Rerelease of the Turbo Duo...

[malducci]

The reason for the 16 bit cpu is because they had trouble with the 8 bit cpu in the Supergrafx because it couldn't take all of the advanced graphics. That's all. It's as simple as that.

 That rumor is really annoying (not directed at you, though). That misunderstanding came from the fact that the SGX was supposed to get a CPU upgrade as well as a graphics upgrade - the gripe was that it didn't get the CPU upgrade, not that the CPU was too slow to handle the extra graphics.

 Trust me, out of the 120,000 cycles the CPU has in 0.01667 of a second(1 frame), I'm sure it can spare 30 cycles to update the additional background layer's position (i.e. multi-plane parallax scrolls). Actually, with the second video display processor having an added 64k of vram, you remove a lot of the overhead of dynamic tile/bat updating on the secondary scroll/sprites.

 As far as 16bit CPUs being faster than 8bit CPUs: the Genesis 16bit(internally 32 bit!) 68000 @7.5mhz clocks in at 1.14 MIPS( million instructions per second) while the PCE 8bit HuC6280 @ 7.16mhz clocks in @ 1.4 MIPS.

 If anything the SNES was under powered in the CPU department.

[DragonmasterDan]

Am I the only one who remembers the majesco genesis 3 and game gear?
 :

The Game Gear 2 and Saturn 2 were never released on the Market. Masjesco had the rights to release both of those and made mock ups but never released them to the market in the late 90s. I was actually really looking forward to the Saturn 2 since I uhhh... collect Saturns...

The Genesis 3 did moderately well for its price though it had problems with some games.

[Buster D]

There's already a Mega Drive/Genesis clone out in Asia and in specialty stores in Japan.  It's conceivable that a PC Engine clone will surface eventually, but making it capable of playing CD games as well as HuCards/TurboChips would make it considerably more expensive to manufacture than the clones of the other systems, which just play cartridges.  Plus the PC Engine wasn't very popular outside of Japan, so that would limit a clone's potential market share.  

It'd be nice, though.  Perhaps some small Japanese company will attempt it someday, they could probably make enough money if it was targeted at the Japanese market.

[FM-77]

Consider this: the Turbo Grafx was a flop when it was new (less than five million units sold)--imagine it being released today. They'd probably sell something like ten units. All to members of this site.

[takashirose]

Look how many Flashback Atari units they have sold.  Of course everyone recognizes the the Atari name, but still if NEC would reintroduce the TurboGrafx/PC-Engine it would be nice for the people who don't have them, and TZD would have more business.  This is not a new system.  Just something that everyone could afford.  CD drives aren't that expensive nowadays because everyone is using DVDs and Bluray.  SInce there is practically no new R&D for a re-release it would only cost them for the marketing.  This is something simple.  The same thing goes with Sega.  They should look into re-releasing a system before they want to make a new system like the Dreamcast and Saturn for example.  If that proves successful Sega could allow backwards compatability on those systems that people bought, which would give them a reson to buy it.  It's kind of like a Trojan horse.

[takashirose]

I meant backwards compatablity on a new system that is not a re-release.

[grahf]

There are already PC Engine clones out there, so i think we may see a cd-capable clone eventually.  
Now if NEC/Hudson were to rerelease a system, they would do well to make it web-only. There would me hardly any overhead that way. Save manufacturing costs, it would be hard for them to lose money on it. How well it would sell is a matter for debate. Im sure all the major game sites would cover the hell out of it, but it would never be a huge seller.

[takashirose]

I personally don't like clones because they are not of high quality.  And because it is not from the original people.  If it breaks people would say that the turbo sucks even though it is not made by NEC, but this clone maker.

[FM-77]

Has anyone ever seen a cd-based clone?    None of the old cd systems were successful, so I doubt anybody would make one. The only clones out there are of successful systems that are cheap to pirate (FC, MD, etc).

[DragonmasterDan]

Consider this: the Turbo Grafx was a flop when it was new (less than five million units sold)--imagine it being released today. They'd probably sell something like ten units. All to members of this site.

I'm not sure that 5 million units sold is a "flop" considering the gaming industry at the time. Yes in North America the platform came in third place but the term flop is a bit overboard. Systems like 3DO, Jaguar, Game.Com, and N-Gage were flops. The TurboGrafx had market recognition and stayed around for a while. That's hardly a flop

[takashirose]

A flop to me is a system with no good games.  Though the PS 1,2, and 3 will have good games they somehow are not like TurboGrafx, sega saturn, and Dreamcast.  Do you guys know what I mean?

[T2KFreeker]

A flop to me is a system with no good games.  Though the PS 1,2, and 3 will have good games they somehow are not like TurboGrafx, sega saturn, and Dreamcast.  Do you guys know what I mean?

I agree, as it bugs me that people try and use the word "Flop" in a very general. Example, the Jaguar has a HUGE cult following right now and a heavy home brew community. It may have flopped when it was commercially released, but it is bigger now than it ever was. The 3DO, on the other hand, is about as dead as it can get, so it can sit in that cattegory, does this make sense?

[takashirose]

I want to get a Jaguar, but I'm not saying it's along the lines of the TurboGrafx/PC-Engine  regarding game quality.  Though who can argue about Raiden and ALien vs. Predator, and Rayman and Bubsy.  There were some good games.

[DragonmasterDan]

I want to get a Jaguar, but I'm not saying it's along the lines of the TurboGrafx/PC-Engine  regarding game quality.  Though who can argue about Raiden and ALien vs. Predator, and Rayman and Bubsy.  There were some good games.

Yeah there's some decent stuff, the original tempest 2000 is still great ( I own Tempest 3000 but not a Nuon to play it on). I have the CD add on as well but unfortunately I don't have any particularly fun games for it.

[MottZilla]

I would love to see NEC/Hudson do some kind of limited reproduction all via the internet. I would totally buy a SGX/DUO/ACD hybrid system and I'm sure many others would too. Obviously the only way to do it, is via the internet in a limited production run because there is not a chance in hell that it would work through normal retail stores.

But I think for people like us and other retro gamers a hybrid system that is brand new freshly manufactured would certainly appeal to us. Then perhaps do some reprints of some titles. Certainly in limited numbers and via the internet it wouldn't be a loss.

Then who knows, maybe some retrogamers that are also into homebrew development could actually put out new games. But I don't think anyone's foolish enough to think you could put this in stores like Best Buy. The general consumer can't appreciate such things. They just buy what MTV or someone else tells them.

Anyway, as silly as it seems, I would buy a SGX/DUO/ACD hybrid, and I'd love to see versions of games of that time developed for it. Perhaps a Mortal Kombat (1992/1993, not MK2) SGX & ACD port. The added graphics capability of SGX plus the memory of the ACD and storage/audio of the CD. That sounds like a nice potential port to me. Even though it does seem silly considering I have a Mortal Kombat arcade PCB board about 3 feet from me right now. But hey, I'm a retrogamer and it's fun to dream right?