than held its own when given the CD for storage and audio and a massive RAM boost to just put so much more in games, and on screen.
A perfect example is in comparing the Super CD classic Castlevania: Rondo of Blood with its loose Super Famicom port Castlevania: Dracula X. The SFC just doesn't have RAM, nor its cartrages the ROM space, to do that game justice. And the audio is significantly worse.
With the Arcade CD card, the PC Engine got some of the best ports of Neo Geo fighting games of that generation. The PC Engine Arcade CD port of Fatal Fury Special is significantly better than the Super Famicom port, and the Mega CD port, which just didn't have the same level of care put into it. The gameplay is comparable to the Neo Geo original, and the soundtrack is much better.
For those in Japan, the PC Engine CD was offering RPGs, graphic adventures, and dating sims, with levels of content just not possible on the SFC or MD. Many even featured fully voiced diolague. The Mega CD should have been doing the same, but Sega just never put the attention on its add on that NEC had done.
If you're looking for fast-paced action games and platformers, or games targeted towards westarn audiences, the Super Nintendo and Mega Drive/Genesis had better options. But for RAM and ROM intensive RPGs and graphic adventures, the PC Engine was the condoles to own. The PC Engine also has a legendary Shooter library, with some excelent examples that take advantage of the added storage and RAM of the CD add ons. The Mega Drive had a lot of great shooters too, but the PC Engine had it beat in both numbers and quality.
OMG Dude!
Gengi Fukei Densetsu: Sapphire was an absolute insane game!
I got the chance to play it on the mini console and just thought, "This game is nuts!!!"
It easily gave competing visuals to what you found in Starfox, even if it wasn't really a polygonal 3D game.
I think they NEC should have bit the bullet and lowered the price of the supergrafx down to the pce of a PCE and dropped the PCE. The extra RAM and the 2nd graphics chip could have done much better. The one downside though would be that software developers most likely would have done the "safe" thing and only released games that would run on both.
My favorite on the PCE system is a CD game, Rainbow Islands. It is by far the best home port of the game including the Saturn and PSX versions. The Saturn and PSX versions don't have the awesome music of Rainbow Islands. Rainbow Islands is a masterpiece.
@@tarstarkusz yeah, exactly. Later ports were arcade perfect, but I'll take a slight hit to graphics for better music every time. And it's not like the PC Engine, especially with the Super CD RAM boost, had weak graphics.
I wonder how much cheaper a CD only console would have been if they did that instead of the Duo? They had already had the CD unit and System card for PCE owners that had hu cards. For a brand new consumer they could have just bought CD titles.
@@caseyhayes4590 How much could it have possibly cost to have the card slot removed? I assume that is what you mean by CD only. I can't imagine removing the card slot would have lowered the price by much.
Frankly, I think the CD was a solution looking for a problem to solve in 1990/1991 time frame. Some games benefited from the extra storage, but storage wasn't really the main limitation of the "16 bit" generation. There were other aspects where it would have benefited far more to have faster processors, more RAM and more colors (though in many way the tg16 was very good in that respect). The SNES by far had the most powerful graphics chip of the consoles, but it still had a lot of limitations and there other limitations elsewhere in the machine.
I think the Supergraphix was a better solution than the CD add on or the Duo, which at least had more RAM. The extra RAM exacerbated the long load times.
Had a turbographx 16 when they first came out, loved it especially R-Type.
R-type, for me the best version of the best side scroller shoot'em up ever!
And Soldier Blade as a top-bottom scroller! amazing soundtrack 😍
The Darius games have less sprite flicker on the Supergrafx. You really wouldn't notice unless you put it side by side with the PC Engine
Makes sense. I guess the 2 video chips increased the number of supported sprites per line?
@@eyeball226 Yes 64 additional sprites. But they are rendered on a different layer and the output of the two VDC chips are mixed together.
You might notice the differences in Darius Alpha easier, because the bosses are made up of groups of sprites:
Basically, they used one graphics chip for the background layer and dedicated the other one to sprites, so there's less flickering when too many sprites are on a given line.. You'd probably have to side-by-side them and keep the ship/lasers lined up with the widest part of the boss to really see it though.
