Is there an accurate list of launch games (TG-16) for USA ?

[spenoza]

" As for NEC, the company started shipping products in September, beginning in the New York and L.A. markets, and while they're not releasing sales projections, the company expects that industrywide demand for 16-bit products should exceed one million units by Christmas. NEC hopes to have 20 titles on the shelves by the holidays.

NEC'S PROMOTIONAL PLANS for the second half of 1989 include the "Play Tour Challenge," in which TurboVans decked out like moving billboards tour nine major markets, allowing kids to try TurboGrafx-16 games; and "Play Tour Turbo Expos," which NEC's VP/home entertainment Ken Wirt likens to "a big rock 'n roll concert for video games," featuring free gameplay, skateboard and BMX demonstrations and live DJs. The company is said to be close to an agreement for a tie-in with a major national package goods company.

Unlike competitor Sega, NEC is betting that the future of CD-ROM technology begins now, and its TurboGrafx-CD player should be available sometime this month. In addition to its use as a CD-ROM video game player, the unit can serve as a conventional audio CD player, since it's capable of playing three- and five-inch music CDs and CD-Graphics-encoded programming. Expected retail is $399.

Despite its initial high cost, Wirt is high on CD-ROM's potential in the video game marketplace. "One of the interesting trends emerging as we head into the '90s is that games are coming out in higher megabits; those chips are expensive, and therefore games are more expensive. One economical way to deal with that is with CD-ROM, which contains 2,000 times the memory of conventional cartridges. The CD is a way to deliver increased storage."

Wirt mentions that as long as the volume for video game CDs remains low, software costs for CD-ROM-based games will have to be higher than for audio CDs because manufacturers have to amortize research and development expenses. "Ultimately, if you could sell as many copies of a video game gas you do with music CDs, pricing could be comparable," Wirt says. As to when CD-ROM might gain mass market acceptance, Wirt says that depends on "when a breakthrough game {in terms of sales} comes out and when hardware costs come down significantly"; he predicts that this could happen sometime in 1991. "

From:
 LOOKING PAST CHRISTMAS. (VIDEO GAMES) (INCLUDES RELATED ARTICLE ON NINTENDO'S PLANS FOR 1990)
By James K. Willcox
2593 words
1 October 1989
Consumer Electronics
CNEL
48
English
Copyright International Thomson Business Press 1989


Still no titles. I've seen mention a few times of 8 launch titles, but no newspaper source is willing to verify those titles.

[Necromancer]

This stuff sounds like 'proof of weapons of mass destruction'. 

I'm not saying the six launch titles are wrong, but an article and review saying what was available weeks after the release date doesn't prove a dang thing.  It's still better numbers than what we're ever gonna have for the Turbob, though, and an educated guess is better than nothing.

[spenoza]

So, after reviewing a few articles, the only launch titles confirmed by various news articles are KC (duh), China Warrior, World Class Baseball, and Blazing Lazers. I could not find mention of any other titles by name to confirm their launch release status.

[esteban]

...

I still want to know the actual launch list. So, I'll continue to try to research this, and come up with the most accurate list possible.

Is this a life or death matter ? Of course not...

Is it that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things ?  absolutely not


It's just something I want to know.

I was a very early adopter of the TG-16, and I want to retrace my original journey with the TG-16. I bought certain games in a specific order, and if I could find a reasonably accurate chronological list, it would help me determine what order I specifically played the games in. I'm pretty sure I bought my TG-16 in December of 1989, and I'm pretty sure the only game I bought with the machine was World Class Baseball. I only had World Class Baseball and Keith Courage in Alpha Zones for a few weeks, and then I think I went back to Toys R Us and picked up Legendary Axe and Dungeon Explorer.

Comrade, many of us have wanted an accurate list of release dates, but we have struggled just to determine the *year* certain games were released.

I have an old thread ("Sloppy Release Dates for North America") that can help. UPDATE:

http://www.pcenginefx.com/forums/index.php?topic=12918.msg254090#msg254090

(You'll note that I defer to DragonMasterDan because he is a fellow stickler for precision and details. He doesn't carelessly compile lists. Over the years, using his lists as a reference has suggested, to me at least, that most of the games are accurate. Many are still debatable, of course.)




Otherwise, all we have is our collective memory form first-hand experiences.

I *absolutely* purchased TG-16 in December of 1989. Probably a day or two after Christmas. My brothers and I pooled all of our birthday + holiday money.

We *absolutely* purchased:
(Toys-R-Us, Totowa, NJ):

* Legendary Axe
* Vigilante
* Blazing Lazers
* China Warrior



Other games that Toys-R-Us had cards for (does not guarantee they were in stock):

Deep Blue?
Dungeon Explorer?
World Class Baseball?
R-Type?

This is where my memory blurs and I can't say for certain. This sucks, because my brothers and I talked about this in the mid-/late-90's, and at that time, we remembered a lot of the games that we decided NOT to get in the first batch.

[jelloslug]

One thing that I have noticed is that the earlier orange label games have a slightly different box than the later orange label games.  With that knowledge someone with all the orange label boxes could at least narrow it down a bit.

