Final Lap Twin ~ PC Engine TurboGrafx 16
1The PC Engine, known in Japan and France as the PC Engine (PCエンジン Pī Shī Enjin?) and the USA as the TurboGrafx-16 Entertainment SuperSystem, is a home video game console jointly developed by Hudson Soft and NEC Home Electronics, released in Japan on October 30, 1987, in the United States on August 29, 1989, and in France on November 22, 1989. It was the first console released in the 16-bit era, albeit still utilizing an 8-bit CPU. Originally intended to compete with the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), it ended up competing with the Sega Genesis, and later on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES).
The TurboGrafx-16 has an 8-bit CPU, a 16-bit video color encoder, and a 16-bit video display controller. The GPUs are capable of displaying 482 colors simultaneously, out of 512. With dimensions of 14 cm×14 cm×3.8 cm (5.5 in×5.5 in×1.5 in), the PC Engine once held the record for the world's smallest game console.
In France, the system was released shortly after its American debut under its original Japanese name, PC Engine. In the United Kingdom, Telegames released a slightly altered version of the American model simply as the TurboGrafx in 1990 in extremely limited quantities. This model was also released in Spain through selected retailers. Although there was no full-scale PAL region release of the system, imported PC Engine consoles were largely available in France and Benelux through major retailers thanks to the unlicensed importer Sodipeng (Société de Distribution de la PC Engine, a subsidiary of Guillemot International).
The TurboGrafx-16 failed to break into the North American market and sold poorly. However, in Japan the PC Engine was very successful. Two major revisions, the PC Engine SuperGrafx and the PC Engine Duo, were released in 1989 and 1991, respectively. The entire series was succeeded by the PC-FX in 1994, which was only released in Japan.
The TurboGrafx-16 was a collaborative effort between the relatively young Hudson Soft (founded in 1973) and NEC Home Electronics. NEC's interest in entering the lucrative video game market coincided with Hudson's failed attempt to sell designs for then-advanced graphics chips to Nintendo.[7]
The TurboGrafx-16 was the first video game console to have a CD-ROM peripheral, and first device ever to use CD-ROM as a storage medium for video games.[8][9][10][11] NEC released the CD-ROM² (シーディーロムロム Shī Dī Romu Romu?, officially pronounced "CD-ROM-ROM") in Japan on December 4, 1988,[1][12] and released the TurboGrafx-CD in the United States on August 1, 1990.
The TurboGrafx-CD had a launch price of $399.99, and did not include any bundled games.[13] Fighting Street and Monster Lair were the TurboGrafx-CD launch titles; Ys Book I & II soon followed.
The TurboGrafx-series was the first video game console ever to have a contemporaneous fully self-contained portable counterpart, the Turbo Express, that contained identical hardware and played identical game software (utilizing HuCard format game software).
NEC/Turbo Technologies later released the TurboDuo, which combined the CD-ROM and TurboGrafx-16 into one unit.
The TurboGrafx-16 was released in the New York City and Los Angeles test market in late August 1989. Initially, the TurboGrafx-16 was marketed as a direct competitor to the NES and early television ads touted the TG-16's superior graphics and sound.
These ads featured a brief montage of the TG-16's launch titles: Blazing Lazers, China Warrior, Vigilante, Alien Crush, etc. The TG-16 was also in direct competition with the Sega Genesis, which had had its own New York/Los Angeles test-market launch two weeks prior, on August 14.[14] The Genesis launch was accompanied by an ad campaign mocking NEC's claim that the TurboGrafx-16 was the first 16-bit console.
NEC claimed that it had sold 750,000 TG-16 consoles in the United States, and 500,000 CD-ROM units worldwide, by March 1991.[15] That year NEC released the PC Engine Duo in Japan, a model which could play HuCards and CD-ROM² discs, making it the first game console with an integrated CD-ROM drive.
The console was licensed to Turbo Technologies Incorporated, who released it in North America in 1992 as the TurboDuo. In addition to standard CD-ROM² format discs, the Duo could also play games in the newly introduced Super CD-ROM² format due to its greater RAM size (the TurboGrafx-16 and its CD player could support this new format only through the use of a separately available upgrade, the Super System Card, which TTI sold via mail order).