101 Secrets of the PC Engine

[NFGman]

The biggest Hu Card game I'm aware of is Street Fighter 2. I think it was 16 mega bits but I could very easily be wrong about that.

It was the largest at 20 Mbits.

Nice discussion going here. =)

BTW: New gallery posted: http://nfg.2y.net/games/pce/gallery

256 x 224 was the standard PCE resolution, and it also supported up to 352 x 224, as well as other resolutions lower and between those. Which means someone should answer for not yet porting games to my celphone!!

 

[Fox5]

Some of those images are interesting, offering graphics closer to what I'd expect from an arcade machine than a genesis or snes.
And some of those images are interesting for other reasons....I see the PC Engine was home to both Strip Fighters and Choaniki...

 

[zurich]

Was there a secret behind why the TG16/PCE died?

 

[archie4oz]

Hudson also did at least part of the chipset for Sharp's amazing X68000, released in the same timeframe of the PC Engine (1987) - the X68000 is such an awesome machine, much better than the PCE or SuperGrafx.

Yes the X680x0 machines were awesome, my friend had one and I wanted one so badly even though I had a A500 at the time. Even the X1 predecessors were cool (I had an MSX at that time). Hudson also wrote the OS to the X680x0 machines (Human68k). Or I should say wrote the default OS distributed with them as they were "clean" systems with no OS ROM or BASIC ROM built in like most computers of that era.

(also alot more expensive) any info on its custom chipset, the chip names, or anything ?

Like...?

256 x 224 was the standard PCE resolution, and it also supported up to 352 x 224, as well as other resolutions lower and between those.

256x216 actually...

Was there a secret behind why the TG16/PCE died?

Well the PC Engine never really *died* per-se, it just lived out it's useful life. There's still active support for the PC Engine and PC-FX (and active end-user dev communities with their own mags and such still)...

 

[NFGman]

256x216 actually...

Well in the gallery I made none of the images were smaller than 256 x 224 except AiChoAniki (248x224), so I'm confident when I say it was the default resolution. There may have been other resolutions as I noted, but this was certainly the most used - my unscientific tests bear that out.

 

[zurich]

Well the PC Engine never really *died* per-se, it just lived out it's useful life. There's still active support for the PC Engine and PC-FX (and active end-user dev communities with their own mags and such still)...

Well two things,

1) why the Japanese public just stopped buying the PCE,
and 2) why Hudson/NEC didn't release a followup system

The PCE seemed popular enough in Japan and had great games, I just don't know why there wasn't a next generation PCE..

My guess is that Hudson/NEC went the upgrade/addon route rather than the new system route, and we all know how that business plan works

 

[Brimstone]

Where NEC/Hudson left off with the PC Engine, Sony eventually picked up with the Playstation. Namco heavily supported the PC Engine and when the Playstion came out, Namco gave a lot of support to Sony's console. Why NEC/Hudson failed to capitalize upon the PC Engines success is a mystery to me.

I'd love to see an interview with the top managers from NEC/Hudson asking hardball questions about the PC Engine and why after having a large headstart Sony entered the console market and made incredible profit.

 

[archie4oz]

Well two things,

1) why the Japanese public just stopped buying the PCE,
and 2) why Hudson/NEC didn't release a followup system

Why did any system stop getting purchased? It simply got old and newer and better systems came along...

Secondly, NEC *did* release a second system; the PC-FX. Only it was thoroughly clobbered by the Saturn (the one Sega system that did do well), and the Playstation...

My guess is that Hudson/NEC went the upgrade/addon route rather than the new system route, and we all know how that business plan works

Actually the upgrade/addon route work VERY well for NEC and was crucial in keeping the system selling as long as it did and developers continuously developing for it (it lasted a solid 7 years, the following 2 years being mostly educational and animated entertainment titles).

 

[Dio]

Even more blurry in my memory is that at the time Hudson were a large (Canadian?) conglomerate mostly doing defense R&D.

That is pretty BLURRY! Must be a different Hudson... Hudson Soft has always been a Japanese entertainment corporation (although back then the "conglomerate" comment would be spot on!).

This was my 'may have been reported wrong'. I think this information came from TGM or C&VG back in about 1988.

 

[Megadrive1988]

2) why Hudson/NEC didn't release a followup system

they did in fact release 2 follow-up systems. they simply failed and never got released outside of Japan. PC Engine came out in 1987....


NEC-Hudson released the first nextgen machine in Novemeber 1989, the PC Engine 2, renamed PC Engine SuperGrafx at launch. but it was not much of a leap beyond the PCE. only like twice as powerful, graphically. So Japan continued to buy the PCE or wait for the SFC.

then after abandoning the SuperGrafx and releasing a wide range of upgrades for the original PCE, they released a true nextgen follow-up in the form of the 32-Bit PC-FX in late 1994. but as said, it was simply crushed by the combined might of Saturn & Playstation.

