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

[nat]

(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.)

You're like me, then. I can't see how people can't notice it.

My Apple //GS monitor has a refresh rate of like 50Hz. As much as the Apple //GS kicks ass, there's only so much I can take of that monitor.

[FM-77]

Nothing runs in 50Hz anymore. That's ancient technology. All modern CRT TVs run at 100 Hz and new video games (with a few exceptions) at 60. PAL is evolving, unlike... other formats.

[Monster Bonce]

PAL is superior for television, though only just. American television looks slightly blurry to European eyes when it's mapped to the higher-res PAL screen. Broadcast NTSC suffers from colour inconsistency.

NTSC's advantage is 60 fields per second (30 frames per second with alternating lines) versus PAL's 50 fields (25 fps).

In some regards Secam is better again—625 lines like PAL and 60 fields—but it's a real pain for post-production. None of this really matters anymore, though, as TV has gone digital in Europe and we've used Scart (Syndicat des constructeurs d'appareils radiorécepteurs et téléviseurs, the euroconnector RGB) for videos and DVDs for years.

Lots of gamers complain about the lower refresh rate. I didn't notice back in the day. Whether or not I'd notice now, I couldn't say.

The other complaint was the letterbox format. Obviously video games were designed for a certain screen resolution and people were irritated by the bars. Again, it never bothered me. Still doesn't.

I can't understand the complaints about letterboxing in film, though. I really hated how American film companies forced pan and scan on us with VHS. They did it because of American distaste for letterboxing which was considered more acceptable (and was very common) in Europe. The curse of the English language ensured that we just got PAL versions of American output. Thankfully pan and scan died when DVDs appeared.

What does NTSC stand for? Oh yes, Never The Same Colour.

[Monster Bonce]

The point about monitors is fair enough, but you don't sit so close to the TV when viewing.

WRT computers, having since moved to a laptop I hate using any CRT monitor. Given that I used to be a graphic designer that was a problem—back then no LCD came near a CRT for colour accuracy but they eyeball shaving refresh really had an effect on my eyes.

Anyway, this PAL/NTSC stuff is all history now.

PS IIGS – cool. I wrote a feature on the history of the IIGS for a British magazine a few years back. Interesting machine. Might buy one.

It was the dev machine for the SNES until Nintendo developed in-house SNES emulation for the Mac.

[Monster Bonce]

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.

I don't consider it official and I don't think many do. Perhaps it was just test marketed as Black Tiger suggests. Wasn't it just in Spain, or something?

Yes, PCEs were all imports but there were an awful lot of them. A lot more than TG-16s.

Doubtlessly Keranu is correct when he writes that Nintendo "probably used Turbo Grafx 16 because the games you get are in English." I think this is a mistake, though. The PC Engine was pretty well known among gamers back in the early 1990s and most people thought the TG-16 was an ugly beast. Maybe Nintendo aren't after the nostalgia market? Who knows.

Interestingly, when the SNES was released in the US, European gamers, in a moment of living up to clichés about our fey, feminised nature, balked at its design and complained so much that Nintendo released the European SNES with the Super Famicom's industrial design. I remember the complaints about the US machine very clearly. I also remember thinking it was ugly myself. Since then I've never seen one in real life, but I have to say I now think the ID is pretty good, though I still prefer the SF.

I am very glad to get PCE/TG-16 games on the VC in Europe at all, though. Roll on MSX, preferably Japanese MSX games because so many European ones were piss poor Spectrum conversions. Ugh.

[termis]

Yeah, for broadcast TV, I particularly don't care much whether the format is NTSC or PAL, especially considering all low-res analog stuff has gone/are going to be soon go the way of the dodo.

Just for classic gaming, If I had a PAL setup, I'd pretty much make sure that my TV could take 60Hz input (which I hear most non-ancient sets do anyway), and put a 50/60Hz selector on the systems.  More so than having black bars, I'd just hate to have things looking squashed.  And the slower gameplay would be kinda lame too.  Now, if I grew up with those effects, I may not notice, but knowing what I know, I don't think I'd be able to stand little things like that. 

[Monster Bonce]

Sure. As you hint at it's really a non-issue these days. In fact, I think it's overstated a lot, particularly in US-centric games forums.

I don't remember any squashing, though I have read plenty about it. It would be a pretty crappy conversion that resorted to that. I've read that the Master System suffered from this but I can't remember. I do remember the letterboxing on my SNES, very vividly. Was it mostly with imported games? I can't remember. I also remember being able to switch between 50 and 60 on my TV. I might have added something to the console, but I doubt it.

It seems I can't remember much detail!

You'd have to look pretty hard to get a TV couldn't handle 60 Hz today, or any time in the last decade. Back in the early 90s it might have been trickier, but I don't think so.

The slower gameplay I didn't notice because, as you suggest, I'd never experienced anything else.

What a trip down amnesia lane...

[nat]

The other complaint was the letterbox format. Obviously video games were designed for a certain screen resolution and people were irritated by the bars. Again, it never bothered me. Still doesn't.

Letterboxing, squashed picture, and things moving slower than they are meant to in video games is sacrilege. I don't mind letterboxed movies, though, actually prefer getting the wider angle.

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.

I don't consider it official and I don't think many do. Perhaps it was just test marketed as Black Tiger suggests. Wasn't it just in Spain, or something?

