I've fiddled with Magical Chase and a few other games I'd like to have, but it's just not the same as having the actual Hu.
I agree with that, call it getting the "authentic experience" or whatever and my guess is a lot of folks around here are like that. My game library isn't anywhere near as extensive as I would like (whenever I see pics that are posted here and there, of someone's ridiculous collection, I get both exhilarated and depressed at the same time.) Anyway, I am fortunate to have most games in original format which I personally enjoy the most and that I play regularly.
That said, a good flash card like this and for that price is awesome. This kind of thing always gets me thinking that: If quality, easy-to-use flash cards like these could be fabricated on a larger scale and made more widely available, and the word got out to more "layman" TG-16/PCE gamers about their low cost and availability, there could be some money to be made there. Really what surprises me though is that with all the ways available to access the NEC game libraries, and to play them, why the market for U.S. hucards is remains so high.
Wanting to own and use the original physical media to play the games, probably a prevalent idea in this forum, me included, in the bigger picture imo it has to be just a niche.
Wikipedia tells me that 2.5M Turbografx-16 consoles were originally sold in the U.S. Not sure what this includes, or if it accurate. Does anyone have a reliable number of total U.S. TG-16's and U.S. Duo's that were sold?
I am just going to say a total of 2M for now. So even as unsuccessful as the consoles were in the U.S., that is still 2M people out there in 'merica who owned one of these. I wonder if a portion of these folks, by now maybe getting a little nostalgic and also reached a point where they have decent exependable incomes, not hardcore people but TG-16/Duo players nonetheless, got into the market.
Leaving the legal component of this aside, and I know there is a question of legality involved here. But just for argument's sake: if you went to those folks in large numbers and made them understand in unequivocal and simple terms: "Here is a device that, using simple software, you can load on to it any TG-16 game you want, and play it on the original console, and this device only costs around $30.00. Furthermore, you can in fact acquire bascially the entire NEC U.S. catalog of games, for free, from a variety of online sources" would that attract enough interest to decrease demand on the actual Hucards and normalize the prices for the original games somewhat?
There will always be the collector, for example, people who get pissed if there is a dent in the box of the game they bought, because it doesn't look as good sitting in their glass case. But maybe they would go away in larger numbers if the games didn't appear to them to be such a good "investment." That would be good news to me, because I get my value out of playing the games, rather than resale values or what not.
