1up.com: Saving the System - TurboGrafx-16

[SignOfZeta]

As much as we all love RPGs, they also wouldn't have done shit for NEC in the US. RPGs mostly just lost money in that era.

There was a reason why DQV and VI never came out in English for the SNES, and FFVII was published by Sony. Enix and Square both left the US during the 16-bit time period.

[T2KFreeker]

The RPG's they make now are usually crap. Sorry, but they are nowhere near as fun as they were back in the day.

Well except for Demise: Ascension  (we can create a whole new topic on that one ^^) and maybe the new Dragon Quest games. But yeah, I tend to agree that its all about the eye candy, not so much about the game anymore. Interactive movies (Xenosaga anyone?) seem to  be whats in now.

Ueah, and everyone bitched about FMV games in the 90's!

[Arkhan]

The HuCards can compete graphically, no problem. Necromancer and Cyberknight are both on par with Phantasy Star.  A HuCard game could do what FFIV was doing.  By the time FFV and VI were out, the CD ROM would have pounded its face in. 

I don't buy the "it's too expensive" thing for the CD-drive if you're going for RPGs.

If the Turbo CD had half the RPGs we never got, I am 100% certain all the RPG spazzes that dropped 75$ on Chrono Trigger would have bought a Turbo CD when they saw games like LOX, Startling Odyssey, Anearth Fantasy Stories, Emerald Dragon, and the rest of the Cosmic Fantasy games.  If the Wizardry games launched here on the Turbo CD, I could safely say that at least half the people I know from gaming conventions would have stabbed someone to buy a Turbo CD and play them.  These are the kind of people that beat Pool of Radiance with characters that have straight 10s for stats and have no magic spells, just to see if they can manage it. 

I also don't buy it that RPGs just weren't doing it well here thing.  Tons of magazines had sections dedicated to RPGs, and people were basically foaming at the mouth for RPGs.  Even Nintendo Power did spreads on RPGs.  They covered Legacy of the Wizard and Ultima III at one point.  AKA: "This is too hard what do I do" and "This is really hard I don't like it!"  to the majority of the sissies that play it.

If they had just brought over Necromancer early on.  Just that ONE single game, I bet it would have helped sway the Dragon Warrior NES fans into giving it a better shot.   Necromancer is an amazing game.  Cyberknight would have swayed the Phantasy Star people into trying it, Sindibad is a bit ho-hum but as good as Dragon Warrior 1 and 2 (maybe 3, kinda). 

So, they should have given it a shot.  It's better than 0 hucard rpgs except for racing and tennis quests, lol.

and f*ckin Outlive, that games just awesome.  I can't think of anyone that wouldn't think so.

[DragonmasterDan]

The HuCards can compete graphically, no problem. Necromancer and Cyberknight are both on par with Phantasy Star.  A HuCard game could do what FFIV was doing.  By the time FFV and VI were out, the CD ROM would have pounded its face in. 

I don't buy the "it's too expensive" thing for the CD-drive if you're going for RPGs.

It was too expensive for most of the people buying video games back then, since they were buying them for children. In the 16-bit era the perception in North America was that video games were a toy for kids.

If the Turbo CD had half the RPGs we never got, I am 100% certain all the RPG spazzes that dropped 75$ on Chrono Trigger would have bought a Turbo CD when they saw games like LOX, Startling Odyssey, Anearth Fantasy Stories, Emerald Dragon, and the rest of the Cosmic Fantasy games.  If the Wizardry games launched here on the Turbo CD, I could safely say that at least half the people I know from gaming conventions would have stabbed someone to buy a Turbo CD and play them.  These are the kind of people that beat Pool of Radiance with characters that have straight 10s for stats and have no magic spells, just to see if they can manage it. 

I'm sure the people who were hardcore into RPGs would have been more likely to buy it, but with less than 70,000 Turbo CD and Duos sold in the US even doubling those sales would have only been a drop in the bucket compared to the numbers of units Nintendo and Sega were moving. In the US, Chrono Trigger didn't sell that well on Super NES. I remember seeing copies on clearance around 1997 for 19.99. Earthbound didn't sell well either, neither did the Final Fantasy games. The people who go to gaming conventions are the minority of the audience you are trying to sell to. We hardcore gamers should not be used as a measuring stick of what other people will buy.

I also don't buy it that RPGs just weren't doing it well here thing.  Tons of magazines had sections dedicated to RPGs, and people were basically foaming at the mouth for RPGs.  Even Nintendo Power did spreads on RPGs.  They covered Legacy of the Wizard and Ultima III at one point.  AKA: "This is too hard what do I do" and "This is really hard I don't like it!"  to the majority of the sissies that play it.

