Street Fighter 2 Champion Edition

[KnightWarrior]

I know it is a PC Engine Game

I just wanna know, Why did NEC didn't release this game in the US??

Was it because of Pour Sales?? The Name, What??

[SignOfZeta]

A multitude of factors:

It was expensive to produce (physically) and was expensive to license. Japanese cost was %20-30 more than the SFs on SFC and MD.

It was only relevant for about a month before Turbo hit SNES/Gen.

By the time this game came out it was TTI's decision, and they probably decided that releasing Dungeon Explorer II, Riot Zone, Lords of Thunder, and Bomberman 93' and other in-house games were much more worth their investment, and I agree.

[DragonmasterDan]

A multitude of factors:

It was expensive to produce (physically) and was expensive to license. Japanese cost was %20-30 more than the SFs on SFC and MD.

It was only relevant for about a month before Turbo hit SNES/Gen.

By the time this game came out it was TTI's decision, and they probably decided that releasing Dungeon Explorer II, Riot Zone, Lords of Thunder, and Bomberman 93' and other in-house games were much more worth their investment, and I agree.

There was also a huge risk of inventory cost in bringing in six button controllers. Though the game is playable with a standard pad, they really would have had to bring over the six button controller in both TG16 and Duo varieties. I remember talking to someone at TTI's booth at the 1993 Summer CES about Street Fighter II and they basically said they had talked about it and talked about licensing it, but the need for the controllers killed it.

[KnightWarrior]

So it was the Controller Issue

[DragonmasterDan]

So it was the Controller Issue

It was that TTI was running on an EXTREMELY limited budget and barely got the games they did manage to release in 1993 out the door. The cost of licensing and then producing an expensive HuCard AND controllers to play it was just too high of a cost for them to take on.

[SignOfZeta]

Oh yeah, I totally forgot about the controller aspect.

I considered this game when it was new and basically for the game and the Avenue 6 it was about $150 or so, as opposed to just getting Turbo for SFC for $90. I was a pretty big Turbo fan, but funds were limited. Paying more money for an older version of SF didn't make a lot of sense, and I'd have to get another controller too because SF is basically a two player only game for me.

I think the JP side had similar concerns since SFII' for PCE was heavily discounted rather quickly, and even now it's one of the easiest games to find sealed, which sort of indicates that they didn't sell as well as hoped.

[SignOfZeta]

I just realized there that I was referring to both Sreet Fighter II' Turbo and the Turbo Grafx 16 by the short name of "Turbo". That gets confusing.

My biggest problem with Street Fighter for the Turbo was that it wasn't Turbo. Ha!

[DragonmasterDan]

Oh yeah, I totally forgot about the controller aspect.

I considered this game when it was new and basically for the game and the Avenue 6 it was about $150 or so, as opposed to just getting Turbo for SFC for $90. I was a pretty big Turbo fan, but funds were limited. Paying more money for an older version of SF didn't make a lot of sense, and I'd have to get another controller too because SF is basically a two player only game for me.

I think the JP side had similar concerns since SFII' for PCE was heavily discounted rather quickly, and even now it's one of the easiest games to find sealed, which sort of indicates that they didn't sell as well as hoped.

If I recall correctly the PCE version came out around March, Special Champion Edition and Turbo for SNES both came out around July-August. So the lead time was only a few months.

[SignOfZeta]

The PCE version of SFII' was June 13th, the SFC version of Turbo was July 11 so...the PCE was THE Street Fighter machine for exactly one month.

This still isn't as bad as what happened with Fatal Fury Special.

I guess in Japan it was far more likely that you had a PCE and no SFC, although still rather unlikely. Basically everyone had a SFC. Maybe that month was really important, like, does it line up with the summer break period? I can see dropping 12,800 yen on SFII' (and two 4,000 yen controllers) if I was going back to school the day before Turbo was released on SFC.