PC Engine could display only one background layer, while Sega Mega Drive had 2 of them and SNES as I remember even 3. So paralax scrolling was quite easy to achieve on other platforms while it was no easy way to achive it on PC Engine. So i think SuperGrafx fix that problem, by adding second video chip, second backgound layer was possible to display and twice the number of sprites. It was noticable upgrade.
I remember the TurboGraFx 16 being at the Dillard's in my hometown for several years. A normal trip to the mall always included a trip by Dillard's electronics section to see if the unit was open and available to play. My cousin ended up getting one and we enjoyed playing it at family events. There weren't very many games IIRC but they were different and the graphics were a ton better than the NES we had at home.
I personally never owned any of the Turbo Grafx systems but the nostalgia is still there.
Same, never owned an NEC system, and yet I'm hella nostalgic over its sound. I've listened to so many soundtracks for the console, and highly envy Japan for its PC-98 doujin games I'll never be able to enjoy.
I remember drooling over adverts for the PC Engine, TurboGrafx and SuperGrafx in Your Sinclair and wondering if I could ever save enough pocket money to buy one. It's safe to say I couldn't.
NEC was originally collaborating with Namco on a full on 16 bit console in 1988/1989, but then Hudson began to feel burned, so that deal was scrapped, and the future Super Grafx was born. Said console was meant to have powerful chips, but those wouldn't be available until IIRC 1990, so they went with the duct-taped solution we see here.
I love the design, it would fit right in on the Nostromo.
The difference with the interfaces to "Mother" featured on the Nostromo bridge and this bloated case design is the interfaces looked as if they were functional, albeit, with a few too many blinkenlights. The Supergrafx fake bolts and circular extrusions don't hint at any function whatsoever. It would have been better if they stuck to the Japanese name with this one, given it's engine-like esthetic. TLDR: I vastly prefer the PC-Engine design to that of the Super TurboGrafx.
It was definitely Aliens Marines inspired - even the Stencilling indicates similar styling. Look up the prototype Supergrafx Power Console attachment sometime.👍
It was designed to look like a V6 or V8 engine. There was a planned bolt-on steering wheel device that's vaporware as no racing games were ever produced 🤷♂️. I fuckin love this thing and still want one to this day.... just can't justify, nor swing it 😥👎. I was a huge TG16 stan back in '89 😎
Hi Neil. As you saw when you visited my console collection recently, my NEC/PC Engine collection is one of my favourites. One variant I don't own however, also didn't get a mention in your video, the PC Engine LT. The combined, portable clamshell style PC Engine and LCD screen. One I have always wanted to get hold of but could never afford unfortunately (and still can't!).
I remember seeing this in video game magazines 😊😊😊
I once had the TurboGrafx-CD system (I'm in the US) complete with the "typewriter case" to lug it about in. I've also got the TurboExpress, but you failed to mention the TV tuner add-on which allowed you to watch not only TV, but accepted video-in and line-in. While it did eat batteries like Doritos, the screen was excellent unless you were in the sun. And later on I sold the Turbo-CD and traded up to the TurboDuo. I still have the Duo and Express to this day, plus dozens of games. And next week I'm looking forward to receiving Analogue's FPGA take on the Duo.
One of the fun things about the Express with the TV option was when I was driving around delivering pizzas I hung it from my dash vents and plugged it into the lighter port so I could listen to TV as I drove. My car only had an AM radio. Another feature of the Turbo-CD not mentioned is that it added onboard static RAM for saving a few games. Up to 8 I think(?), and as long as you kept it plugged in periodically the memory wouldn't fade. In fact, mine was in storage for about a year and STILL had all my saves. Quite impressive.
Another factoid I find interesting is that the Turbo Express is featured in the Gene Hackman/Will Smith movie "Enemy of the State". The portable device with the data on it that's put Will Smith's character in fear for his life is a Turbo Express that's been modified so they could slide a PCMCIA card into the HuCard slot.
I still love playing my NEC games, particularly Ys Book I&II on CD. It's a technical marvel of it's time.
Kenny Logins “Dangerzone” would be my afterburner choice of music.
I remember magazines showing a work-in-progress screenshot of Strider in production for Super Grafx.
I remember reading rumors a Japanese developer had a mental breakdown due to the pressure to make the Super Grafx version look/play better than the Genesis/MD version.
For the record, that's completely untrue.
The executive producer _did_ shave his head over failing to meet the November 1993 release date (he had promised he'd do it if the game slipped past that date), but as far as I'm aware he retained his sanity and no one who personally worked on the port seems to have had an ill fate.
