How you discovered the turbo grafx

[Lost Monkey]

I originally saw a display at Radio Shack (and A&A Records) in Halifax, but I was a poor student.  All I had at the time was a 2600 and a bunch of games.

A couple years later, ( I am thinking fall of 1993 - EDIT - I just found the receipt - June of 1994) I bought one at Radio Shack in the Dufferin Mall in Toronto.  Bonk's Revenge and Galaga 90 came a short while later.


I still have it...







Geez, the protective plastic is still on the nameplate...

The receipt:



The truth is, yes, that is my original TG16 that I purchased in 1994, but, a short time later, I bought another TG with a bunch of games for $100 and have been using that one as a player ever since.

[Bernie]

My dad got one for Christmas one year.  I want to say it was 1987 or 1988. 

[_joshuaTurbo]

I just started getting really interested in Turbo from reading about it in Mags.  It was usually about 5% of each mag dedicated to these titles that I've never seen at friends houses or rental shoppes.  So I started to really wonder what it was all about.  When it came time for me to actually purchase a Turbo, I owned a SNES, NES, Colico Vision, and a Tandy CoCo.  I never actually played Turbo before I purchased one......

Sorry if I just post the same story every time a thread like this pops up

I had gotten my two first ever paychecks in the summer of '94.  (I worked the summer sheering pine/ xmas trees making around 110-150 a week)  I had just over $200 on me and my goal was to walk into a local (next town over) game shoppe and pick up an Atari Lynx along with some games.  (I saw an ad in the paper for a Lynx + one free game for $50) So I was totally stoked to get the Lynx.

When I got there, I quickly grabbed a new Lynx ticket and started to pick out which games I wanted.  I had about $100 worth of goodies.  When I went over to the register to pay I saw a Turbografx under the glass display with a TON of turbochips.  The Turbo was $39.99 and games were around $3.99-$15.  So I started gobbling that up too!!  I got to the point where I had pretty much spent EVERY penny on Turbo and Lynx stufff.  So then, finally I got back to the register and was prepared to make my purchase.  The girl behind the counter said, "Wow we're getting alot today!"  And I responded- yes, now I just need to get the CD unit to play the CD games.  Then a guy behind the other register said "Hey we have a CD unit that just came in."  I was like.... O_O!!

He goes to the back and pulls out a Turbo Duo in box with Ys I&II, Gates 4in1, and Ninja Spirit.  He said, "Some guy just sold out his whole Turbo collection."  He told me that for the $200 I had in hand, I could get the Turbo Duo and all the games I had picked out (12 total) but I wasn't able to get the Lynx...

Needless to say, that Lynx found it's way back to the shelf and I went home with a HEFTY Turbo LOT and never really stopped playing. 
I can't remember EXACTLY the lot I had but I think it was [Duo w/ one controller all hookups. Ys I&I, Gates 4in1, Keith Courage, Ninja Spirit, Sonic Spike(Had no ideas what this was, thought maybe it was a Sonic game...lol), ShockMan, Legendary Axe, and possibly a few others...]

PS:  I also went back later in the summer to snag that Lynx deal.

[majors]

Manager at Babbages told me he knew a guy that won a contest with a TG-16, booster, stick, extra pad, tap and 5 games that wanted to sell. At the time, the retail was $300(I seem to remember) for everything but the seller would take $150 for the lot. I think it was 1990 (because I got my CD in '91). Games where Blazing, World Class Baseball, Bonk, Alien and Legendary.

I was a Genny owner since it dropped to $190 w/ Altered. Seeing that wall of games at Toys R Us that I could not play made me want to get a TG.

[esteban]

I first saw TURBOPOWER in Autumn 1989...a commercial during G.I. Joe re-runs in early afternoon after getting home from school (3:30-4:00?) on WPIX (Channel 11 in NYC). The next day, my brothers and I made sure to RECORD G.I. Joe (so we could re-watch commercial in slow motion). Soon thereafter we went to Toys'R'Us and played Blazing Lazers at kiosk.

While I cant exactly remember the very first time I spotted TG-16, I remember most of my early exposure cam from early morning TV ads and also what was shown on Video Power.