The people buying GameFan were the hardcore players, make no mistake about it. Nintendo Power had spreads on RPGs in part because it's easier to produce lengthy amounts of contents from RPGs than other genres like platformers since there's just more to cover.

[Arkhan]

Toy for kids?  Maybe Cleveland was an anomaly then, because growing up, my adult family members were all playing SNES and NES.

This includes my grandfather, who will f*ck you up in Dr. Mario and make you cry. 

I'm fairly certain if we had a fist full of HuCard RPGs, at least one 2.5D beat em up, and a run and gun that wasn't Bloody Wolf, things would have been different.

Way different.

[SignOfZeta]

If Final Fantasy couldn't keep Square in business, and Dragon Warrior couldn't keep Enix in business, how would RPGs for the TG16 do well for NEC?

[Black Tiger]

Capcom would have brought over Breath of Fire 1.

uh.

They did.

No they didn't. They didn't think that it was worth it as a major publisher. So they allowed a company that was fine carving out small but steady profit in the niche RPG market have it instead. Capcom later decided that they could take advantage of all the advertising that Square had done with the original and aped their cover art and ad campaign when they released Breath of Fire 2 over here. Even then, they only bothered after Final Fantasy III broke new ground for RPGs commercially and they couldn't be bothered to do more than a basic translation.

[BigusSchmuck]

No they didn't. They didn't think that it was worth it as a major publisher. So they allowed a company that was fine carving out small but steady profit in the niche RPG market have it instead. Capcom later decided that they could take advantage of all the advertising that Square had done with the original and aped their cover art and ad campaign when they released Breath of Fire 2 over here. Even then, they only bothered after Final Fantasy III broke new ground for RPGs commercially and they couldn't be bothered to do more than a basic translation.

Yes they did, I rented it at Block Buster back in the day.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breath_of_Fire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breath_of_Fire_%28video_game%29
Breath of Fire 2 had one of the worst translations ever, say no and it means yes and all sorts of weird bugs.
Before people start going off that the turbo cd was too expensive, remember that the snes debuted at $200 when it first came out and the Genesis was $189 at launch date. Factor in that the sega cd was $300 just for the unit and how the duo was $300 its a no brainer which system was more expensive. Another thing, I don't believe we ever saw a $70 dollar turbo hucard/cd game here in the U.S whereeas there were quite a few on the snes and the genesis.
So I don't buy that argument it was too expensive, we just didn't get to see half of the good games that came out in Japan that made it over here.

[nectarsis]

No they didn't. They didn't think that it was worth it as a major publisher. So they allowed a company that was fine carving out small but steady profit in the niche RPG market have it instead. Capcom later decided that they could take advantage of all the advertising that Square had done with the original and aped their cover art and ad campaign when they released Breath of Fire 2 over here. Even then, they only bothered after Final Fantasy III broke new ground for RPGs commercially and they couldn't be bothered to do more than a basic translation.

Yes they did, I rented it at Block Buster back in the day.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breath_of_Fire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breath_of_Fire_%28video_game%29
Breath of Fire 2 had one of the worst translations ever, say no and it means yes and all sorts of weird bugs.
Before people start going off that the turbo cd was too expensive, remember that the snes debuted at $200 when it first came out and the Genesis was $189 at launch date. Factor in that the sega cd was $300 just for the unit and how the duo was $300 its a no brainer which system was more expensive. Another thing, I don't believe we ever saw a $70 dollar turbo hucard/cd game here in the U.S whereeas there were quite a few on the snes and the genesis.
So I don't buy that argument it was too expensive, we just didn't get to see half of the good games that came out in Japan that made it over here.

Go back and read again   Capcom DID NOT bring it over...Square did

[spenoza]

Yes they did, I rented it at Block Buster back in the day.

You played BoF, but you played it as released by Square, a company already comfortable with RPGs. Capcom wasn't willing to commit to releasing it themselves because the RPG market was not mature enough in their eyes.

Before people start going off that the turbo cd was too expensive, remember that the snes debuted at $200 when it first came out and the Genesis was $189 at launch date. Factor in that the sega cd was $300 just for the unit and how the duo was $300 its a no brainer which system was more expensive. Another thing, I don't believe we ever saw a $70 dollar turbo hucard/cd game here in the U.S whereeas there were quite a few on the snes and the genesis.
So I don't buy that argument it was too expensive, we just didn't get to see half of the good games that came out in Japan that made it over here.

Do you recall how well the Sega CD sold? And it had several decent RPGs thanks to Working Designs. Here's a hint: not well at all. The TurboGrafx-16 was also expensive when first released, $199 IIRC. By the time the Duo was released in the US the $299 selling point was no consolation. The system was already on life-support and the SNES and Genesis were priced lower and had large libraries of high-profile games with good advertising that appealed to a large audience. TTI was not, in any way, going to be able to compete with that.