[BigusSchmuck]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_game_console_launch_games#NEC_PC_Engine.2FTurboGrafx-16.2FTurboGrafx

[esteban]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_game_console_launch_games#NEC_PC_Engine.2FTurboGrafx-16.2FTurboGrafx

The problem with this list is that it might simply have used the old TG-16 pamphlets as a source, which listed these games. However, as many have already stated, there is a difference between *intensions* and *actual availability*.

For example, Deep Blue should be on that list of launch titles.

[spenoza]

A couple different articles referred to there being 8 launch titles. In addition to the pack-in, that's 9 titles. One even mentioned that additional games would be released on a week leading up to Christmas. No idea how well that panned out, however. And since one article lists shipments beginning in September and another consoles being on store shelves beginning of October, where does the one-a-week release period even begin?

That said, I imagine if you were in NY or LA and went into a store the first week of October, chances are if they had the system, they probably had 8 additional titles to choose from.

I, too, am relatively certain the Wikipedia article is incorrect, because World Class Baseball was mentioned in more than one article. It was apparently being shown prior to the market release of the system.

[Anthony1]

This stuff sounds like 'proof of weapons of mass destruction'. 

I'm not saying the six launch titles are wrong, but an article and review saying what was available weeks after the release date doesn't prove a dang thing.  It's still better numbers than what we're ever gonna have for the Turbob, though, and an educated guess is better than nothing.

I think the Usenet post is particularly convincing evidence. The guy bought a Sega Genesis, and was giving his thoughts on every available game. He said there were 5 individually released games, and the pack-in, Altered Beast.  The date of his post is August 29th, 1989. That can't be faked. That was the day he posted it. If you read the entire thing he wrote, it's pretty obvious that this dude is incredibly thorough. He knows his shizz, if you know what I'm sayin...

Also, there is other corroborating evidence that also goes along with it.

In fact, we know for certain that the 7th Genesis game released was Ghouls and Ghosts. We don't know for sure what the 8th game released is, but we definitely know the 7th, and we know the first 6.


I still feel like usenet is some of the best evidence possible, because it's time stamped, and usually the posts are by hardcore fans of videogaming (from that time period), who try to really keep up on things. These are the guys that are calling Babbages and Software ETC every day to find out if such n such game just arrived.

(Sure, there is plenty of mis-information on usenet as well (console wars were very real back then), but if you read enough posts, you can pretty easily know which information carries weight, and which info is suspect at best)

[Necromancer]

The date of his post is August 29th, 1989. That can't be faked. That was the day he posted it.

That's two weeks after launch, meaning it's possible (though not likely) that at least one of those games could have came out a week after launch.

[DragonmasterDan]

The date of his post is August 29th, 1989. That can't be faked. That was the day he posted it.

That's two weeks after launch, meaning it's possible (though not likely) that at least one of those games could have came out a week after launch.

Or even two weeks later.

[Jibbajaba]

The date of his post is August 29th, 1989. That can't be faked. That was the day he posted it.

That's two weeks after launch, meaning it's possible (though not likely) that at least one of those games could have came out a week after launch.

Well, he did say that he'd been playing the games for 6 days when he wrote that.  But it is certainly possible that one or more of those games wasn't available until later in the week (although I doubt it.)

I've been working on this with Anthony for a while now, and while you guys can certainly try to poke holes in the Genesis launch line up that we (mostly he) came up with, the bottom line is that there is enough supporting evidence for it that we can at least say that it is probably an accurate launch line-up, and that there certainly doesn't seem to be any contrary evidence out there to suggest anything different.

This thread is supposed to be about the Turbo's launch line-up.  I think what we would like would be to come up with a list of games that we can, though the possession of at least some supporting evidence, feel similarly confident about.  A lot of you are just being dismissive and saying "it can't be done" or "your Genesis line up is wrong" and it just isn't helpful.  If nothing else, this is at least something interesting to talk about...

[Gentlegamer]

I started a thread asking about release dates last summer and found that it seems like an impossible task at this point in time.

Newspapers seem to be dismissed, but surely something like sales flyers would be a good way to find the ballpark time frame a game was available at retail.

[Jibbajaba]

I started a thread asking about release dates last summer and found that it seems like an impossible task at this point in time.

Newspapers seem to be dismissed, but surely something like sales flyers would be a good way to find the ballpark time frame a game was available at retail.

Right.  Newspaper articles, sales fliers, usenet posts, and the memories of people who were a little bit older when the system came out (if they bought it at launch) can all be used to piece together a list that at least has some citable sources.  The lists of launch games I see on Wikipedia seem largely pulled out of someone's backside.

[Necromancer]

So you two are pulling an aycehole and want the forum to do your research for you? 

The July '89 issue of VG&CE says that at least ten titles were planned and listed Alien Crush, JJ & Jeff, Legendary Axe, Power Golf, World Class Baseball, R-Type, Victory Run, and Vigilante as those confirmed for launch.  With Keith Courage, that makes nine and it shall for here on out be considered fact because it was printed in an infallible gaming magazine.