Pc engine on par technically with snes / genesis ?

[Joe Redifer]

Ever-so-slightly off topic:  One thing I like about both the Genesis and the SNES (first model at least) is the native RGB output.  This goes a long way to get rid of the "blah" look on the Genesis (because its composite sucks).  Unfortunately the TurboGrafx is stuck with some very bad composite as well.  It shimmers as it scrolls, flickers even on still screen due to the way composite works, etc.  It does look fairly sharp, however.  I just wish the Turbo supported RGB without requiring me to open up the unit and solder a whole bunch of stuff and build a video-processing amp to make the levels acceptable.  The Turbo with RGB (converted to component in my case)  looks awesome, no more shimmering or color banding.  It's worth the hell you must go through.

[malducci]

The Sega/Mega CD was a flop. The scaling and rotation looked very pixelated. The should have invested that money into an palette upgrade instead - especially since they were going for FMV.

I will have to dispute the FM chip as being a strength - I find FM sound unbearable.  I think the PCE is far superior to the Genesis in terms of audio simply because I think it sounds better.  But does that mean it actually is more powerful?

Hehe, I figured this might step on some toes. I figured from a technical standpoint - FM is superior to PCE equivalent PSG, even though one might still perfer PCE PSG over the Genesis' FM chip. For me it's a mixed bag - there are some great MD games with awesome FM music and there are some really nasty sound games as well. I do think the Genesis has horrible PSG/white noise effects. I lot of MD games used FM sound channels for game effect because they were much clearer

I rank PCE above all simply because of the CD unit and arcade card.  You can claim more power when you have more memory and storage space to work with

The Genesis just gives you a "dull" feeling all around because of it's color pushing limitations and awful FM Sound.

 I think the SCD and arcade card both were excellent upgrades for the PCE that helped a show its potential. I personally love some of the PSG+"adpcm drumkit" non-CD musics (Fiend Hunter) too. When it comes to PCE SCD/AC vs Genesis/MD - the only thing MD has on the PCE CD system is the extra scrolling background layer. Oh SGX, why were you shown no CD love?

[merriman_bk]

Yah that's another thing I loved about the PCE, it's the only one I can think of (or at least care about) that was able to keep upgrading just via things like cards with a different bios (of a sort) and more ram.  I mean wouldn't it be awesome if modern systems were the same way?

[Joe Redifer]

The Sega/Mega CD was a flop. The scaling and rotation looked very pixelated.

I'm not disagreeing with either of those points, but the SNES was really blocky when it scaled and rotated as well.  I think it was even blockier than the Sega CD.  And the SNES had a transition (used a lot in Mario World) that consisted of nothing BUT blockiness, no actual scaling involved.  However I always thought the scaling in the driving portions of Batman Returns and Soul Star were extremely good for their time.  I never saw anything like that on the Neo Geo.  Too bad so few developers could find their way to the scaling chip of the Mega/Sega CD, and the developers in Japan who found it didn't figure out how to use it very well  (Night Striker, anyone?).

[SignOfZeta]

But if the Sega CD could do a really good job of Dracula X, then why did the Lords of Thunder port not come out as good as the Duo version?

LOT on Sega CD is fine except for the lack of color. Drac X doesn't really have much color to it in the first place. If they wanted to make a ver. of Drac X with everything but the color being perfect, they could have done it.

As with any port that is released not too long after the original game, usually the original is better because the port is just an afterthought to cash in and make some more money. Most of the time the original staff doesn't even work on it.

For a PCE to Mega CD port success story, look at Popful Mail, Cosmic Fantasy, and Snatcher.

[FM-77]

Yah that's another thing I loved about the PCE, it's the only one I can think of (or at least care about) that was able to keep upgrading just via things like cards with a different bios (of a sort) and more ram.  I mean wouldn't it be awesome if modern systems were the same way?

This is not a good thing--this is probably one of the reasons the PCE failed. The N64 got criticized because of its Memory Expansion Pak accessory. The PCE had TONS of these, and that's the worst possible thing for a console to have. It makes it like a computer--you can't use all the software because you need to buy extra (and super expensive) accessories. They shouldn't have released the CD add-on either, they should've released the Duo right away.

