New Gamasutra Article - TG16 Turns 25

[MrFulci]

... What?  You'd actually consider something you have to order from the catalog as being the same thing as something the chain sells in stores?  That's crazy!  Those are not even remotely similar.  Sure, maybe they had TG16 stuff in the Sears catalog, but what mattered to me was what I could see in stores.

I'll repeat myself: my point was that it wasn't as hard to get as some make it out, where you had to live in a handful of select towns or you were out of luck.  Get that through your thick skull.

Be realistic.  If people have to buy a console by mail order, while all the other systems are available in stores, of course at least 99% of them aren't going to do it.  It's a major barrier.

You buy stuff online how is that any different? Do you only buy games at gamestop and Best buy?

Black Falcon, Maine may have had a different selection of stuff at stores, than other areas.

In the DC/MD/VA area BEST and Evans were similar to Service Merchandise, from what I understand (SM is not in that area). The catalog was like... The internet of that time? It's an OK analogy. If a game wasn't in stock at the store, you could go the catalog route. You could ask at the service desk, and if it wasn't in the catalog, a particular game title, they still may be able to get it for you.

Evans I know for sure sold the TG-16 system and game sin the store, as I bought stuff from their store.

In the past, I special ordered a few games before, without even being in a catalog. I recall doing that for NES Smash TV, which was such a disappointment over the arcade. Not long after that I got the SNES, and that game for it.

Radio Shack even had a catalog of sorts, it was bolted to a kiosk in the store, it had a few page sin there for TG-16 games, which I think they then got from TTI. I remember looking it over at one point.

Video Game Exchange had used TG-16 stuff.


Anyway, what this does remind me of, is how much of a PITA it could be to get certain stuff up until ebay, after it went OOP. I remember seeing the book, "Beavis and Butt-Head: This book sucks". I wanted it for Christmas. I was in no HUGE hurry. Later that year, I had not forgot about it, but noticed no one had picked it up for me. Turns out they had trouble finding it, it was OOP. So I took my money, and went looking for it. I was on a mission. I searched all over, used book stores, a book exchange store (Big one). It just did not turn up. I had a few places put me on their waiting list in case a used one showed up. never did, and I think I had to renew that every month.

Eventually ebay came along, and I got the book that way.

Ebay - The blessing and a curse.

[RyuHayabusa]

Great read! So many mistakes made with the Turbo. It could've been so much more successful with the right people behind it.

[jeffhlewis]

One of our local Electronics Boutiques was the only place that sold the Neo Geo at retail when I was growing up (ironically in the ghetto mall in Virginia Beach). I remember seeing the MVS for the first time at the arcade one weekend and then seeing the AES gold system and games for sale that same day at E.B.

Oh man I wanted that thing so bad, but it was unattainable on a level that nothing else can compare to these days.

We had turbo for sale pretty much everywhere though, with the exception of video rental stores. I remember Montgomery Wards having demo units and the CDROM upon release.

[dallaspattern]

Man, I straight up bought a Genesis for Mortal Kombat. That or getting SF2 on the console would've been huge.

[A Black Falcon]

... What?  You'd actually consider something you have to order from the catalog as being the same thing as something the chain sells in stores?  That's crazy!  Those are not even remotely similar.  Sure, maybe they had TG16 stuff in the Sears catalog, but what mattered to me was what I could see in stores.

I'll repeat myself: my point was that it wasn't as hard to get as some make it out, where you had to live in a handful of select towns or you were out of luck.  Get that through your thick skull.

Be realistic.  If people have to buy a console by mail order, while all the other systems are available in stores, of course at least 99% of them aren't going to do it.  It's a major barrier.

You buy stuff online how is that any different? Do you only buy games at gamestop and Best buy?

Black Falcon, Maine may have had a different selection of stuff at stores, than other areas.

In the DC/MD/VA area BEST and Evans were similar to Service Merchandise, from what I understand (SM is not in that area). The catalog was like... The internet of that time? It's an OK analogy. If a game wasn't in stock at the store, you could go the catalog route. You could ask at the service desk, and if it wasn't in the catalog, a particular game title, they still may be able to get it for you.

Evans I know for sure sold the TG-16 system and game sin the store, as I bought stuff from their store.

In the past, I special ordered a few games before, without even being in a catalog. I recall doing that for NES Smash TV, which was such a disappointment over the arcade. Not long after that I got the SNES, and that game for it.

Radio Shack even had a catalog of sorts, it was bolted to a kiosk in the store, it had a few page sin there for TG-16 games, which I think they then got from TTI. I remember looking it over at one point.

Video Game Exchange had used TG-16 stuff.


Anyway, what this does remind me of, is how much of a PITA it could be to get certain stuff up until ebay, after it went OOP. I remember seeing the book, "Beavis and Butt-Head: This book sucks". I wanted it for Christmas. I was in no HUGE hurry. Later that year, I had not forgot about it, but noticed no one had picked it up for me. Turns out they had trouble finding it, it was OOP. So I took my money, and went looking for it. I was on a mission. I searched all over, used book stores, a book exchange store (Big one). It just did not turn up. I had a few places put me on their waiting list in case a used one showed up. never did, and I think I had to renew that every month.