EDIT: Apparently it was a different game he shaved his hair over now that I re-read the story, though the same dude was a producer on Strider's port as well.
There's a similar rumor where instead the developer supposedly committed suicide; that's also totally bunk.
They really should have released all games with two modes, enhanced color and parallaxes. People would slowly migrate over SuperaGRAFX
@@parad0xheart "How little?" It has double graphics power of normal PCE. and Normal PCE has essentially the same sprite power as Megadrive and SNES and better color than Megadrive. So, SuperGrafx has double sprite power of its 2 competitors, but maybe not that easy to use due to being split between two identical chips.
@@parad0xheart NEC-produced hucards were expensive, because more hi-tech than normal console carts, NEC was the sole supplier and they had to pay Hudson's share too. SuperGrafx is, like 32x, a partial upgrade made in a hurry. 32x upgrades CPUs, audio, adds colors, but doesn't add graphics hardware. SuperGrafx upgrades RAM doubles graphics hardware but doesn't really improve CPU, color or audio. Neither solves the problem of bigger cartridges, required to unleash their potential, being a lot more expensive..
Neither NEC nor Hudson apparently wanted to fund development of SuperGrafx software, or maybe expected the other company to do it..
@@noop9k It's not really double the graphic power. There's diminishing return coming with double GPU.
I remember reading about SuperGrafx in the gaming magazines back in the day. I was excited for it to come out as the sequel to TurboGrafx16 . Such a cool looking console.
thanks for the Video as I Loved the Turbo-grafx as my uncle was lucky to work at a Radio Shack here in Canada when we still had them he bought every add-on for it and even with all the add-ons we mainly played the Bonk Series, Keith Courage, R-Type and Splatter House. I'll pick the system up one day off Japan Auction sites as it always sparked my interest as I loved the system till Saturn came out and even when it did come we still booted up the ol Turbo, but Supergrafx just made me always wanted it and get at least one of the 5 games for it and then use it for a PC-Engine.
I borrowed the Turbo Grafx from my buddy back in the day, played Bonks Adventure, Splatterhouse, Blazing Lasers, and I think Ys I&II
9:40 you only need to worry when they are arranged in a pentagram shape :O)
I have around 22 retro consoles and the PCE is by far the most enjoyable 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
The PCE is my 2nd most favorite, right behind the almighty RCA Studio II. The Emerson Arcadia 2001 is a close #3.
Another thoughtful video that is both entertaining and informative. Thanks RMC! 👾
Hi! I'm from Romania! Back in 1989 we were still in the 'old' communism regime. So imagine this 80's console and it's competitors were the first consoles for all of us in the 90's. Only some lucky people would have this before the revolution. I saw in some 'arcade' places the NES for the first time in the 90's. We were so behind with technology from outside the country. Only in the 8th grade (primary school) we got a informatics class and this was happening at the beginning of the 90's. We got to learn BASIC on CIP-03 and HC-90 (clones inspired from Sinclair ZX Spectrum). So in a few years we gobbled-up so much IT we practically (some of us) became really masters of PC/consoles. Now an average dude can have 1 gigabit fiber optics internet at only 10 Euro. It's ridiculous how fast we advanced in IT technologies after the 89's 'Revolution' . PS: If I end-up one day visiting UK I'll come to your cave uninvited , I really have to see it, it's wonderful what you've done for the nostalgic gamers and for the ones that actually were not even born back then :) .
You can't just show up uninvited
That mod looked properly janky. :D
I played so much R-Type on that console, on the glorious days! 💙
love the speed that you can say 'romromrom' without even the hint of a snigger!
I was a kid in the 80s and my cousin had a TurboGrafx 16 and it was so fun to play! "Keith Courage in Alpha Zones" was one of my favs.
Sega often got criticized for its large number of variations of the Genesis/Sega CD/32X but it seems NEC was even worse in that respect. You had bog standard PC Engine/TurboGrarfx 16 cards, SuperGrafx cards, CD-ROM(ROM) games, Super CD-ROM(ROM) games, and Arcade Card CD-ROM games. It's interesting that you mention that someone has made a modern SuperGrafx game that uses the CD-ROM; I always wondered if that were possible. I imagine the best combo would be if it's possible to make a SuperGrafx game that also requires the Arcade card along with the CD-ROM. Imagine what that machine do with all that power, storage, and extra RAM together! That would be the NEC version of the "Tower of Power" 😸
Bought one of those PAL Turbografx units from Telegames myself some years ago. Only game I have for it is the copy of Blazing Lazers that came with it. I did pick up a compatible everdrive a few years back but haven't actually done the work of filling it full of games and plugging it all back in!