Heck yes. VIDEO POWER. I wrote about that show in the past (before the magic of YouTube) to describe it to people. WWOR (Channel 9 in NYC) aired that show early in the morning. The cartoon segment SUCKED, but I loved to see footage of actual gameplay during the other segments. Occasionally they featured a TG-16 game.

[Obfuscate]

One of my best buddies had one bitd and I use to play his and was like whoa!, this is way cooler than the NES and SMS that we had. When my parents said I could get a new system for Christmas was when the TurboDuo was first released in 92' and I got that. Best system ever, played it through about 96' and put it in a box not to rediscover the magic till 2009 when I stumbled across my old copy of Final Lap Twin. I busted out all my old stuff and now am hooked again buying, playing, collecting, and checking out sites like this one!

[Necromancer]

I think my initial first hand exposure to the Turbob was from Montgomery Wards and Service Merchandise and Babbages a little later on.

[Keith Courage]

Same here, I got to play it for the first time at Montgomery Wards Electric Avenue. They had Vigilante on display. They also had a Genesis on display as well but it never held my attention. I have no clue why. Then a few months later my dad bought me a complete CD setup. The local pawn shop had a TG16 system with the CD add on, Ys1&2, Monster Lair, Fighting street, and of course Keith Courage.

[ProfessorProfessorson]

Same here, I got to play it for the first time at Montgomery Wards Electric Avenue. They had Vigilante on display. They also had a Genesis on display as well but it never held my attention. I have no clue why.

Because it didn't have Vigilante.

[CPTRAVE]

I was at home watching cartoons, and saw the commercial of the TG-16 Supersystem. I just had to have it.

[Tatsujin]

From german game mags. They covered the pce right after its release. And... i fell in love, because it had
R-Type in ARCADE quality. Nobody could beat that for years.

[BigusSchmuck]

My first exposure was playing one at Toys R Us. I'm willing to bet there are other people here who probably had a similar experience. Anyway, I didn't get my Duo until late 94ish and got Ys books 1 and 2 for it after reading EGM's review that the best game ever just happened. Been playing my Duo ever since.

[esteban]

RANDOM MEMORY: In 1989, when I got my first TURBO, Toys-R-Us was still selling some Atari 2600 cartridges! No joke.

You may continue...

[arex]

Greetings!  First time poster here. 

I can't remember if my first exposure to the TG-16 was the commercials or one of the gaming mags.  All I remember is seeing the super colorful graphics in Bonk and I was sold.

Although I used to get into frequent fanboy debates back in the day on the Prodigy Network (pre-internet as we know it) as to why the TurboGrafx was superior in every way to the Genesis, I'm really fan of pretty much all video games.  Growing up, I was fortunate enough (thanks, Mom & Dad!) to have been able to own multiple competing systems from each generation--NES, SMS, TG16, GameBoy, TurboExpress, Lynx, SNES, Genesis/Sega CD, Neo Geo, 3DO, N64, PlayStation, PS2, GameCube, GBA, Wii, PS3, XBox 360.  However, to this day, the Turbo remains my favorite system, with the most fond memories. 

I couldn't get enough multiplayer matches of Bomberman '93, Dungeon Explorer, Battle Royale and even MotoRoader.  And the day I brought home a Turbo CD and powered up Ys Book I & II...being wowed by the CD-audio and animation of the game's intro may be my number one fondest video game memory.

I was such a turbo fan(atic) that even though I already had a TurboGrafx w/ CD, I traded my Neo Geo with its small collection of games for a TurboDuo.

[RyuHayabusa]

I had seen the TG-16 commercials and lots of pics in EGM, Gamepro, VG&CE and was kinda interested. Then one day I walked into a Red Giraffe Video that was selling all their TG-16 stock dirt cheap. All their consoles were $10 a pop and games were $2 or $3 each. This was back around 1993. I picked up 2 consoles and a boat load of games, Splatterhouse, Legendary Axe, Bonk, Vigilante, Alien Crush, Bloody Wolf, Blazing Lazers, Keith Courage, etc. It was the deal of a lifetime. Keep in mind that the consoles didn't come with the boxes nor did the games, only their jewel cases but still a great deal. Ended selling one console years ago but I still have the other hooked up right now. Would've been nice if they had some Turbo CDs for dirt cheap prices, that would've been heaven.