[Black Tiger]

The PCE SFII' might not have been the best version for long in Japan, but it was different in North America. The OCE version was heavily previewed months in advance and even though I got it a littke late (saving up $230 for it), it was still a while before anything concrete (a single screen shot) was published about the SFC version of Turbo, let alone the SNES version actually coming out. Aside from the huge delay in gaming news back then, a week during the 16-bit gen as a kid felt like a year does today. Even if it was as little as six months that I had SFII' before the SNES version was released, it felt like an eternity to me and my Genesis/SNES fan friends. And even then, I was still the only one playing SFII' on a portable system.

The current cheap price and availability of games like SFII' don't reflect how well they sold bitd. Tengai Makyou II was the biggest PCE game and it is easy to find for $5 - $10. High unit numbers only reflects the expectations from bitd.

Fighting games were like sports titles back then, in that (by today's time frames) they soon became outdated. But back then even a few months was a very long time. Super Street Fighter II for SNES had more copies made than there was demand for, but it was still a massive hit.

[KnightWarrior]

I heard Super SFII on the Genesis/SNES Flopped. People was tired of updates

[ProfessorProfessorson]

Sadly Sf2 Champ was one of a few titles that really could have been a gamechanger for the system in the US market. It along with Dracula X, Gradius 2, Spriggan, Snatcher, and a few other key titles could have bumped the system up from being a distant third to a close third or even second place, from 1993 on up anyway. Hell, even just bringing over all the arcade ports released for the PCE itself would have gone a long way. Altered Beast, Golden Axe, Strider, Ghouls n Ghost etc helped the Genesis make a name for itself on the market. Stuff like Darius, Image Fight, Operation Wolf, Rastan Saga etc would have really helped the Tg16.

Even a close third would have brought in some decent profits. Fact of the matter is though that Nec of Japan did not put the same kind of effort or money into the US market as they did in the Japanese one. Other then a few tv ads they made no effort to make the system look cool and cutting edge or appealing, which is sad because really the hardware was indeed better then what Sega had released, but lacked the needed titles to show it.

The limited number of titles brought over from Japan, the infantile game box art work, and the fact they assumed they could survive off making just a few arcade hits and a couple of exclusives the US systems top tier titles for a couple of years really worked against them. It could even be said that they did not take the US market seriously. They mainly relied on Irem and Namco, and even then did not bring over all the good stuff. TTi could have even gained more of the market had they been allowed a better budget (even late in the game, something could have been done). To sell hardware you got to have the games to back it up. Being a huge underdog of the 8-bit wars, Sega of America knew this well, but Nec simply ignored it.

Sadly it played out the way it did, but it does not change the fact the system gets respect now. People who like retro gaming want the system now, but not for the same reasons people buy crap like the Jaguar or the 32X. Even with the limited amount of titles released, most of the US titles were of above average to high quality and the system is viewed in about the same favorable light as the Neo-Geo or Dreamcast with most real gamers who collect and play both wanting to own one. The games sold well on the Virtual Console even. Their quality has stood the test of time, and now people actually give it some of the credit its long deserved.

[esteban]

For folks who want to read something "new" on this topic, jump to #4 below.

Sadly Sf2 Champ was one of a few titles that really could have been a gamechanger for the system in the US market. It along with Dracula X, Gradius 2, Spriggan, Snatcher, and a few other key titles could have bumped the system up from being a distant third to a close third or even second place, from 1993 on up anyway. Hell, even just bringing over all the arcade ports released for the PCE itself would have gone a long way. Altered Beast, Golden Axe, Strider, Ghouls n Ghost etc helped the Genesis make a name for itself on the market. Stuff like Darius, Image Fight, Operation Wolf, Rastan Saga etc would have really helped the Tg16.

Even a close third would have brought in some decent profits. Fact of the matter is though that Nec of Japan did not put the same kind of effort or money into the US market as they did in the Japanese one. Other then a few tv ads they made no effort to make the system look cool and cutting edge or appealing, which is sad because really the hardware was indeed better then what Sega had released, but lacked the needed titles to show it.

