Turbografix 16 The BeginningEssay Preview: Turbografix 16 …The BeginningReport this essayIn Japan, shortly after the introduction of Nintendos Famicom (Japans version of the NES), the electronics giant NEC entered into the videogame market with the introduction of their “next generation” system, known as the PC Engine (PCE). The PCE boasted a 16-bit graphics chip capable of displaying up to 256 colors on screen at once, at a number of resolutions. Although its CPU wasnt much more powerful that of the NES, its spectacular graphics chip and six-channel sound bettered the Famicom in every way. It utilized a sleek new card format (PCE games are either HuCards or Turbochips) to hold its software, rather than bulky cartridges. It was also the first console to boast a CD-ROM drive, for full orchestral soundtracks and even (gasp!) full motion video. The PC Engine was immensely popular in Japan, outselling the Famicom by a significant margin.
Turbografix also enjoyed great success in South America, with the following few titles, first in the USA, then in North Africa. The PC Engine was developed in conjunction with a Chinese company (Hawk Studios) by the same name called Hukai Kyoi, which was based in Japan and developed a variety of consoles such as the PCe-X to which we refer. Its main selling points are speed and fun, but this version was a big hit on the North American market, selling well for a day between sales. Since the PCe’s release in 1997-1998, the company has expanded its business of selling a huge range of portable games, like the game Boy in the Sea, a series of popular, portable games for children. For our testing, no games were sold in Japan. The PCe-X will not be released again.
The PCe-X: The Beginning of the PC Era, by Gokou Sengyo, which was the first portable PC game of the 1970s
(Thanks to: – December 30, 2004In terms of hardware, Nintendos Famicom’s portable system contained a huge variety of different board configurations such as the NES and NES Classic. However, the NES was not limited to one board. It used microchips to carry game cartridges as well as microprocessor boards. They contained all kinds of new chips that were introduced into the system in the fall of 2001. There were also a lot of games from various systems like the NES, Sega, Sega 64, and MS-DOS. There are some games which still can be found in some of the NES board configurations, but the majority consist of arcade, console, and computer games. For all this development, our testing was limited to the NES and the NES Classic Game System (NES2) – in 2003, we decided to run our own tests on the two versions of the same game and try the entire system over time. This is the only test conducted on the NES Classic game, the only one ever done with the NES Classic. We had 2 playthroughs on the NES3, as well as at the time of this writing – when we received our NES4 and NES5 systems, the second playthrough had started the game already and it would then be loaded manually. On the NES4 version, an infinite number of different levels were played, with more than 1 player at a time, and we could replay more than 1 million of them over a period of a year. The NES4 version featured 2 modes – a very difficult level that used a high difficulty level, such as “Easter Boat”, an arcade-style game where you played as a floating turtle, and a completely easy level, such as “The Magic Game”, where you could fly through water, climb trees, and shoot lasers. In the NES Classic game, you played as a big turtle that did all the attacks, except “Aerial Gunfire”, which used laser beams to jump, and “Air Balloon Shoot”, which fired rocket propelled objects at you. In each of the other modes, the level was pretty easy. There was also a few puzzles that ran a little longer than some of the other games, in which you needed to go through several holes in the screen before you could get to the final location. In the NES Classic game, all the controls were set to
In 1989, two years after its Japanese introduction, NEC announced plans to bring the PC Engine overseas, to the booming videogame market of the U.S. With a huge library of Japanese software, it seemed to many as though the system couldnt possibly fail.
At the time, the NES was the #1 system in the US. Games were no longer being made for Ataris 7800, and despite the popularity of the Sega Master System in Europe, it failed to capture the hearts of the U.S. gaming public. Arcade and computer games began to set new standards in visual and aural excellence, making the NES seem primitive in comparison. Although MMC (memory mapper) chips allowed the NES to do some pretty spectacular things, the game-buying public was hungry for a new system.
Shortly after NEC stated its intention to bring the PC Engine to the U.S., Sega announced that its Mega Drive system (released in Japan a year after the PC Engine) would also be coming to the U.S. as the Sega Genesis. The Mega Drive was slow to catch on in Japan, as the installed user base of PC Engine was so large. In fact, the Mega Drive was spectacularly unpopular with our Japanese friends. Although the Mega Drive boasted superior graphics and sound, the absence of a CD-ROM drive was a definite minus in most gamers minds. Once youve played a CD-ROM game, cartridge games just dont seem as good. At the time, the Genesis didnt seem like much of a threat to the assured success of the TurboGrafx-16 (NECs American name for the PC Engine). The TG-16 had more games,
The Sega Dreamcast sold about 1.2 million in 1994, and in 1995 sales were estimated at approximately 3 million for the Mega Drive and a little over 5 million for the Genesis. The Genesis did sell 1,900,000 copies, and while some people might think the Wii became obsolete by the mid-90’s, the Mega Drive is still an item of great pride for many casual PC gamers today (myself included).
In 1995, Sega announced that the Mega Drive would begin a gradual transformation of its design to something more responsive and well designed (called the Genesis) including:
Audio and 3D support
Support for multi-player with multiple players (PC only)
Better color rendering
Better graphics
Support for a mouse-style controller (RAC, X, G, Mouse, Trackpad)
Support of more than 18 controllers with a built in audio output (e.g. ZX Spectrum, Atari 2600)
Support for a power adapter (1/4″ socket from the cable directly to the back of the console)
Support for power on/off buttons as well as mouse and keyboard
A dedicated gaming system for the power button
Support for the Game Boy Color
Enhanced stereo controls and buttons in the Mega Drive
When Sega released its Game Boy Color in 1996, it introduced a 2.5mm hard drive in its model name, and the Mega Drive also had 4 floppy discs, one floppy drive per disc, a DVD drive, a hard disk drive, and a hard drive that could be set up to play music. At the time, the Mega Drive was just an accessory to the Sega Genesis.
The Genesis was released in October 1995 with the first version of the Mega Drive released in March 1995. The Mega Drive had a lot of features, including an automatic disk drive and an automatic disc drive. This was also important when it came to the Sega Genesis. The Mega Drive was compatible with all Sega games, the classic Game Boy cartridge would play them, and you could buy an additional cartridge to store your games when you purchased another copy of Sega’s Game Boy (it still does in the system).
In the end, Sega did come to terms with the Mega Drive and their need for more power. The Genesis has 4 floppy drives and 3 drive types. The Mega Drive was also compatible with all Sega games, including most of the classic Game Boy games (Super Famicom, SEGA Saturn, N64, Nintendo DS, SNES). By 1998, the Sega Genesis was released in Europe. The Sega system was slightly different from the Sega Genesis, though. Rather than having a computer system in stores, the Mega Drive was just a cartridge. It included a hard disk disk, a hard disk drive for the disks in the Mega Drive, a hard disk drive of up to four players, a CD storage unit, which