What if...?

[nectarsis]

I'm not sure if it could've taken the top spot or even nudged out the Genny, but it definitely would've made 'em profitable enough to fail even harder with the PC-FX ( ).  Lack of fighters and good sports games (is there such a thing?) is really a non-issue, as had the Turbob been more popular there would've been more games catering specifically to the NA audience (as happened with the SNES and Genesis).

They could have done better than they did, they really squandered a chance to get one up on the Genesis in particular, but I really don't think they had a chance to be "number 1" or even number 3.

I thought they already were in third.  Who are you counting in the third spot?  NeoGeo?  CDi?  32X?

The sports game garbage is an American thing.   If people gave two shits about the turbob here, EA would've put out a bunch of crap football and hockey games just like they did for the Genesis.


Plus, the baseball games for the Turbob that we never got are better than everything on SNES and Genesis anyway

I was basing the sports games/fighters comment off the OP's "what if" on the library as it sits...not "what if Turbo became more popular then those likes would be catered to"    

[Turbotracks]

So many good points here. I don't think it would have made a difference either.  I think it could have been a closer battle for #2 had the Turbo received a better ad campaign. I talk to a lot of customers at a friends game store and so many have no idea what the Turbo is but the have SNES and Genesis games in their hands.

[Arkhan]

I was basing the sports games/fighters comment off the OP's "what if" on the library as it sits...not "what if Turbo became more popular then those likes would be catered to"   

but..

the sports games in USA mostly came out *after* the system was popular, so, if it were more popular, there would've been more sports games.


Sports games should be removed from the equation, and we should have got the power leagues here.  I dunno how we didn't.   Someones an idiot at TTI or something.

[Turbotracks]

I don't think the Power League games made it because licensing teams and players was a huge selling point, but also incredibly expensive.  Although, Baseball Stars on the NES was quite the hit.

[SignOfZeta]

You know, if we saw a super duo with the arcade card and super grafx capabilities and released in 92, I believe TTI would have been able to compete better at the very least with the snes and genesis at the time.

There wouldn't be much point in a SGX capable Duo in 1992. By then it had already been a year since the last SGX game was released in Japan.

IMO the US Duo was an amazing deal. For $300 it came with five friggn games, all of them decent, some of the absolutely fantastic. Buying all that shit on the JP market would have cost hundreds more. I think they valued it up to the breaking point as it was.

[Keith Courage]

The system would have sold more in the US if it had come out a whole year or two earlier like it had in Japan. It would have had time to gain a following before the Genesis and SNES showed up. The system was designed to be better than the NES and to then be able to keep going close to par with the power of the newer other 16bit consoles.

[thesteve]

well put keith.
i remember the ad's for the turbo hitting 1 week before the genni

[esteban]

I don't think you folks haven't mentioned beat-em-ups yet...that was a huge genre back in the day and PCE/TG-16 would have benefitted from a "killer" beat-em-up or two.

Where was our "Fighting Streets of Rage" techno-dance infused beat-em-up?

Sadly, even if the TG-16 managed to have a few "killer" titles in the popular genres of the time, I don't think it would have had enough momentum to compete with Sega and Nintendo. Even if TG-16 launched X-mas 1988...would it have been able to compete with NES?

NES was a juggernaut and I know I would have chosen to stick with NES over TG-16 simply because NES had an insanely awesome library of titles. Mega Man II (NES) stole the show in 1988! What would TG-16 offer us?

I hate to be pessimistic, but I don't think PCE/TG-16 would have been successful without a healthy serving of LUCK (a runaway success like Legendary Axe? Alien Crush?)

Check out Best PCE game released in 1988 and tell me if any title could compete with the superb titles on NES...

NOTE: Cooks became maudlin upon reading this post

[Turbotracks]

Good point. '88 was a huge year for NES. Zelda II was the game to get that holiday season. Over 4 million copies sold of that game alone really eats up the consumers game spending.

[SamIAm]

My 2 cents:

The barebones TG-16 unit needed to succeed pretty well by itself before we could ever talk about expansions like the CD-ROM.

As a child in the early 90's, it was an ordeal just to get my hands on a SNES with one game at $130. I think most of my friends were in the same boat. Middle class kids could afford a basic system, a few games a year, and that's about it.

In order to make it succeed, I'm going to agree that it needed a kickass platformer with a highly marketable character. Sorry Bonk.

[BigusSchmuck]

I don't think you folks haven't mentioned beat-em-ups yet...that was a huge genre back in the day and PCE/TG-16 would have benefitted from a "killer" beat-em-up or two.

Where was our "Fighting Streets of Rage" techno-dance infused beat-em-up?