[esteban]

Yah that's another thing I loved about the PCE, it's the only one I can think of (or at least care about) that was able to keep upgrading just via things like cards with a different bios (of a sort) and more ram.  I mean wouldn't it be awesome if modern systems were the same way?

This is not a good thing--this is probably one of the reasons the PCE failed. The N64 got criticized because of its Memory Expansion Pak accessory. The PCE had TONS of these, and that's the worst possible thing for a console to have. It makes it like a computer--you can't use all the software because you need to buy extra (and super expensive) accessories. They shouldn't have released the CD add-on either, they should've released the Duo right away.

No, this is simply the groupthink that has developed in recent years as folks attempt to explain why the House of Sega crashed and burned.

Upgrades are *not* an inherently bad thing for consoles, they simply need to be implemented properly. Sega, unfortunately, did *not* implement its strategy for upgrades properly. I'm not even blaming them, it was simply bad timing on their part (i.e. they shouldn't have released 32X to extend the Genesis when a brand new console was coming out and the expensive Sega-CD upgrade was already available).

Folks tend to look at Sega's case study and make *overly* generalized conclusions. I've never really thought about N64 since it is debatable as to whether the memory expansion packs, in and of themselves, were such a bad idea. N64 is somewhat of a different beast, so I'll stick with the Sega/Mega-CD vs. TG-CD/PCE comparison (which I think parallel each other in many crucial ways and thus creates a reasonable comparative analysis).

First, I don't think you can say the "PCE failed" without qualifying the statement. On what level did the PCE fail? I consider it one of the most long-lived systems -- a difficult feat to accomplish given the incredible competition it faced in Japan (i.e. Famicom!).

The HuCard + CD strategy worked very well, with an ample supply of good titles available on both formats for a long time. The two formats co-existed. The same can't be said of Sega-CD, since the CD library for Sega remained a sore point. The 32X library fared even worse.

The upgraded BIOS cards for PCE was even an *more* successful, an ingenious, strategy for upgrading. Software upgrades have always struck me as a great idea, especially when compared to hardware upgrades.

The reason? NEC didn't abandon any of their customers. There were tons of great HuCards and CDs, etc. for folks with the lowest tier systems. For a small investment, folks could upgrade to SCD. Newcomers would simply get a DUO. Explain to me why this was a bad strategy? I would argue that this is, in fact, one of they key reasons why the PCE *succeeded*.

The ACD was always a specialized niche, which appealed to a select segment of the PCE fanbase... so this only expanded PCE's lifespan, but it certainly did not hinder it.

SuperGrafx was *certainly* a mis-step by NEC. But they quickly abandoned it. They screwed over the folks who bought the system, for sure, but at least it was fully backward compatible, so it wasn't a total loss.

Now, I love you Seldane , I just had fun thinking about your comment

[FM-77]

Consider this: The PCE/TG wasn't a successful system, same goes for Mega-CD and 32X, and people didn't buy the Memory Expansion Pak for the N64 either. The 64DD was a disaster too. I believe most console players use consoles because they don't want upgrades, they want to buy the system and then they want to be able to play everything for it. When this is not the case, the consumers will go elsewhere (nobody bought the TG or the Mega-CD, people went with the SNES instead, because that's all you needed).

[Odonadon]

Consider this: The PCE/TG wasn't a successful system

The PCE was quite successful, even edging out the Famicom for a couple years.  The TG-16 was not - this is a very important distinction  I consider myself a fan of the PC-Engine English ports, I'm not a real big fan of the TG-16

OD

[Digi.k]

wikipedia says that pc engine sold 5 million units which is pretty good in my books.

Wasn't the last games were like: go go birdie chance and Dead of the Brain 1&2 ??  I think Dead of the Brain was released in 1999.  Which is amazing considering the pc engine was released in october 1987.

[GUTS]

I wanted to point out that TONS of people bought the memory expansion for N64. You can't really compare it though since they gave it away for free with Donkey Kong 64, and even if you wanted to buy one seperately it was only $30 which is chump change.