Whether or not people consider it official is irrelevant-- because it was official. It doesn't matter if I don't consider my cat a real cat-- she's still a cat. In Hudson's business eyes, I believe this is all that matters, and also why they are using TurboGrafx as the VC for Europe. I'm pretty sure it's actually Hudson calling the shots with the whole VC deal, not Nintendo. Whether or not this is a good move on their part is debatable, however. But as we all know, the NEC/Hudson camp isn't legendary for making great business decisions.

Black_Tiger may be correct in that it never passed the test market phase, but that doesn't change anything as far as it being financially backed by NEC.

And yes, I believe Spain was the primary test market though I've heard it was available elsewhere in extremely limited quantities.

PS IIGS – cool. I wrote a feature on the history of the IIGS for a British magazine a few years back. Interesting machine. Might buy one.

It was the dev machine for the SNES until Nintendo developed in-house SNES emulation for the Mac.

The Apple //GS is an incredible computer. Do you know there is a large quantity of third-party development still happening for it? The //GS has a lot of potential that only now, some 20+ years after it's release is being realized.

The //GS and SNES are internally similar, even share the same CPU, so it's no surprise Nintendo used it for development.

In my opinion, the CPU initially shipped was too slow. I put a faster CPU upgrade card in mine like five years ago and it just smokes.

[Monster Bonce]

I'll demure to your knowledge on the Euro TG except to say, thank god it didn't get a wider release, the TG is one but ugly box! Mind you, a Euro PC Engine would of course have suffered from the TG's real flaw: paucity and poverty of game releases. I can't get my head around NEC's business decisions back then. Crazy.

Letterboxing is good with film because you get the whole picture. With a 70mm or 2:35:1/1:85:1 film converted to pan and scan you're getting only a part of the film. Offer to pay 1/3 of the price for the VHS copy and see how far you get.

I don't mind letterboxing in games at all, probably because I'm accustomed to it on TV (Pal Plus was letterboxed and so was D2MAC and HDMAC, our old European digital and HDTV standards) and film. Actually, it's ridiculous that so many broadcasters circumvented the *MAC and HD standards by using (relatively) low powered satellites to transmit their programmes. We should have had HD 15 years ago. Instead, all we got was the Olympic Games and a few operas.

I concede that squashing would annoy me quite a bit.

Anyway, IIGS. I did know there was some development going on but I didn't realise it was on any kind of scale. What kind of SW is being developed?

The IIGS was subject to several ropey decisions. Stereo audio and a good sound chip but only mono output?

You're right about speed. When developing for the SNES games ran very slowly because of the poor CPU frequency—1MHz normally and a blistering 2.8MHz in "fast mode", I think.

I interviewed a IIGS game developer for the feature. He didn't do terribly well on it because of low sales figures and many users sticking to 8-bit Apple II software but was in a great position when the SNES appeared. It was the developer of Nanosaur on the Mac. His name escape me at the moment but I'll dig through my archive and see if I can find the article, or better still, the interview notes.

Have you seen the Mensch Computer?

http://www.65xx.com/wdc/mensch_computer.cfm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mensch_Computer

[Keranu]

Doubtlessly Keranu is correct when he writes that Nintendo "probably used Turbo Grafx 16 because the games you get are in English." I think this is a mistake, though. The PC Engine was pretty well known among gamers back in the early 1990s and most people thought the TG-16 was an ugly beast. Maybe Nintendo aren't after the nostalgia market? Who knows.

I doubt Nintendo (or Hudson Entertainment) even knew that Europe had a big PCE import market, so they probably saw no reason at all to use the PC Engine.

[Necromancer]

Oh, they probably knew about the import scene - they just didn't care.  European importation of the PC Engine was a small percentage of total sales, so they likely figured that having games in English was better than name recognition.

[Monster Bonce]

I wouldn't dispute that for one second. European import sales would have been a fraction of TG sales in the US. Compared to Japanese sales they'd be a rounding error.

All I meant was, why not released the US TG games on the European VC as PC Engine games? That way they get English-language games plus the name recognition.

I suppose it all depends on what the target market is. People in their late 20s and 30s who remember the PCE, either from having one or reading about it in the magazines, or an entirely new market of retro game fans.

[Necromancer]

All I meant was, why not released the US TG games on the European VC as PC Engine games? That way they get English-language games plus the name recognition.

'Cause people would bitch to no end that Hudson was 'lying' to them.  As an extension of your idea - they should have just put "PCE / TG-16" on there and had the best of all possible worlds.

[FM-77]

Consider this: The PC Engine was only "popular" (that's a bit of an exaggeration) in UK and France (more or less, AFAIK) . There are more countries in Europe. Many more.

[Monster Bonce]

Consider this: The PC Engine was only "popular" (that's a bit of an exaggeration) in UK and France (more or less, AFAIK) . There are more countries in Europe. Many more.

Yes I know, I live in one of those other countries. Several of the countries, however, didn't exist back then and many of them certainly wouldn't have heard of the TG either, whether in the east or the west.

On the PCE's popularity. I've addressed this above but it certainly did have a high profile among gamers. Not with the general public, obviously. The fact that it wasn't legitimately available gave it a mystique—the games were better, arcade perfect etc. Of course, given that you couldn't buy one on the high street these wildly exaggerated rumours quickly became "fact".

None of this matters, of course, but I think the TG-16/PCE moniker would have been a good compromise.