PC Engine Creator Memories

[KingDrool]

Years and years ago, I used to work at NEC Home Electronics and just by chance, I happened work with someone who was involved with designing the PC Engine. It’s not every day you meet someone who helped bring about such an iconic piece of video game hardware and it’s been something of a lingering dream of mine for a long time to be able to talk to them about their involvement.

I first learned about the connection soon after joining the company. Back then, however, I had no published experience as a writer, let alone conducted an interview before, so I sat on that desire to interview them for a good 20 years or so. But after Joseph told me about his mission to preserve every game to such a definitive degree, I felt it was time to act and make that interview happen, seeing as how, again, preserving memories about games is just as important to us at the Society as preserving the games themselves.

The timing for doing so couldn’t have been any better. This coworker of mine recently retired at long last and while attending their farewell party, I finally summoned the courage to ask them if they would be willing to discuss their history with the PC Engine. Luckily for me, they graciously accepted. The main thing I decided to focus on in the interview was how the planning and design process went for the PC Engine from NEC’s side. Much has been written over the years about the technology that Hudson contributed to the system and while that’s all well and good, I thought it was important to also discuss NEC’s side of the story as a collaborator, too, while the people involved with it are still around to talk about it.

I sat down with my former coworker one chilly autumn day in Shibuya in 2015 to discuss times long past, the clouds above threatening to rain. The text of that interview follows below. One thing to note, however, is that this coworker wanted to remain anonymous, so for the duration of the interview, they’ll be referred to simply as “K.”

Enjoy!

https://www.gamepres.org/en/2017/02/23/pcengine/

[elmer]

Excellent! That was very interesting reading.

Good to get confirmation that the CD wasn't an add-on, but a core driving factor behind the PC Engine's very existence in the first place.

The comment about needing a polygonal-successor was fascinating ... it makes me wonder Why On Earth they chose to release the PC-FX without the 3D chip that's on the PC-FXGA.

[Necromancer]

Interesting read; thanks for sharing.

+1 on confirming the CD's importance, and +1 on the PC-FX lulz, though it's too bad he didn't address it directly.

[KingDrool]

Yeah, I was hoping for a bit more insight on the PC-FX, too. The guy even says that PC Engine never got a "proper" successor.

Poor little PC-FX...

[SignOfZeta]

This is one of the most interesting things about the PCE I've read. Thanks for sharing.

[Addicted]

Thanks for an interesting read.

[SamIAm]

Thanks for sharing!

I suspect that the inside scoop on the PC-FX might be hard to get just because it's not a happy story. Maybe someday, though.

[Pokun]

OK I finally read this, a very good read indeed!

Good to get confirmation that the CD wasn't an add-on, but a core driving factor behind the PC Engine's very existence in the first place.

Exactly what I was thinking.
We had heated discussions in the past about how the CD-ROM² was just an "unsuccessful" or "moderately successful add-on" like the Famicom Disk System, and that the PC Engine is "mainly about the HuCards". Of course these are lies (and that the FDS being unsuccessful are also lies BTW, although it was no CD-ROM²).

Although I guess Hudson's insight in the arcade/console market was an important factor as well in making it into good console hardware. Considering they designed the excellent CPU/sound and video chips.

The comment about needing a polygonal-successor was fascinating ... it makes me wonder Why On Earth they chose to release the PC-FX without the 3D chip that's on the PC-FXGA.

I guess they simply weren't happy about that 3D chip, which delayed its release. According to the interview they where unable to find a partner that could help them make 3D hardware that was good for games. Considering how many 32-bit era consoles failed, I guess only Sony and Nintendo (and maybe Sega) was really successful in doing that in the end.


Another interesting point in the interview is how the countless models of the PC Engine was part of NEC's strategy of aiming the system to different types of consumers. And that the Super Grafx was part of that as well.

But I wonder how much of that is true for the Super Grafx though. From what I heard earlier, it was initially supposed to be a real 16-bit machine competing in the 16-bit era, but it ended up being released earlier and as just a slight hardware upgrade for enthusiasts.

[ccovell]

But I wonder how much of that is true for the Super Grafx though. From what I heard earlier, it was initially supposed to be a real 16-bit machine competing in the 16-bit era, but it ended up being released earlier and as just a slight hardware upgrade for enthusiasts.

The SuperGrafx is an enigma.  Released at the end of 1989 for way too much money and little software support.

Nintendo did showcase their Super Famicom in late 1988, and again in mid-1989, to achieve (theoretically) at least 2 purposes: 1) to trick buyers into thinking the SFC is coming soon, and so save their money they might otherwise spend on PCE or MegaDrive system purchases; 2) to spook other hardware manufacturers into releasing their unfinished hardware projects sooner, and so play their hand first.

To me it looks like NEC swallowed the bait and did #2.  Hudson even didn't have much confidence in the SGX but were forced to put on a big smile when following NEC's whims.