Eventually ebay came along, and I got the book that way.

Ebay - The blessing and a curse.

Sears and Service Merchandise both had catalogs, yeah.  And sure, you could order from them, and in a way I guess it was like a predecessor to online ordering... except it wasn't as accessible.  You'd have to order it by phone, wait for it to arrive, etc... not the same thing at all as seeing it in a store.  While there are things that could be effectively sold by catalog, games were never one of them.  Games are something people want to buy and have, not buy and then wait a week or two for, and people often buy them on impulse, based on looking at the packages.

Seriously, if catalog ordering was a successful way to sell videogames, then the TG16 wouldn't have sold only 550,000-650,000 systems in the US (since the article says 750,000 but 'one or two hundred thousand ended up sold in Brazil' at the end).  And the Neo-Geo might have been a moderate success as well.  The same could be said for the poorly-distributed Bally Professional Arcade, much earlier.  But those systems weren't successful.  If you aren't in most stores, on the shelf, few people are going to care; they're not going to go seeking them out in catalogs or specialty retailers.  And this is why NEC's failure to get their system properly distributed nationwide was such a major failing -- they gave up without even competing in huge amounts of the country, just because Sega beat them in the test market areas!  Sure, based on games they probably should have won -- the TG16 definitely had the better library through 1989, and probably 1990 too -- but they'd released too late and too hesitantly, and then gave up as soon as things didn't start out great from day one. 

So, blame it mostly on NEC, with Hudson taking some blame as well.  Don't blame the vast majority of gamers who didn't buy games from catalogs, but preferred to buy games they could actually see.  I never bought a game by catalog, and didn't even buy one online until the mid '00s.  This is something like what most people did, and it's entirely understandable.  But anyway, by the time the TG16 was relegated only to the catalogs, its failure had already been assured thanks to NEC's unwillingness to put the effort in to sell the system.

[Necromancer]

Seriously, if catalog ordering was a successful way to sell videogames, then the TG16 wouldn't have sold only 550,000-650,000 systems in the US (since the article says 750,000 but 'one or two hundred thousand ended up sold in Brazil' at the end).... So, blame it mostly on NEC, with Hudson taking some blame as well.  Don't blame the vast majority of gamers who didn't buy games from catalogs, but preferred to buy games they could actually see.

Once again, nobody is saying that catalog (or videogame store) distribution is the same as picking something up at your local K-Mart or Walmart.  The point is that the games absolutely were available nationwide and were never 'impossible to get outside of a few select markets'. 

Please continue to ignore this point and argue about some other bit of foolishness; it's in your blood.

[schweaty]

Seriously, if catalog ordering was a successful way to sell videogames, then the TG16 wouldn't have sold only 550,000-650,000 systems in the US (since the article says 750,000 but 'one or two hundred thousand ended up sold in Brazil' at the end).... So, blame it mostly on NEC, with Hudson taking some blame as well.  Don't blame the vast majority of gamers who didn't buy games from catalogs, but preferred to buy games they could actually see.

Once again, nobody is saying that catalog (or videogame store) distribution is the same as picking something up at your local K-Mart or Walmart.  The point is that the games absolutely were available nationwide and were never 'impossible to get outside of a few select markets'. 

Please continue to ignore this point and argue about some other bit of foolishness; it's in your blood.

word... if i could get a system and games in albuquerque, new mexico in 1990, they absolutely were available anywhere.

[mitsuman]

Seriously, if catalog ordering was a successful way to sell videogames, then the TG16 wouldn't have sold only 550,000-650,000 systems in the US (since the article says 750,000 but 'one or two hundred thousand ended up sold in Brazil' at the end).... So, blame it mostly on NEC, with Hudson taking some blame as well.  Don't blame the vast majority of gamers who didn't buy games from catalogs, but preferred to buy games they could actually see.

Once again, nobody is saying that catalog (or videogame store) distribution is the same as picking something up at your local K-Mart or Walmart.  The point is that the games absolutely were available nationwide and were never 'impossible to get outside of a few select markets'. 

Please continue to ignore this point and argue about some other bit of foolishness; it's in your blood.

word... if i could get a system and games in albuquerque, new mexico in 1990, they absolutely were available anywhere.

Geeze, I am in southern Indiana in a sprawling metropolis of ~250k people (  ) and I found TG16 stuff in '89 and the 90's, rather easily. Sure I ordered some stuff from Game Dude in LA, but a lot of stuff was straight from Toy'R'Us.

[DragonmasterDan]

Geeze, I am in southern Indiana in a sprawling metropolis of ~250k people (  ) and I found TG16 stuff in '89 and the 90's, rather easily. Sure I ordered some stuff from Game Dude in LA, but a lot of stuff was straight from Toy'R'Us.

Yep, if it were something like the Gamate that was sold only through mail order in the US. Then I'd say it was practically unavailable and unknown to most of the gaming population. But even then, you could still get one. The Neo-Geo was way more available for purchase than the Gamate, and the TurboGrafx was way more available than the Neo-Geo was.