I had a TurboGrafx16 and LOVED IT. It was a good machine, and the card sized game "cartridges" was really nice. Saved a lot of space and when I got mine the system was established and pre-struggle/dying so there was a decent number of games and cheap b/c the stores selling them were trying to sell them.
I always thought it sounded like the James earl jones this is cnn when you turned on the game
I use my Super Grafx for my ever drive. I think the signal is slightly better with the SG. I also have a T-16 with cd player and Arcade card and still believe the SG has a better signal. From what I remember, the SG was kinda thrown together quickly to compete with the MD and SF. The most expedient set up was simply adding ram to retain backwards compatibility along with the second video chip. That lead to the possibility of more detailed games to rival the MD and SF and retain backwards compatibility as I mentioned. Idk...it pretty much was a waste along with the shuttle grafx but interesting for us collectors
I only knew a few people who had the turbo grafix 16 (as the pc engine was called here in the USA) and I never knew there were any varients or a cd-based addon... I remember it being extremely expensive compared to the popular contemporaries like the nes, snes, and genesis (and by that time, only poors like me messed with their aged atari 2600's) or moved on to PC gaming entirely (also me when I could afford it). but imo the pc gaming space was leaps and bounds ahead of the home consoles during the mid-late 90's.
Love my SuperGrafx! I even started programming for it.
This brings back so many good memories. In the early 90s I worked at a local software/video game store in a mall here in the states called electronics boutique. I remember we had some of the next gen US versions of these consoles. They were basically out of reach for anyone I knew but at the time they were considered arcade-at-home level consoles. Back then there were so many different consoles. It wasn't like today where there are the big 3.
I still remember thinking how amazing the graphics were on the neo geo. I wanted that so bad but my 16 year old self was bankrolling my taco bell and girlfriend habits. 🙂
ohhhh the console wars... Those were the good ol' days. My cousin had the TurboGrafx 16, but I don't remember the SuperGrafx. What I DO remember, are those sweepstakes ads in the gaming mags where you could win an entire set up with a Neo Geo. The Neo Geo, man, I still want one.
I LOVED my turbografx 16. I thought it was amazing. Really wish I still had it.
My first console was an atari 7800, then i went master system plus, nes, snes mega drive2, game boy colour, ps2, advance sp, xbox 360, psp, wii, ps3, 3d , vita, ps4, switch.
PC gaming throughout. Born in 82. Got a snes mini and mega drive mini under the telly as well...
Happy new year all.
I don’t know how Mado ō Granzort doesn’t remind everyone of Keith Courage. When you said it reminds you of something based on “another animated series” I was absolutely sure you were going to say Keith Courage, which was also based on another animated series (Mashin Eiyūden Wataru).
I'm pretty sure that both games are based on the same franchise.
both are from sunrise and both are red company ideals@@retrocatalog
That looks like a resistor ladder for selecting the voltage representative of the pixel color for the video out. Basically a make shift DAC. It appears to only have 3 bits, but the wiki says the video output was 9 bits (512 colors). So perhaps its just 3 bits for one of the colors? Maybe they had a problem with the onboard DAC for one of Red, Green or Blue?
Hey, I appreciate your format. Good stuff.
The Turbografx mini that came out a couple years ago had some supergrafx games on it. Pretty neat mini console, glad I picked one up.
Another thing worth keeping in mind with the Super Grafx is when it came out - 1989. That was a year AFTER the CD-ROM² which it couldn't use because of its size. Anybody who was a big enough PC Engine fan to shell out for the CD unit before the Super Grafx came out was probably VERY hard-pressed to flush all that money away just for a second background layer.
