Number of Turbografx CD attachments sold?

[OldTurboBastard]

Just to give some idea, I had 2 friends, plus myself, in the early 90's that had the CD attachment (pre-duo) in the virginia beach area.

[SignOfZeta]

Vic also announced Lunar 3 so...worthless info, IMO, especially since "made vs sold" is a constant shell game popular with people who want to inflate their numbers and a LOT of NOS CF2s have turned up over the years, cases and cases of the things.

right, the ones that turned up over the years didnt sell back then.  he never claimed they made LESS copies of it than systems sold.  he just made a quick comment that he thought they sold as many as systems.  he said it when talking about how cadash was a flop and i dont think he was even asked about the CF2 numbers, he just said it in general.  i doubt there was any predetermined force behind his comment.  maybe he mentioned lunar 3 at some point and they probably had some level of intent to do it, but shit happens and we never got it.

There was a year where WD and Sega had a rough patch. I guess there was a trade show and WDs booth ended up in an out of the way area or something like that. It was at this point where Bernie Stollar was working overtime ruining the Saturn for Amercians as much as he could so I don't doubt Vic was correct in feeling Jilted. Everyone in the US with a Saturn felt jilted.

This was the moment when WD switched to Sony, more or less.

And it was at this event that I can barely remember that Vic said he'd do Lunar 3 for PlayStation. I suppose he should have said "assuming anyone ever makes it". At the time it seemed like he was hugely full of himself, like even more than normal.

Vic and his fans really love Working Designs. They love it too much. Too many of them don't seem to understand that WD, while *extremely* important to hardcore video gamers at that time, didn't actually make games. They just translate other people's games. Lunar 3, as far as I know, was never announced by Gamearts. It's now almost 20 years later and there STILL isn't a Lunar 3. He just wanted to say "Fine! I don't need you a$$holes anyway!" which turned out to be true but...Lunar 3? I'm not sure if WD could make a decent Army Men game let alone Lunar 3. Who's going to like...draw stuff? Can you imagine how many Jerry Springer jokes and fart gags would be in an all WD game? It's preposterous.

Hero: "Is my new sword finished?"
Smithee: "That depends on what your definition of "is" is."

GET IT!!?! ITS TOPICAL LIKE SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE!!! THIS IS FUNNY!!!

And yeah, I realized this is all a poorly written barely remembered third hand anecdotal tale, but sadly so it's every other method I can think of for measuring the sales of almost anything regarding the TG-16 or even the PCE. NEC doesn't remember jack shit about PCE.

If we ever get good numbers it will be from former employees that took notes. Maybe Takahashi Meijin will tell us something someday, or some sales rep from Toys R Us, but until then I trust the non-collectard fan consensus and that route is currently turning up very very little data. I know it's not very exciting but if you want to be accurate about something sadly a lot of "data" has to be thrown out.

[jbeedham]

So as far as serial numbers go do we know if the Japenese CD systems were counted in that same serial number scheme?

[SignOfZeta]

I don't know if anyone has deciphered the serial number scheme but it would be much easier to do so with JP systems since there so many more of them and they were in production so much longer.

[Black Tiger]

They definitely said that Cosmic Fantasy 3 was on its way.

And they were going to prove naysayers wrong by actually porting a couple Neo Geo games themselves... but couldn't complete a single screenshot.

[Punch]

They definitely said that Cosmic Fantasy 3 was on its way.

And they were going to prove naysayers wrong by actually porting a couple Neo Geo games themselves... but couldn't complete a single screenshot.

I always wondered how King of Monsters would have been on a US Arcade Card release if Hudson didn't stop them... but reading this thread now I'm not so sure that it would be good, or it would at least get released.

[SignOfZeta]

I think I'd rather have one of Takara's shitty SNES ports.

To be fair, Cosmic Fantasy 3 is an game that actually exists that they could have theoretically translated. I'm not sure why they didn't, really. I guess they ran out of time before moving to Sega CD. Lunar 3 is just a fan's wet dream. It doesn't exist in any way, never did, never got anounced or anything by anyone but him, which is why Vic's statement was so nuts.

Most WD fans are like most video game fans though, almost unbelievably ignorant of how their favorite thing in the world gets made. It's honestly kind of incredible.

Any rational person would say,

"Wait, the only piece of original art I remember from you guys was the cover to CF2 and it was next level bad. Will Lunar 3 look like that?".

"Shouldn't there already be a JP version on the market?"
 
"I didn't hear about you guys quadrupling your staff and making them all work 80 hour weeks. It must be tough!"