[nosorrow]

I grew up in Quebec city, Canada, and I was 13 in 1990. I was also a video game nut. We only had the NES home (I adored it), but I found the Turbo qyuite appealing - much moreso than pre-Sonic Genesis.

...Anyways, back in my little French Canadian hometown, I can attest that the Turbo was readily available at Toys R Us, Compucentre and Radio Shack. I played quite a few games of Devil's Crush and Bonk on the Radio Shack display monitors while waiting for my mom who was shopping at the next store in the mall. You could even rent (!) Turbo games at the popular video store of the area. So, in my experience, the product was there, it just didn't catch on.

P.S. As a point of comparison, the Saturn + software was harder to find in 95-97 than the Turbo + games back in 90-91. This is purely anecdotal of course. Anyhow, it shows above anything how much mid 90s Sega screwed up, but that's another topic.

[KingDrool]

word... if i could get a system and games in albuquerque, new mexico in 1990, they absolutely were available anywhere.

I grew up in a small town in Central Wisconsin. 10,000 people. We had a Walmart, and that was it. The neighboring town (30 miles away) of about 50,000 had a Sears and a Radio Shack. The only reason I got Turbo games was because my stepdad was a truck driver and would go to larger cities, park his truck in the Toys R Us parking lot, and pick up games for us. Yeah, some of the library (not much of it) was available in the Sears and Radio Shack catalogs. But the notion of buying them that way never even occurred to me.

I'm not even sure what the argument is, nor am I trying to take a side, but finding TurboGrafx games in the semi-rural midwest was an absolute pain in the ass for a 14 year-old kid.

[A Black Falcon]

P.S. As a point of comparison, the Saturn + software was harder to find in 95-97 than the Turbo + games back in 90-91. This is purely anecdotal of course. Anyhow, it shows above anything how much mid 90s Sega screwed up, but that's another topic.

The Saturn sold probably 1.5 million systems in North America, about the same amount as the Sega CD had and almost triple that of what we now know the TG16 sold (550,000-650,000 in North America).  The Saturn was, in general, much easier to find than the TG16. I'm sure there was some variation from region to region, though, yeah.

Geeze, I am in southern Indiana in a sprawling metropolis of ~250k people (  ) and I found TG16 stuff in '89 and the 90's, rather easily. Sure I ordered some stuff from Game Dude in LA, but a lot of stuff was straight from Toy'R'Us.

... 250,000 people is four times larger than any city in this state!  I'd absolutely call that a pretty big city...

Seriously, if catalog ordering was a successful way to sell videogames, then the TG16 wouldn't have sold only 550,000-650,000 systems in the US (since the article says 750,000 but 'one or two hundred thousand ended up sold in Brazil' at the end).... So, blame it mostly on NEC, with Hudson taking some blame as well.  Don't blame the vast majority of gamers who didn't buy games from catalogs, but preferred to buy games they could actually see.

Once again, nobody is saying that catalog (or videogame store) distribution is the same as picking something up at your local K-Mart or Walmart.  The point is that the games absolutely were available nationwide and were never 'impossible to get outside of a few select markets'. 

Please continue to ignore this point and argue about some other bit of foolishness; it's in your blood.

I meant that in too much of the US, it was it was very difficult or even impossible to find the system in stores that weren't Toys R Us, not that it was impossible to buy anywhere.  Mail order is a completely different thing that I did not consider.  Sure, including mail order it was available anywhere.  But as I said, people very rarely bought videogames or consoles by mail order.  If you're not in many stores, sales are going to be quite low, as indeed they were.  That's what I'm saying.

[Necromancer]

Like I said, it's in your blood.  Bees gonna buzz, cows gonna moo, black falcons gonna derp.

[esteban]

Just to remind folks: the TG-16 did not fail because it was harder to find in sparsely-populated areas. I'm totally biased, I know, since I live in NYC area, but, seriously, since TG-16 failed to gain traction in larger markets, the 13.5 people in Bumblefield, USA who would have purchased TG-16 had it been available—well, those 13.5 sales would not have made a significant difference.

[Black Tiger]

I found Turbo goods in lots of towns with populations of <10,000 - 20,000.

In 16-bit discussions like this, you have to always keep in mind that Black Falcon is going by factoids he read on the internet years later. What Turbo players experienced firsthand during the lifespan of the platform is of little merit.

Like people who started saying for a while that Magical Chase was mail-order only and one of the rarest Turbo games. If the many of us who walked into the many stores selling Turbo goods at the time weren't ruining the hype with our unbelievable tall tales, MC could be hyped/gouged even further.


I haven't had time to comment properly on the Gamasutra article, but it is only really useful for people already familiar with the history of the platform. The quotes are entertaining to read, but there's lots of bs'ing, especially by Johnny Turbo and it's unfortunately all put together by someone not familiar with the system and has an agenda to portray it negatively. A stream of quotes with descriptions of who's who without the spin would have been much better and not contributed to furthering misconceptions.