Looked up current pc turbo duo prices and they are as shocking today as they were in 1991! 😢
Back in 1989, my best friend got the Turbo Grafx 16 for Christmas. I remember thinking it was awesome. He also had the NES PowerGlove, the Super Scope, and basically everything you could buy to accessorize the NES and SNES, so we rarely played the TurboGrafx16
Mado Granzort is actually a good game if played correctly: There are 3 Mechs you can switch to at any time (like Trine) :
Red Mech = Weapon is Sword (short range heavy damage) - Special move is Down and hold attack will cause an earthquake that damages every enemy on screen
Green Mech = Weapon Bow (long-range lite damage) - Special can fly (limited based on energy bar) by holding jump.
Blue Mech = Weapon staff (medium range medium damage) Special is a force field that absorbs bullets and damages anything it touches - also limited based on energy level hold down attack.
Silver pick-up is an armor bonus and will absorb one hit.
Gold pick-up is a limited-time invincibility (like Mario’s Power Star)
In the first level there is a platform you can fly to and get five 1-ups; die and repeat until you have a ton of lives (like Super Shinobi)
Oh man, much obliged for the hint how the cool game which I've played on an arcade as a child was named: 1941 :) I never would have known what to look for, didn't even remember it t.b.h., but brings back memories!
It wasn't so much a commercial "failure" as a commercial non-entity. I remember it being announced as NEC's response to the Mega Drive, then there were basically no games made for it (only 5 is basically no games) and it was never heard of again, here in the UK at least. So they gave up on it immediately after it came out, before it's potential had a chance to be proved at all. The only reason I can think NEC would behave in this bizarre fashion, is they immediately accepted it was a quickly cobbled-together knee jerk reaction to the Mega Drive, their original PC Engine variants were still selling fine with all the increasingly powerful CD enhancements, and there was no reason to spend any more money making / marketing it and competing against themselves. So, instead of committing to the SuperGrafx and moving to making exclusive games for it, they made the snap decision to cut their potential losses and totally give up on it, more or less on it's day of release. It all smacks of bad planning and organisation, which is what killed-off Sega's home hardware, eventually. Its very sad, I'd love to see NEC and Sega still making consoles to this day, but you can't have a market of all winners, all the time I guess.
I love my SuperGrafx, even if it only has a few native SGX games. One thing you should consider is to shave down the center post on the inside of the shell to ensure you never accidentally crack the PCB. You can research this issue online. As much as I hate modifying such rare hardware, this mod is a must in my opinion and as it only affects the inside of the shell you would never notice it from the outside. But, what it does do is give you the peace of mind that what has happened to many a poor SGX will not happen to yours ;)
So the Supergrafx had some wild specs able to push out way more sprites and colors than the Genesis and snes. If it came out a smidge later when the fighting game craze took off, could have been a real contender if it had a version of Street fighter II imo because it would very likely be the best home version till the 3do at least and would be a decent place for a lot of arcad ports.
especially given the fact that the pc engine version of SF2CE is a technical achievement (i own a copy, it's as close as you can possibly imagine the PC Engine getting to the arcade, just with not great sound), it possibly could have even given the super famicom version a run for its money. but nec wasn't the best judge of the marketplace, so the supergrafx will always remain a "could have been, but never was." also the six button avenue pads are pretty bad (i have one of those too).
Hucards were expensive and PCE games were crippled by the lack of storage. This limitation crippled SuperGrafx as well. CD games could probably be awesome with SuperGrafx, but..
Splatterhouse made me want the TurboGrafx 16 soooo much.
I had the Turbo Grafx 16 with the CD player and the Turbo Express. Bonk's Adventure and Y's: Book I & II are a couple of favorites. My father took me to a NEC showcase of the Turbo Grafx 16 at a mall. There were a bunch of kiosks that had demos of their games. The portable handheld device was the best.
I NEVER understood why they didn't just send the pc engine everywhere. I remember seeing it in the gaming mags back in the day and foaming at the mouth. And then they doubled the size and renamed it for no reason.
I ended up getting a Genesis and later a super Nintendo. I still would like either a PC engine or TurboGrafx, but being in the us I figure it will be a TurboGrafx, if ever.
I do remember the supergrafix at least from magazines. but I had totally forgotten. about it till your video
I think the console might still be going if they hadn't plumped. it up. it was so awesome.
I am not sure how the price compared from US to Japan but I remember pretty much hard passing on the turbografx 16 because it was way more expensive than other consoles and my parents basically went into sticker shock even seeing the cost. It never surprised me it failed because while it was technologically better it's games were not necessarily better, and it cost so much more.