 

[PC-Engine]

The SuperGrafx was fully backwards compatible with PC Engine games. It only had a handful of SG specfic games around 10 IIRC. Also probably the main reason why the PC-FX didn't do so well was the fact it was a 2D machine and was a lot more expensive than the Saturn or PS.

 

[Megadrive1988]

only five SuperGrafx-specific games made it out. one or two PCE games ran better when played on a SuperGrafx

1.) Battle Ace (1989)
2.) Grandzort (keith Courage sequel) (1990)
3.) Daimakaimura aka Ghouls'nGhosts (1990)
4.) Aldynes (1991)
5.) 1941 Counter Attack (1991)

Darius Plus and Darius Alpha, regular PCE HuCard games, ran without flicker on a SuperGrafx


other SuperGrafx games were in development (or at least TBA) but got scrapped

1.) Strider
2.) Forgotten Worlds
3.) Galaxy Force 2
4.) Out Run

also possibly AfterBurner II and a handful of others I'm not aware of.

with the exception of Galaxy Force 2, these unreleased SG games got made for PCE or CD-ROM, though it would have been nice to see the SG versions :/

 

[ChryZ]

I've googled up a nice link, for those who like to learn more about PC-FX:

http://www.pcenginefx.com/PC-FX/index.html

Nice pictures of the hardware, game-covers, etc ... pretty good page and quite interesting too.

 

[Megadrive1988]

only known color photo of what is *supposed* to be SuperGrafx Strider.

its certainly not the MD version, or the later PCE CD-ROM Arcade Card version. its either an arcade photo, or the mythical SuperGrafx version.


links to info & rumor on unreleased SuperGrafx Strider and released Arcade Card Strider

http://lscmainframe.topcities.com/sgxgame.html
http://www.concentric.net/~Flarb/deaths.html
http://www.classicgaming.com/strider/history.html
http://joyce.eng.yale.edu/~bt/turbo/unreleased/strider.html
http://www.pcengine.com.br/strider/strider.htm

 

[Fox5]

Wow, PC-Engine certainly had a lot of..umm....anime girl games.

 

[cthellis42]

Wow, PC-Engine certainly had a lot of..umm....anime girl games.

So?

 

[Dio]

My main reason the PC Engine didn't get much of a followup is that it wasn't particularly large in the US and a total wash in Europe.

As a result it wasn't picked up by EA (I could only find on google one EA game on PC Engine - and that wasn't self-published). I think that's pretty much a requirement for continued worldwide success given the sheer volume of EA's games output.

 

[Fox5]

My main reason the PC Engine didn't get much of a followup is that it wasn't particularly large in the US and a total wash in Europe.

As a result it wasn't picked up by EA (I could only find on google one EA game on PC Engine - and that wasn't self-published). I think that's pretty much a requirement for continued worldwide success given the sheer volume of EA's games output.

EA wasn't quite so big back then.
I think PC Engine just lacked a good mascot, look what Mario and Sonic(especially as pack in games) did for NES, SNES, and Genesis! And maybe even what Crash did for Playstation.
Ah, if only they had marketed Bomberman, or perhaps Choaniki a bit better.

 

[Dio]

EA wasn't quite so big back then.

Not as, but EA took up its clear prime place during the period we're discussing (arguably largely off the back of Populous and John Madden Football).

I think PC Engine just lacked a good mascot, look what Mario and Sonic(especially as pack in games) did for NES, SNES, and Genesis! And maybe even what Crash did for Playstation.

Sonic was later in the Megadrive lifecycle than you might think. We'd been importing games and consoles from Japan for a long, long time before we heard the first Sonic rumours. I think it might even have been after the MD launched in Europe (the initial pack game for the MD was Altered Beast).

And Sonic couldn't save the Saturn

 

[Fox5]

Well, when did the Megadrive really take off? Sonic came out in I think 1991, right in time to fight off the SNES and Mario.

And Sonic didn't have a true Sonic game on Saturn. I'm confident Saturn would have done much better if Sega could have had a decent 3d Sonic game ready for launch or soon after. There was some sonic comilation, Sonic R, and that was basically it. Mascot games aren't so big anymore, but back in the early 90s every company needed a mascot.
BTW, Saturn would have needed more than 1 good 3d Sonic game to have survived last gen, but 1 good one could have done for the Saturn what Mario 64 did for the N64, gave it that push it needed to survive until there was something else available.