"Shouldn't Game Arts have a say in this?"

And last but not least,

"Will the save point system from Lunar 2 remain? I really love putting extra hours on my system because your dumb translation makes me earn every save."

[wiseau]

I think I'd rather have one of Takara's shitty SNES ports.

To be fair, Cosmic Fantasy 3 is an game that actually exists that they could have theoretically translated. I'm not sure why they didn't, really. I guess they ran out of time before moving to Sega CD. Lunar 3 is just a fan's wet dream. It doesn't exist in any way, never did, never got anounced or anything by anyone but him, which is why Vic's statement was so nuts.

Most WD fans are like most video game fans though, almost unbelievably ignorant of how their favorite thing in the world gets made. It's honestly kind of incredible.

Any rational person would say,

Any rational person would try to verify your claims, and see that vic never said working designs themselves were making lunar 3.

[SignOfZeta]

It's funny that you'd try to defend the guy with an article with even more bullshit in it than I accused him of. I do thank you for finding this though. While I'm not sure if this is the same article I read at the time it's the right time period for sure. He's mad about the same things and dreaming the same dreams.

It also makes him look like a mega dick, flatly saying that he would enthusiastically use his Lunar trademark to thwart any sale of a Lunar 3 unless it was on a Sony system. (Luckily this never had to happen since Lunar 3 doesn't exist in the first place). He sounds like...drunk when he talks. He's saying that Lunar 3 is in production. Nobody else to my knowledge has anounced this game TO THIS DAY. He says it's coming sooner than we think or maybe not, maybe he'll release it on PS2, a system that hadn't even been anounced yet at the time of the original interview. How's it going to actually *get* on PS2, the system that it's definelty coming for in the US through his company sooner than you think if nobody in Japan will do it or of Sega stops them? Who? Him. He's the only one. He'd have to port it himself or subcontract or something. There is no other party in this equation.

Follow his logic. Where the hell is it coming from? Not Game Arts of course because they aren't important anyway. It's coming FOR SURE, but he doesn't know who's going to make it or what system it's going to be on. Vic's going to have to make it. He might as well since he invented Lunar 3 anyway.

The whole thing is crazy. If someone else makes a game, he can translate it (in twice as much time as it took to make the entire game in the first place of course) if someone else happens to port that game to another system that he luckily agrees with politically he can translate that one instead, but that's it. He can't do anything else. He can't speak for the actual creatives who's credit he leaches.

I think Grandia *is* Lunar 3 and they just changed the game so they could get it out, so Sony could release it. I kid, that's obviously something they wouldn't even bother to do.

[EmperorIng]

That interview from crazy ol' Vic was a good laugh. Man, that was an artful display of bullshit.

I bet you the game he was ACTUALLY talking about was Grandia 2. I agree that Grandia was essentially the successor to the Lunar series (and, mechanically speaking, improved upon Lunar 100 fold through its battle system alone).

The whole thing is crazy. If someone else makes a game, he can translate it (in twice as much time as it took to make the entire game in the first place of course)

Don't forget the "rebalancing" in order to totally f*ck up the natural flow of a game (hey, let's double the health of everything on Elemental Gearbolt! Hey, let's make it literally impossible to beat RayStorm on its arcade default difficulty, because that's too "easy"! Triple the health on all Albert Odyssey bosses, why not!).

[tbone3969]

I currently own a functioning US Turbo Cd unit.

[SignOfZeta]

Current ownership is meaningless in determining how many sold. Most people here are not the original purchasers of %99-100 of their collection.

[Necromancer]

Any rational person would try to verify your claims, and see that vic never said working designs themselves were making lunar 3.

So who was going to make it?  He says the JP version would be on Dreamcast but the US version will be on PS2, so wouldn't that mean he'd have to port the game in house?  Unlike all their other games, he wouldn't have a complete game to simply translate.  I suppose he could've contracted a third party company to do it for him, but that'd still be a WD initiated and controlled venture, no different than the thousands of games attributed to various developers that were farmed out to outside companies (either in whole or in part).

[Black Tiger]

Any rational person would acknowledge that there is no interpretation of the "Cosmic Fantasy 3 Coming Soon!" or the official announcements of the Neo Geo ports. Why split hairs over b.s. game announcements that followed?

That's all separate from Vic's narcissistic rambling in general.

[Bonknuts]

His "Neo Geo" ports would have been ass terrible. They guy himself (Vic) didn't know how to program, and what.. he's going to higher some ace crew to do all of this? Yeah, no.