Also, one thing I've always admired the SNES for was it's ability to do huge full screen backgrounds that don't consist of tiles, for example like in Terranigma and some of the the other later RPGs.  I can't think of any Genesis or Turbo games that did that.  I wonder why?  Was it just a matter of storage space or was it some trick the SNES was capable of?

[SignOfZeta]

Consider this: The PCE/TG wasn't a successful system, same goes for Mega-CD and 32X, and people didn't buy the Memory Expansion Pak for the N64 either.

In JP the PC Engine was not a flop. It just wasn't. Are you calling it a failure because it isn't still being made? All systems eventuially die. Do you consider the Famcom and 2600 failures too?

The Mega CD/Sega were failures for sure though. More popular in the US this time, so sort of a reverse of the PC situation. A failure no matter how you look at it.

Your basic point, that upgrades limit software sales because every time a new one is released it fractures the userbase, that is correct. The PCE was most popular in the early, HuCard only days. Every ultra expensive as hell upgrade sold for it shrunk the userbase. Manji Maru was the best selling CD, I think, and that was very early on.

N64 however is a totally different thing. The N64 upgrade was *free* with the purchase of the only game that supported it at the time, and pretty cheap to buy later on. I worked at a used game store during the period when people were trading in their N64s in massive quantities, and I can tell you that at least %70 of them had the expasion pack.

This is sort of similar to the Saturn memory expansion, which was  packaged with games for about $9 more. There is no doubt that kept the Saturn sales up for a year or so longer.

PCE add-ons were horrendously expensive by comparison, but because they were so significant, they guarenteed the hardcore support, even if they totally kicked out the mainstream fan. These add-ons are the reason the PCE lasted a decade+, but also the reason why the userbase only shrunk as the upgrades came out.

[SignOfZeta]

I think Dead of the Brain was released in 1999.  Which is amazing considering the pc engine was released in october 1987.

Yeah but its lame for one thing. Also, there was a pretty significant gap between it, and the previous PCE release.

[malducci]

Consider this: The PCE/TG wasn't a successful system, same goes for Mega-CD and 32X

 One could argue the TG/DUO might have been a successful system in the US, but to say the PCE wasn't successful system is extremely incorrect. Europe doesn't count as it never had offical support, just an import scene for the PCE.

 The Mega-CD on the other hand wa a flop - in Japan and the US, I assume EU as well. There are RPGs that I would like to play if anyone gets around to translating them (Illusion City, Fhey area, etc). Popful Mail for the MegaCD wasn't a port of the PCE version, they both were indepent ports of the Falcoms MSX (and NEC PCs) version. From all the reports I've read, the MegaDrive was always in third place in JP, so they decided to bring out the Mega-CD incompetition to PCE-CD. It lacked the support from the developement community it needed. Sega already proved that you could do a lot with 61 colors onscreen and the right artists.

 
 I think the PCE was the most successful console(not computer) in developing add-ons. Sure it had some flops, but its got the best ratio of successful to un-.

 As a side note: Hudson's standards were different than Segas' for game developement on their systems. I remember reading that Sega's standards were pretty strict, while Hudson focused on gameplay and simplistic fun.

 Later SNES games used high compression and very large carts. Some used special chips to handle the compressed graphics - Star Ocean.

[T2KFreeker]

You have decided to ask the cursed question man. I can tell you this much, I love my Turbo Grafx system like no other. The thing here is this, it suffers from alot of the idiotic useless retarded crap that EGM likes to call the math adding crap. Here goes, yes, the Turbo Grafx has two 8 bit chips, but they don't like to tell you that it is running off of a 16 bit archetecture, whicn icludes a 16 bit processore. It's the same thing as the Atari Jaguar, two 16 bit chips and a 32 bit chip running off of a 64 bit processor. It is 64 bit, as well as the Turbo Grafx being 16 bit. If we go by math here, then the NES was only a four bit system as it was two 4 bit chip0s through an 8 bit processor, which means that the NES was only as powerful as the Atari 2600? I think not as EGM continues to prove that they know not a damn thing about Console systems and the power that they do have. Example, I just don't see Splatter House running on the NES. Same with Battlesphere running on a SNES, will never happen, no matter what the jackasses at EGM want to say.