Excellent arcade ports visually. The potential for this was crazy. Sadly, it just diddnt sell enough to warrant extended manufacturing. Sad. I think a final fight or Super SF2 Turbo could've pushed the systems popularity
I own one of those modern PC-Engine mini's and it's nice that it includes that SuperGrafx version of Ghouls n Ghosts on it. I was always a fan of the Megadrive/Genesis version but this one does look a bit nicer.
The killer game could have been Final Fight, since Nec seemed chummy with Capcom.
Never heard of that console before ! Thanks for sharing your knowledge 👌
I still have my original PC-Engine in working order. Great little console.❤
Awesome console! I got PC Engine with CD, RGB mod- all in suitcase and love it!
Side note, in Granzort, you can switch between 3 characters with different abilities at any time with the Run button. 1 character has a projectile, the other has a spear & can hover(unless im getting the 2 mixed up?).
Cracking insight into the pc engine that us brits only dreamed of having..as u say no point having enhanced system if no killer game to sell it
@willrobinson7599 Even though NEC sponsored everton shirts in the 80s I don't think they bothered to promote the turbo grafix in the UK or even know if they released it over here , I think they were more focused on selling fax machines back then
@@cryptocsguy9282 neither came out in the uk officially. Think France got a limited pc engine release
Really interesting I hadn't realised it was physically so big compared to the previous gen
My TurboGrafx 16 is still running strong to this day. And it's still one of my favorite retro consoles. I'll be honest. I preferred the TurboGrafx 16 ports over the NES ones. It just felt like better hardware than Nintendo. I also really loved the form factor of the cartridges.
Yup, still have my TG16 going strong. HU Cards were and are brilliant.
Had no idea the PC Engine was an NEC product. Great video, love the design of the case.
My friend had a Turbografx-16 and a bunch of games for it. I remember once, some company, maybe NEC themselves, was having a TG-16 display at a local mall, and they had several machines set up behind glass, but playable. Some of them were showing off upcoming games, and a couple of them were the Japanese versions plugged into an adapter to get around the region lockout. They also had a contest to win a system by playing (I think) Blazing Lasers. I honestly don't remember if my friend entered it or not.
He loaned the system and games to me the first year he went to college. I loved Alien Crush and Military Madness. I couldn't get anywhere in Legendary Ax, Alex Kid in Miracle World, Bonk, Blazing Lasers or most of the other games he had, due to my not being able to play action games with a gamepad (which is still true).
I remember going with some friends as a 17 year old to see Wrestlemania VI in Toronto Ca. We went for the weekend and we walked past an import game shop and Battle Ace was playing in the window. I wanted to go in but the shop was closed for the night. I had to settle for playing the first Fatal Fury and Splatterhouse in an arcade then going to watch the original TMNT movie. That was an awesome weekend. 😁
Sounds like the most 80's weekend of all time.
Ha yeah...good times. Now some of those friends are gone. Some are just half remembered. That's life. Live it while you can.
The PC Engine graphics hardware is split into two chips a tilemap and sprite generator chip and a color encoder chip that handles the color pallets and generating the video signal. The tile and sprite chip sends pixels over to the color chip which generates the display on screen. So what they did with the Supergrafix was add a second tilemap and sprite chip and a version of the color generator that could accept input from both. The PC Engine already had very good color (16 pallets with 16 colors each compared to the Megadrive's four 16 color pallets). So this made a very competitive system as far as specs that would be easy to learn for developers already familiar with the PC engine. It's literally just a PC Engine with a second tilemap and sprite layer.
This is possibly the most elegant, high-brow video game content on YT.
I brought the white pc engine and the PC Engine interface unit in the late 80s for £499 pounds
What a great console for it's time
@poshpaul55 Where did you buy it from ? Even though NEC sponsored everton shirts in the 80s I don't think they bother to promote the turbo grafix in the UK or even know if they released it over here , I think they were more focused on selling fax machines
i brought it from a company called Telegames I think it was a long time lol
"Looks like a car engine cover" was my first thought so I laughed when you said the same thing :D
Hey Analogue! Where's my Duo?
Fantastic video! Notable mainly for me because thats the first time I've ever seen the UK Turbografx. I CAN'T BELIEVE you sold it!!
My fave console case is the Uzebox but its clearly heavily inspired by the case for the original PC Engine and the Famicom. Could you ask for better influences?