No, I'm pretty convinced there was no magic bullet for the TG16. I don't want to say it was destined for failure in the US market, but there were a number of strikes against it right from the start. I think NEC could have handled the situation better, but the market failure of the TG wasn't due solely to their mishandling, and, in retrospect, I am inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt and suggest they didn't do as badly as we tend to claim they did. Sega prepared carefully for their US launch, making sure they had their ducks in a row. Sega America was VERY effective right out the gate. Nintendo came in knowing Sega would challenge them in a way they hadn't in Japan, so they also came prepared for a fight. NEC basically was between a rock and a hard place.

[Arkhan]

No they didn't. They didn't think that it was worth it as a major publisher. So they allowed a company that was fine carving out small but steady profit in the niche RPG market have it instead. Capcom later decided that they could take advantage of all the advertising that Square had done with the original and aped their cover art and ad campaign when they released Breath of Fire 2 over here. Even then, they only bothered after Final Fantasy III broke new ground for RPGs commercially and they couldn't be bothered to do more than a basic translation.

Yes they did, I rented it at Block Buster back in the day.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breath_of_Fire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breath_of_Fire_%28video_game%29
Breath of Fire 2 had one of the worst translations ever, say no and it means yes and all sorts of weird bugs.
Before people start going off that the turbo cd was too expensive, remember that the snes debuted at $200 when it first came out and the Genesis was $189 at launch date. Factor in that the sega cd was $300 just for the unit and how the duo was $300 its a no brainer which system was more expensive. Another thing, I don't believe we ever saw a $70 dollar turbo hucard/cd game here in the U.S whereeas there were quite a few on the snes and the genesis.
So I don't buy that argument it was too expensive, we just didn't get to see half of the good games that came out in Japan that made it over here.

Go back and read again   Capcom DID NOT bring it over...Square did

Oh man, I just went and looked at the cartridge.  That's funny.  I guess I never really paid that much attention to who put it out.  BOF3 is the only one thats important.

Anyway,

Dragon Warrior kept Enix in business.  Everyone and their mother knows what Dragon Quest is in Japan.  Maybe it didn't catch on right here... but what else is new.  Nothing good catches on in USA.

Theres lots of "that wouldnt have helped" going on here.  What the f*ck would've helped then?

Shitty western games (mortal kombat), a few more decent western games, a beat em up, and 2 player support built in?

[ccovell]

Basically, 1990 was the best year ever for the Turbo, and 1991 the complete opposite.  NEC kinda demonstrated going in to 1991 that they were relying a lot that year on US-made softs, perhaps as a new strategy, perhaps as an admission of desperation...  Anyway, NEC finished the year not just 3rd but a distant 4th.

[SignOfZeta]

Obviously DQ made truckloads of money for Enix, but not in the US, the country where the TG-16 was released, which is what we are talking about. They left the US...I think after Ogre Battle was released.

As for what WOULD have worked, I really thing the answer is "nothing". Sometimes things are just doomed. It might have succeeded if it were basically a completely different machine with totally different software, but then that really wouldn't be the "TG-16" as we know it.

A similar situation: the original XBox in Japan. That system failed SO HARD in Japan that it was being outsold by systems that had already been out of production like the Gameboy Color and Dreamcast. When the PS2 was selling 50,000 units a week the XB was selling, literally, 8 units. What could have saved it? Maybe 100 or so "killer apps". As it was the thing was a giant loud black American box with almost zero Japanese games on it. It was f*cked from day one.

[sheath]

I agree, as early as 1990 I saw Game Players, EGM and Gamepro labeling the TG16 library as "quirky" and Japanese.  Short of getting some killer western studios to make a steady stream of western games, and more sports games, the TG16 was going to be labeled "niche" no matter what.  Really though, if by 1991 NEC could have started releasing more of the NES adaptations, or better yet, reprogrammed same year NES games and released them quickly, I think a $99 TG16 might have given the NES a run for its money.  I for one would have killed for 16-bitafied NES games, and 1990-92 were some of the NES' best years.

[spenoza]

On this rarest of occasions I'm with Zeta. I'm not sure there was a path to success for the TG-16 in the US. The system itself, the core hardware, could have been successful, but only in a hypothetical sense. So many things would need to have been done differently, in the Japanese game market as well, to make that hardware a success here in the US that I'm not sure it's worth discussing how things could have been fixed.

We should appreciate what we got and support those in our community who are developing new games and translating old. Regardless of how things went down, it is indeed our system, and for better or worse this system appealed to us and was, intentionally or not, marketed to us.