Game Sack

[kazekirifx]

Why make a system with Turbo Guts and not able to play Turbo games?  This is system was a total cock up.

It doesn't actually have any PCE hardware in it other than the sound chip.

[SamIAm]

It doesn't actually have any PCE hardware in it other than the sound chip.

No, it's got the graphics processor, too. Two of them, actually. Had they included a Hucard port, they could have made it backwards compatible with the Supergrafx.

The only major component that it's missing is the CPU.

[kazekirifx]

Cool. Didn't know that. Always thought it was completely different hardware. Would have been interesting if it had been made backward compatible.

[Black Tiger]

Agree 100%. It should be able to play Turbo Games. It would be awesome to play with with native, built-in S-video. But NEC and Hudson are dumb. They make Sega's console choices look brilliant.

So the PC-FX should have only been sold as a box that plugs into the HuCard port of PC Engine systems, with a cable hooking into a video port and used a second power supply... and been released the same day as a much more powerful stand-alone console that NEC/Hudson fully supported as the true successor to the PC Engine?

Cool. Didn't know that. Always thought it was completely different hardware. Would have been interesting if it had been made backward compatible.

That's why so many elements of PC-FX games, like all(?) sprites look like PCE graphics. It really is the PCE equivalent of the 32X.

[kazekirifx]

That's why so many elements of PC-FX games, like all(?) sprites look like PCE graphics. It really is the PCE equivalent of the 32X.

Yeah, a lot of games do. Why is it that even though the system supports higher resolution graphics than the PCE, there still seem to be some games where the sprites look like they could've been done on PCE?

[Joe Redifer]

Agree 100%. It should be able to play Turbo Games. It would be awesome to play with with native, built-in S-video. But NEC and Hudson are dumb. They make Sega's console choices look brilliant.

So the PC-FX should have only been sold as a box that plugs into the HuCard port of PC Engine systems, with a cable hooking into a video port and used a second power supply... and been released the same day as a much more powerful stand-alone console that NEC/Hudson fully supported as the true successor to the PC Engine?

Hell yeah! It would have been hella cheaper for sure. Who was stupid enough to pay full retail for a PC-FX at launch when it cost more than the Saturn and Playstation which had already been released? But it couldn't have a wire because NEC stupidly not not supply us with an RGB jack. I suppose it could hook onto the expansion port. The 32X was not released on the same day as the Saturn. Not here anyway (I know you pay no attention to the US market at all).

[kazekirifx]

I would guess it probably would have sold even worse as an expansion. Look at the 32X. It sold only 665,000 units whereas the Saturn sold 9.5 million. Look at the Arcade Card. People seem more willing to buy a whole new system than an expansion.

[Joe Redifer]

How much did the Arcade Card sell? Maybe PCE owners were just fickle? 32X sold over 6 times what the PC-FX did. Though honestly I'd compare the SuperGrafx to the 32X before I'd compare the PC-FX to it. Even though the 32X seemed to be much more powerful than either.

As for the Arcade Card, my uninformed theory would be that they made a mistake calling it the ARCADE Card. Why not System Card 4.0? Or Ultra CD or some shit? And what did it have to show for itself? Mostly fighting games. I think PCE owners weren't really into the fighting games as much as into other genres.

[kazekirifx]

Yeah... I can't find any sales data for the Arcade Card, but considering the small library of games for it I think it's pretty safe to say it wasn't very widely adopted.

[elmer]

I enjoyed the Game Sack episode on the PC-FX ... thanks. 

Pretty much echoes my feelings on its software library.

As for the Arcade Card, my uninformed theory would be that they made a mistake calling it the ARCADE Card. Why not System Card 4.0? Or Ultra CD or some shit? And what did it have to show for itself? Mostly fighting games. I think PCE owners weren't really into the fighting games as much as into other genres.

Weren't the arcades full of fighting games at the time? I seem to remember that they were still the hot genre at the time that the Arcade Card came out ... which was also why the Duo-RX came with a 6-button pad.

[SamIAm]

That's probably it. Wasn't Art of Fighting the Arcade Card's "release game"? It's kind of ironic considering the direction they took with the PC-FX, but I think they were going after the arcade-game-at-home appeal.

[_joshuaTurbo]

PC-FX is the weirdest console of all times.  It's almost like NEC was just begging for it to fail so they could go back to just making electronics....

[Dicer]

PC-FX is the weirdest console of all times.  It's almost like NEC was just begging for it to fail so they could go back to just making electronics....

If they didn't waver and actually pushed the original "ironman" hardware when it was time, they would have been in a much better spot I think...

The latter choices by NEC/Hudson were really f*cked up. There should have never been a Shuttle (sorry shuttle lovers) or Supergrafx, I understand doing the Arcade card as a last push as fighters were huge at the time.

Maybe when time travel becomes a thing we can go back and smack some heads around...

[esteban]

That's probably it. Wasn't Art of Fighting the Arcade Card's "release game"? It's kind of ironic considering the direction they took with the PC-FX, but I think they were going after the arcade-game-at-home appeal.

Yeah, I don't think it was surprising at all. In fact, it was exactly what you would expect a company to do...

http://archives.tg-16.com/Dengeki_PC_Engine_1994_03.htm

http://archives.tg-16.com/Dengeki_PC_Engine_1994_05.htm

http://archives.tg-16.com/Dengeki_PC_Engine_1994_07.htm

http://archives.tg-16.com/Dengeki_PC_Engine_1994_10.htm

[Necromancer]

32X sold over 6 times what the PC-FX did.

I'm sure the $20 clearance bin price tags had something to do with that.