Sadly, even if the TG-16 managed to have a few "killer" titles in the popular genres of the time, I don't think it would have had enough momentum to compete with Sega and Nintendo. Even if TG-16 launched X-mas 1988...would it have been able to compete with NES?

NES was a juggernaut and I know I would have chosen to stick with NES over TG-16 simply because NES had an insanely awesome library of titles. Mega Man II (NES) stole the show in 1988! What would TG-16 offer us?

I hate to be pessimistic, but I don't think PCE/TG-16 would have been successful without a healthy serving of LUCK (a runaway success like Legendary Axe? Alien Crush?)

Check out Best PCE game released in 1988 and tell me if any title could compete with the superb titles on NES...

NOTE: Cooks became maudlin upon reading this post

Lol, most of the games on that list are shooters. Time only tell if the turbo was released a whole year earlier than the Genesis. Lets not forget that Nintendos hardcore licensing was a deterrent back then and even when the turbo was released in 89. Eliminate that deterrent, and we could have seen a much different system.

[fragmare]

If they would've released half the action games that they never gave us, we'd have been a bit more set than we were...

I put a few non action games in here too.  like Necromancer and Outlive.  Necromancer would've been a great US release.

Eternal City
Cyber Cross & Cross Wiber
Altered Beast
Final Blaster
Outlive
Necromancer
After Burner 2
OutRun (power drift too.  Its better anyways!)
Ninja Gaiden (who cares if it scrolls funny)
Schibibin Man
Raiden
SF2
Kyukyoku Tiger (I mean duhrrrr wtf)

there are more even.  The shooters would've done great.  and the rest helps round it out some.

Whoever picked what to bring over was a dumbf*ck.

Raiden did get a US release, newblet.  But, yea, the rest of those games would have been awesome localized.

Hmm.  I think if they put out EVERYTHING, they would probably have come out worse than they did.  A lot of it wouldn't have sold too well, and the cost of manufacturing and making all those games to poor reception would have been high.

I think if they'd been a bit pickier about what they did release earlier on, it would have made the difference.  As it was, it never had the momentum.

QFT!  There was a lot of JapCrap that came out on the PCE over the years that would have made even more western gamers avoid the TG16.  If they had picked and chosen certain wonderful and impressive games to localize, it likely would have encouraged more third party support and would sort of self-perpetuate other great games being released.

[Turbotracks]

Agreed. Oversaturating the library would have had the opposite effect. Looking back we, of course, have the benefit of 20/20 vision. I think it would have been more of a benefit to us to have what is now our pick of the litter of PCE games localized than it would have benefitted sales numbers. Obviously having more quality software drives hardware sales, but the general public was so focused on spending their money on Mario or Sonic that there wasn't room in most wallets for a third system.

[vestcoat]

The barebones TG-16 unit needed to succeed pretty well by itself before we could ever talk about expansions like the CD-ROM.

Absolutely.  

The Turbo would not have done any better with more games.  The hucard library is sweet, but consoles really need a watershed, genre-defining game to catch on.  Something like SMB, which revolutionized platformer play control and forever standardized which button on a controller makes you jump... or Sonic with its jaw-dropping beautiful graphics and speed.  The PCE doesn't have a hucard like that.  It had Ys, but that was on CD and the technology was too much, too soon: kids couldn't afford CD players.  

In Japan, I get the impression that video games were already fairly mainstream entertainment in the 80's/90's, which meant that older people played them who could afford cutting-edge technology like CD video game players.  With the exception of the Neo Geo, video games in the States were regarded as toys until the Playstation came along, which doomed systems like the CD-ROM2 and 3DO until the technology got cheaper.

On a personal note, while I'd certainly love to have some more English games on the shelf in 2012, I never would have got into the TG16 had it been #1.  Had it been popular, it wouldn't have been discounted down to $99 and I wouldn't have been intrigued by a mysterious black console with library of hidden gems and diamonds in the rough.  Apparently I have a huge underdog complex.

I thought they already were in third.  Who are you counting in the third spot?  NeoGeo?  CDi?  32X?

NES was 3rd; TG was 4th.

[fragmare]

Honestly, I think Bonk's Revenge is pretty comparable to SMW or Sonic1 in overall quality for a platformer, but it didn't come out until later.  If Hudson had come out swinging and given Bonk1 the same super polished look and feel that Bonk's Revenge had and maybe some parallax for the graphics kiddies, it might have had more of a chance at being as popular as SMW or Sonic, imho.  I'm not saying Bonk1 is a bad game.  It's quite good... but Bonk's Revenge is *great*.