This weekend I finished building the first ever Uzebox Omega. Its cheaper and easier to build than the reference Uzebox because it doesn't require the AD725 video conversion chip. It uses the same RGB SCART cables as the Megadrive 2 & 3.
Thanks RMC!
@danboid I never ever heard of the Uzebox never even heard of that console but upon a quick google search I came across the github page and your github seems to have a contribution to that project. I'll definitely check it or consider building my own
My first experience of a tv gaming console was back in the 1970's, it was an RCA Studio II, which was the dog's boolocks at the time as a young teenager. I have had plenty of consoles, handhelds and pc's ever since. Some I still have and some I don't.
One thing you can always count on is they get old quite quick and the next new gen is always just round the corner. As is human nature to always want better and faster, sigh. like n sub.
I knew someone who had a TurboGrafx16 back then and I even got to play some games on it. It was pretty cool and the games were quite tough (though I was only about 8 at the time).
It's interesting NEC / Hudson were the only company to successfully migrate their users from one format, Hucards over to CD as the main media for their systems. Come mid 92 you would see only the odd HuCard release - SF2, Soldier Blade among the few.
Loved my turbo Grafx 16 and cd player, bought it myself at 14 as I worked as an electricians apprentice at the time.
Wow, I had zero clue about PC Engine and its several renditions...I thought there was only ever the one version of it and that's it. Just because I never bothered to do any research lol. To hear it went on for so long and in so many forms is mind blowing to me. My one friend did own a TurboGrafx-16, but I thought it was a pile of junk in comparison to what was out here in North America at the time. I saw it as the Nintendo wanna be...but I didn't know any better, I didn't know the history back then.
Makes me wonder what the system would have been like here had it been just as successful.
Now that handheld is something I'd like to see!
Archeological finds dug up in the good will bins of of time. Look at the state of those PCB's and that A/V port! These are good candidates for one of those videos with the cool rubber duck and ultra violet lights.... :) I was but a Lad reading EGM in awe of the color screen captures of Strider and Ghouls and ghosts when these were big. Which after playing finally in emulation did not have the impact they did in the photos. all good fun thanks for the content.
I remember as a kid there was a small jewlery store in my town that for some reason also sold radios. It wasn't a pawn shop, so it was a strange combination. Well, one day they for some reason had Turbo Grafix 16's in stock and I played Bonk on it. I remember playing it whenever my parents went jewlery shopping, I always did like my SNES a lot better though.
I will say that even though Nintendo NES and SNES had a fair share of lesser quality games, they had quite a few overall excellant games - great game play , story, controls, visuals etc. I played a few turbo grafx 16 games, they captivate me quite as much. But they had stunning graphics, and the system did seem quicker and more responsive. I can't say this is a fair comparison though as I've played probably around 100x the Nintendo games over the Turbo Grafx 16. Some companies seemed to consistently make great quality games - Nintendo, Rare, Konami, Tengen ( 😬 lots of bootlegs) I was always bummed out the NEC systems were pricey and eventually flopped here in the USA.
I had the Super CD ROM^2 and the GT and enjoyed them both. The problem with ROM^2 was that many of the games relied on the animated in between scenes and didn't really use the CD to improve the game mechanics or game play.
I got a Turbografx 16 back in 1989 or 90. I loved it up until I got the SNES a year later. I loved the Neutopia series (Zelda copy) as well as Bonk and Legendary Axe. Great system and great memories. Thanks for the vid.
Among my favorite pieces of hardware in my collection.
Got one of these and an everdrive back in 2020. Great look to it. Remember to open them up if you have one and break the internal plastic post. If left in tact it breaks the traces and wrecks the console. It’s a design flaw.
I’ve got the Turbo-Grafx and the Turbo-Express, Love them both. Military Madness, Devils Crush, Silent Debuggers, Dungeon Explorer and the Bonk Games!
Best aspect of the TurboGrafx 16 was the PORTABLE system, which actually played the EXACT SAME game 'cartridges' as the full size home console! Think if instead of the SWTICH, that Nintendo released separate home and portable hardware that played the exact same games.
I'm three minutes in and I can tell you why it failed. £200 (inflated) per game. An Amiga 500 and a box of blank discs was £300.😊
Started with the atari 2600 . How far we come. Glad i witnessed the evolution of video gaming