VC: Why TG-16 and not PCE in Europe?

[Monster Bonce]

Does anyone else think it's odd that Nintendo are calling it the TurobGrafx-16 and not PC Engine in the European Virtual Console? The PCE was a lot better known in Europe (and more highly regarded, though that's no slight on the TG, just a comment on NEC/TTI's US release policy) than its American cousin.

I know there was an "official" (not really) TG in France or Spain but, on the whole, the PCE was much, much more common.

[Turbo D]

I thought that the Turbografx-16 was the official europe release and not the pcengine. I always see them on ebay, with their funky color scheme, haha. I do know what you mean about pcengine being more common there. I think that I read that there were only a few releases on the funky euro tg-16.

[Monster Bonce]

I've never thought that the European TG was 100% legit. If it was the genuine article, no-one bought it. In Ireland, France and the UK at least the PC Engine (especially the CoreGrafx) was the most common NEC machine.

[nat]

I thought that the Turbografx-16 was the official europe release and not the pcengine. 

The PC-Engine wasn't released in Europe at all. Anyone who owns one there got it as an import.

The TurboGrafx was, in fact, the "official" release in Europe. I think they dropped the "-16" part of the name for that market. There is some debate as to how official it's release was, but considering the release was at least in some way backed by NEC, I consider it just as official as any other release of the console.

[Keranu]

They probably used Turbo Grafx 16 because the games you get are in English.

[FM-77]

It's pretty weird that they even have it here, as nobody knows what Turbo Grafx is, and that none of the games released for it were released here (all the other VC game releases were originally released in Europe, I think).

Maybe that's why it's there... so that curious people can try out something new. I haven't heard many good things about it though.

[guyjin]

Would you call buying a PCE from groups like Sodipeng 'importing'?

[nat]

OK, well, the Sodipeng situation is an interseting one. I wouldn't necessarily call that importing, but at the risk of starting a debate, I'd hardly call it any kind of "official" release. I'd never even heard of Sodipeng until sometime within the last year, however, I remember hearing about the PAL TurboGrafx European release like 15 years ago. For all intents and purposes this was the "official" (backed/funded/licensed/whatever by NEC) release our hardware saw on those shores, regardless of whether or not anybody remembers it. This is the reason I believe Hudson and Nintendo choose to go with the TurboGrafx as the VC for Europe.

[FM-77]

What's Sodipeng.

[Turbo D]

its some french pc engine company that puts its name on turbo pads

[Black Tiger]

The TG-16 was only test marketed in Europe.

[Necromancer]

What's Sodipeng.

They were a French company (as turbo D said) and they're name is an abridgment of 'society for the importation of PC Engine' (the French equivalent, anyway).  They imported various PC Engine hardware and sold their own branded controllers.  I'd thought that they were different from the 'official' controllers and not just rebranded, but I could be wrong.  Check out some of their old adds here.

[Golgo13]

PAL sucks.

[nat]

PAL sucks.

I don't really know anything about it, but what I've heard isn't good. In fact, I've never heard anything positive about it at all.

[termis]

For regular TV, I'd think a lot of laymen probably wouldn't notice the difference at first glance.  It looked somewhat cleaner to me than your average NTSC screens (higher res), but you can definitely tell it flickers more than NTSC.  Well, at least I could.  (Some people were amazed that I could immediately tell when older CRT computer monitors were running at lower refresh rates -- it'd bug the shit out of me, but they really couldn't notice the flickering difference unless I showed them big white screens at 60Hz and 100Hz.)

Anyway -- for gaming, PAL really does seem to suck.