How did you find out about the Turbo Grafx 16 PC Engine.

[esteban]

Turbo Zone (Retail Island Mall Store) at Serramonte Shopping Center, Daly City, CA.

Circa 1990-1991. 

I wish there was visual record (pictures, tapes) of this legendary Turbo Zone physical store. (not that I'm doubting anything btw, but it would be cool to see how they operated in the mall, their marketing of the turbo products, etc.)

Agreed! I didn't even know of its existence until recently.

[MotherGunner]

Turbo Zone (Retail Island Mall Store) at Serramonte Shopping Center, Daly City, CA.

Circa 1990-1991. 

I wish there was visual record (pictures, tapes) of this legendary Turbo Zone physical store. (not that I'm doubting anything btw, but it would be cool to see how they operated in the mall, their marketing of the turbo products, etc.)

Agreed! I didn't even know of its existence until recently.

Yeah, I am terribly sorry I didn't bring it up before as I thought this was common knowledge, but it was at Turbo Zone that I purchased my systems.  (TG-16 and Turbo Express along with a copy of Chase H.Q.).  When the physical stores folded, they sent all of the inventory to what became known as Turbo Zone "Direct" or the old www.tzd.com.   I have contacted Serramonte Shopping Center in hopes that they have records of the store (hopefully including pictures).  Any information that I find, I will share.  =)

[Keith Courage]

The first I heard about it was on some nickelodeon TV show. They were giving one away to whichever team was first place on some game show. After that I remember seeing Vigilante and Keith Courage on display at Montgomery Wards Electric avenue.

I wasn't entirely sold on the system until my dad and I saw a Turbografx+CD attachment for sale for a good price at our local pawn shop. I think it was $315 for the system, CD attachment, CD carrying case, Fighting street, Ys1 &2, Monster Lair, and Keith Courage.

From then on I was a TG fan boy and never second guessed my decision. I want to say a year later all the local rental stores in my area were selling off all of the TG16 games for only $5 a piece. My dad went and picked up a copy of every game for me and then gave me one every time I got an A on a test in school.

[GohanX]

That's really awesome Keith!

[Punch]

Yeah I can imagine anyone having Ys I+II on their 1st day with the turbo to become a fanboy. Awesome story.

[Tatsujin]

So did anyone of you already knew about the PCE before the TG was even advertised?

[roflmao]

So did anyone of you already knew about the PCE before the TG was even advertised?

Nope.

I remember seeing ads for the TG-16 in comic books, on TV, and in game magazines, but it wasn't until a friend of mine brought his TG-16 over and showed me R-Type that I knew I had to get one.  I had SMS R-Type (which I still love) but that 1st level music...  I'd never heard anything like it. And the bigger, more detailed sprites.  It was love at first sight.

[Black Tiger]

So did anyone of you already knew about the PCE before the TG was even advertised?

Console game magazines in North America started up pretty much at the time that 16-bit systems were announced. So we heard about the PCE at the same time. I believe that there were some PCE import reviews in at least GamePro before any officially for TG-16. Games which stayed imports too (Shinobi, Kyoukyu Tiger?).

[awack]

I lived in Durham NC during the 16bit era, I'm pretty sure it was a commercial that brought the turbo grafx 16 to my attention, i of course bought it that Christmas, i should point out that i had already knew about and bought the sega genesis a whole year prior, i remember seeing commercials all the time for the Genesis, but nothing for the turbo, that system really had no chance of succeeding in the US,  it was doomed from the beginning.

[esteban]

So did anyone of you already knew about the PCE before the TG was even advertised?

I didn't, since I wasn't following the magazines and the entire 16-bit era just jumped out of nowhere (for me). My friends had been mentioning some stuff, but I had no reference points (I.e. I hadn't seen pictures of consoles, or screenshots from games). 

Plus, I was happy as hell playing NES. 

[majors]

I lived in Durham NC during the 16bit era

So Mark at Buy-rite was your dealer? So much wrong there, but so many good stories too!

So did anyone of you already knew about the PCE before the TG was even advertised?

I think my first knowledge of PCE was from the March 1990 Gamefan with the Shuttle/SGX/Core spread.

[jelloslug]

So did anyone of you already knew about the PCE before the TG was even advertised?

There were some rumblings about it in the gaming magazines in very early '89. At least in the US though there were not really any gaming magazines before very late '88 so getting info was hard to do.

[jelloslug]

So did anyone of you already knew about the PCE before the TG was even advertised?

Nope.

I remember seeing ads for the TG-16 in comic books, on TV, and in game magazines, but it wasn't until a friend of mine brought his TG-16 over and showed me R-Type that I knew I had to get one.  I had SMS R-Type (which I still love) but that 1st level music...  I'd never heard anything like it. And the bigger, more detailed sprites.  It was love at first sight.

The first time I actually played a TG-16 was in the speaker demo room in the electronics department of Brendle's (a regional department store).  They were a big NEC electronics seller and they had a TG-16 with R-Type in it set up on an NEC bigscreen TV. 

[SmaMan]

That reminds me there's actually an NEC distributor store not far from my house. They probably don't, but wouldn't it be awesome if they had some back room that you had to ask for by name where all the PCE stuff was? 

[Necromancer]

That reminds me there's actually an NEC distributor store not far from my house. They probably don't, but wouldn't it be awesome if they had some back room that you had to ask for by name where all the PCE stuff was? 

OBEY pr0n behind the beaded curtain.