[SignOfZeta]

What NEC did with the SGX is essentially what they and many other computer manufacturers did at the time: make something for people who have twice as much money. It works for computers because they are expensive and the customers are older so they rarely complained about how their Amiga 2500HD or Macintosh IIfx didn't turn out to be very useful. When you do this with a game console people are less forgiving for multiple reasons.

In the Japan bubble economy Pioneer and Sony made so many awesome/stupid products for many times more than they were worth and most of the really bonkers/quixotic ones are seen as classics. The SGX is just a PCE though, still plastic, still has squeeky sound, still aimed at grade school kids, isn't going to have the same legacy as a $2000 cassette player or an LD-W1. Furthermore, if a game system is seen as any kind of a failure its customers often feel duped.

[Pokun]

Yeah and unlike a computer, a console relies heavily on software support. With only 5 exclusive games, the SGX wasn't very useful for what it costed.

[SignOfZeta]

There were plenty of computers back then with fancy hardware that just sat there without proper software, exactly like a Supergrafx. This was before massively powerful multitasking OSs and universal drivers. If hardware wasn't directly addressed by the only program running then it didn't do anything. You can't even change the processor speed without breaking almost every program on an 80s computer. I imagine the PC-88VA mentioned in the article was very much in that situation.

[elmer]

What NEC did with the SGX is essentially what they and many other computer manufacturers did at the time: make something for people who have twice as much money. It works for computers because they are expensive and the customers are older so they rarely complained about how their Amiga 2500HD or Macintosh IIfx didn't turn out to be very useful. When you do this with a game console people are less forgiving for multiple reasons.

Exactly.

NEC were having some success with the PCE, and as a Home Electronics and Computer company, they probably thought that making a Super PCE for high-end gamers was great idea.

They still didn't quite understand how the console market works, and how developers can't afford to develop games (or even "enhanced" games) for hardware that has relatively-few users.

Yeah and unlike a computer, a console relies heavily on software support. With only 5 exclusive games, the SGX wasn't very useful for what it costed.

Absolutely ... but it could play every PCE game, too.

It was just like a high-end computer vs a mainstream computer.

There were plenty of computers back then with fancy hardware that just sat there without proper software, exactly like a Supergrafx.

Yeah, I never did get many games supporting my 3DFX dual Voodoo2 SLI setup, no matter how much it cost me!

[esteban]

Ok, this sounds quite fascinating!

I will be back later with my thoughts...

STATUS: pending...


OK, this stood out for me:

Numa: Even still, considering the system sold for 24,800 yen, I remember thinking it was an expensive piece of technology, even more so than the Famicom back then.

K: It’s worth pointing out that even at that price point, we weren’t making any profit on the hardware. Software royalties actually helped us lessen the blow. If we had tried to recoup our research and development for the hardware directly through the console, I bet you it would have come in at somewhere around 50,000, maybe even 70,000 yen.

This is crazy...I was tracing out the cost of PCE hardware and realized that NEC kept a premium price for many, many years...I wonder now if this was simply to recoup costs on hardware losses during first ______ years.

http://archives.tg-16.com/Gekkan_PC_Engine_1993_05.htm#coregrafx_ii_reduced_price

If you read the blurb, you'll see that NEC held the price of CoreGrafx II steady for 2 years, despite SFC/MD competition. I also make the argument that the cheapest PCE (Shuttle) doesn't seem to be worth it (it can't upgrade to CD-ROM).

Considering that Nintendo has profited from hardware sales (historically), it means that the video game market was very difficult for newcomers like NEC to crack into (releasing a console is the "easy" part...creating a viable, long-term, profitable ecosystem is much, much harder).

I had always assumed that NEC was profiting soon after launch from PCE hardware sales (since selling hardware was NEC's forte, and business model, up until this point).

Crazy.

Also, the article mentions, but doesn't make this point clear enough: although NEC had been making a profit selling home electronics (TV, VCR, etc), their profit margins were slashed to nil once cheaper competitors gained massive market share. So, the only *unique* product left in their portfolio was the PCE.

SO NEC COMPLETELY STOPPED MAKING HOME ELECTRONICS (tv, vcrs, etc) in the late 80's and put focus on the PCE/TG-16.

Pretty crazy to "pivot" that way, but it was the right move for the times.

So, I apologize for using the  trendy/hackneyed term "pivot"...

[Winniez]

Very interesting read.
Considering the price, as cute as the original PC-Engine system is to me it has always felt little cheapish. You can feel the penny pinching. No AV-out, no power LED, No rubber feet, only one controller port, even the information on bottom is molded directly on. Since the actual hardware was pretty costly back then they propably tried to make the rest of the console as cheaply as possible. And recoup some of the losses by selling AV-Boosters and Multitaps.