Were CDs Cheap to Press in the 90s?

[Black Tiger]

The Bay carried Turbo stuff. Zellers probably did also.

[MrFlutterPie]

I'm from Canada and I only ever remember Radio Shack selling Turbo stuff.  The ones near me always had a demo unit outside with either Bonk or Kieth Courage.  I talked to a guy recently and he said they had a very limited selection sold at Zellers.  He said they had two racks in the case with several different games per rack.

[xelement5x]

It might have been more expensive back then than it is today, but I still believe that it was still much cheaper than producing HuCards/Turbochips.

Yeah, I remember reading one time where Victor Ireland was talking about how with their first 2 games they were hit bad on the cost for Parasol Stars, but Cadash did super well so it balanced out.  Since the CD games were much cheaper to make, it was much better for them to do other games in that format so they weren't at so much risk.

[DragonmasterDan]

Yeah, I remember reading one time where Victor Ireland was talking about how with their first 2 games they were hit bad on the cost for Parasol Stars, but Cadash did super well so it balanced out.  Since the CD games were much cheaper to make, it was much better for them to do other games in that format so they weren't at so much risk.

Yep, I think in one of those podcast interviews he did promoting the Class of Heroes 2 kickstarted he mentioned the roughly 5.00 manufacturing costs on Sega CDs being the reason that was the next format they moved to. While that doesn't include licensing fees and such, it was less than half of what it would have cost to any cartridge based game.

[SeymorOnion]

The question then is how much did it cost to program a game, create packaging, etc?

If it cost tens of thousands of dollars, why even press the game at all if you are going to make less than 3,000 copies?  Wouldn't you be doomed to fail right at the start, because the production run wouldn't be able to turn a profit?

Seems like business 101 is to not advance with a project that cannot make money.

Bold mine.
Now I know what caused my sneezing fit, earlier this morning... 

As of 11:59pm on December 31'st, 2012
# of HuCARD Sleeves Made: 30,825 (by me)
# of HuCARD Sleeves Sold: 5,815 (by itself, this is a good number) 
# of HuCard Sleeves Remaining: 25,010 

Even so, I have no regrets.

[TheClash603]

I guess the Dungeon Explorer II comment puts things in perspective, since the capability was there to press additional games if needed.  As the need for a second pressing only came up once, the low print runs make sense.

I suppose you could've done a chop shop operation and quickly sent out regionalized copies of JP games for dirt cheap as well, I guess my cost estimates were high.  Change on a lot of these games amounted to less than 100 lines of text.

It seems the real issue was the distribution of games and reluctance of stores to carry TG16.  Too bad TG16 didn't get stronger support from the big box retailers.  This would've meant the minimum pressings would've been higher and games would be easier to get today.

[Duo_R]

We had an electronic retailer called Good Guys selling Turbo stuff in California. That is where I bought my Turbo Duo and Turbo Express. Toys R Us had a good amount of stuff. i didn't get a whole lot from EB games but they had some stuff I recall buying several late release Swga CD games from there pretty good deals.

[DragonmasterDan]

It seems the real issue was the distribution of games and reluctance of stores to carry TG16.  Too bad TG16 didn't get stronger support from the big box retailers.  This would've meant the minimum pressings would've been higher and games would be easier to get today.

When 3DO and Jaguar hit in late 1993, that meant TurboGrafx stuff got taken out of the plan-o-gram in a lot of stores (if they hadn't cleared it out earlier).

[vestcoat]

'93-94 was such an exciting time: SO many different systems and companies, constant new technology, and the golden age of bargain bins.

[FiftyQuid]

It seems the real issue was the distribution of games and reluctance of stores to carry TG16.  Too bad TG16 didn't get stronger support from the big box retailers.  This would've meant the minimum pressings would've been higher and games would be easier to get today.

Not to mention it was a real pain in the ass trying to get a CD-ROM inserted into a Turbo Express.  

Like Flutterpie stated, in Canada, Turbo might have been selling in places other than Radio Shack, but those other places were few and far between up here.  I live in the Capital of Canada and I don't remember having a Toys R Us or Electronic Boutiques around here during the 90's.  We have plenty of them now, just not then.  At least not where I grew up.

[SignOfZeta]

'93-94 was such an exciting time: SO many different systems and companies, constant new technology, and the golden age of bargain bins.

If you ask me, the golden age of bargain bins is now.

[TheClash603]

'93-94 was such an exciting time: SO many different systems and companies, constant new technology, and the golden age of bargain bins.

If you ask me, the golden age of bargain bins is now.

I honestly don't thing Xbox and PS2 games will ever be worth anything though, so the current bargain bins are likely evergreen.

[SignOfZeta]

'93-94 was such an exciting time: SO many different systems and companies, constant new technology, and the golden age of bargain bins.

If you ask me, the golden age of bargain bins is now.

I honestly don't thing Xbox and PS2 games will ever be worth anything though, so the current bargain bins are likely evergreen.

You'd be forgiven for thinking that but...Gamecube is blowing up right now and there are very few "rare" games for it. There are quite a few fan-ish PS2 games. While %99 of the library will turf out at $1 and stay there forever, there a will be about 50 games that will probably be $80-150 in 5 years.

[DragonmasterDan]

I honestly don't thing Xbox and PS2 games will ever be worth anything though, so the current bargain bins are likely evergreen.

PSP, Wii and DS games are in the bargain bin right now, and won't stay there forever.

[mac]

Far as getting Turbo stuff here in Ky you had 2 options in 1989, order through Sears or make the drive to Toy's R Us in Louisville (90 miles). They had tons of stuff at launch and really until late 90 or 91 was the only place to pick stuff up. Many fond memories of few of us guys driving up there to pick up a new title or 2

Sadly also remember the Duo's last days as I picked up Parasol Stars, Night Creatures, New Adventure Island for 10.00 bucks each