The limited number of titles brought over from Japan, the infantile game box art work, and the fact they assumed they could survive off making just a few arcade hits and a couple of exclusives the US systems top tier titles for a couple of years really worked against them. It could even be said that they did not take the US market seriously. They mainly relied on Irem and Namco, and even then did not bring over all the good stuff. TTi could have even gained more of the market had they been allowed a better budget (even late in the game, something could have been done). To sell hardware you got to have the games to back it up. Being a huge underdog of the 8-bit wars, Sega of America knew this well, but Nec simply ignored it.

Sadly it played out the way it did, but it does not change the fact the system gets respect now. People who like retro gaming want the system now, but not for the same reasons people buy crap like the Jaguar or the 32X. Even with the limited amount of titles released, most of the US titles were of above average to high quality and the system is viewed in about the same favorable light as the Neo-Geo or Dreamcast with most real gamers who collect and play both wanting to own one. The games sold well on the Virtual Console even. Their quality has stood the test of time, and now people actually give it some of the credit its long deserved.

I generally agree with the overall thrust of your argument.

A few random points:

(1) The cost of national marketing campaigns in the U.S. was exponentially higher than national campaigns in Japan. It would have taken a shitload of $$$ to replicate what NEC did in Japan. Even then, Sega and Nintendo pumped tons of $$$ into North America, so NEC/TTi would always have come up short (IMHO). I fear that TG-16 might have died an earlier death if NEC had dumped millions of $$$'s into advertising that didn't generate radically improved sales (to offset the costs).

(2) Did the TG-16/PCE games sell well on Virtual Console? We'd have to see the raw sales and then compare TG-16 relative to the other offerings to get a precise idea...but I think Nintendo is the only one who sees "all the data"...

(2.5) If TG-16 Virtual Console did generate enough profit (I hope it did), then we will hopefully see it offered in future emulation services. I want more folks to learn about/play TG-16 & PCE games, and I see emulation as the most realistic means of achieving this.

(3) I don't know if the cost of localizing a massive RPG would have paid off for NEC/TTi, but I'm still fantasizing about Tengai Makyou II: Manji Maru localized for North America. Were there enough RPG fans with $$$ to make TMII a profitable venture? A system-seller? Dracula X, as you said, would have been a "system seller", I think. Especially if magazines + "word of mouth" touted how it compared to its Castlevania brethren.

(4) ROLE OF Electronic Arts in Genesis' Ascension: I don't disagree with what you said, I just think the challenges were significant and would not have been easily solved (national advertising campaigns alone would not have significantly changed NEC's fate in North America...but key third-party support early-on would have helped... but we know how Nintendo maintained its competitive advantage by keeping a short leash on its third-party publishers). Someone must have written about how important (IMO) Electronic Arts was for Sega's Genesis. I'm not simply talking sports games. I think EA's relationship with Genesis lent credibility and legitimacy to the platform. Was there another developer/publisher that could have forged a similar relationship with NEC? EA, as far as I'm aware, wasn't tied up in Nintendo's NES, and therefore "free" to flourish on the fledgling Genesis. I don't think all of EA's games are paragons of quality, but it was mutually beneficial relationship between Genesis and a publisher with a large catalog covering a breadth of genres. I can't think of a "comparable" publisher that NEC could have partnered with, but, hey! I bet some interesting things could have happened.

[DragonmasterDan]

(1) The cost of national marketing campaigns in the U.S. was exponentially higher than national campaigns in Japan. It would have taken a shitload of $$$ to replicate what NEC did in Japan. Even then, Sega and Nintendo pumped tons of $$$ into North America, so NEC/TTi would always have come up short (IMHO). I fear that TG-16 might have died an earlier death if NEC had dumped millions of $$$'s into advertising that didn't generate radically improved sales (to offset the costs).

Yes but you're missing two points, first off the US had roughly three times the population and it was far less densely distributed. Throwing more money at advertising alone wouldn't have improved the situation. Also you're looking only at the NEC era, by TTI time they had settled into catering to a niche rather than going head to head with Sega and Nintendo to put a console in every American household and no longer had the resources that were used during the NEC Home Electronics USA era.

[KnightWarrior]

Just think the Games make a System

Mortal Kombat Series
Bubsy
Samurai Shodown
Art of Fighting
Super SF2
Saturday Night Slam Masters
Many More