Horrible TTi ad

[guyjin]

http://www.vintagecomputing.com/index.php/archives/452

First off, check out those HuCards. I didn't think they could actually make the design WORSE than the real thing, but they did it.
Second, everyone here should know that Turbo pads never came with cords that long.

 

[Joe Redifer]

I like how they say you need to make an appointment just to buy the TurboGrafx-16™... it's THAT popular!  Between this and the awesome 4-foot long controller cords, I simply can't believe they were such a miserable failure in the US.  They did everything right!

[esteban]

Hahahhahaha.

I never saw that ad before. Pretty awesome tagline. At least the games are decent!

[Turbo D]

That add kicks ass! lmao. I love that hucard art too! It looks like the hong kong pirate hucard art style.

[Necromancer]

Lovely advert, thanks for sharing.  Now I really must find a copy of Jackie Chan so I chop, kick, and fight scores of stupid fu's. 

[ceti alpha]

Haha. I totally remember this ad.

I always hated the wait times for Turbografx appointments. I guess it's the price you pay for socialized medicinal gaming. (Wouldn't that be sweet? )

[SignOfZeta]

I really don't think this ad is that bad.

[MurderDate]

I like it a lot !  I wish the Hucards had the game's logo printed in that black area - that looks awesome!

[Joe Redifer]

They were obviously delusional if they still considered themselves the "leaders of the 16-bit revolution" when those games came out... near the end of the Duo's life.

[Lord Thag]

16-bit ads are chemically composed of 90% aged cheese. Even the great ones were awful.

Nothing beats those 'Johnny Turbo' ads though, except maybe those awful TRS-80 Radio Shack ones.

[esteban]

16-bit ads are chemically composed of 90% aged cheese. Even the great ones were awful.

No way! There are some great ones. Of course, there are also some doozies. Ys III for SNES deserved better.

[Keranu]

I've seen this ad online before and actually thought it was a really, really cool ad. No seriously! The three game choices were what appealed to me the most because they are pretty top quality games and good ones to show off your system definitely. It's in-your-face sass talk isn't really any different than a lot of other ads back then.

[the haze]

Oh man.  I had forgotten how awful there adds were. When TTI took over marketing of the turbo, they did improve things, but this is not a good example.

I have to agree, if you look at game ads for most games in the 90's it's tacky.

[peonpiate]

Yea...Nec really dropped the ball on advertising, they took a 'CDI' type of approach to it. Spamming small ads in Computer mags and other mags that your typical gamer never read. And the ones that did appear in gaming mags were like that, just bad! Also the choice of games to display were never very appealing, such as JJ&Jeff...try convincing a kid back then to choose between a pic of JJ&Jef or a pic of Mario 2 or 3 at the time and its not hard to see how out of touch Nec was. Bonk is the obvious choice of course but he was never advertised as much as he should have been.

TTi ? Yep they did a little better :-) But still, dont forget they made Jonny Turbo! They may have been better than Nec at advertising but in truth thats not saying much, unless you count chuckling at how bad the ads were [Jonny Turbo just tops the cake].


Sega really dominated advertising at that time, and im a firm believer that was the main reason they were able to become competitive. TV ads which were well done + advertising thier good software as opposed to just average software [like i said before, bonk was under advertised for the TG..which wasnt good].

[Black Tiger]

Yea...Nec really dropped the ball on advertising, they took a 'CDI' type of approach to it. Spamming small ads in Computer mags and other mags that your typical gamer never read. And the ones that did appear in gaming mags were like that, just bad! Also the choice of games to display were never very appealing, such as JJ&Jeff...try convincing a kid back then to choose between a pic of JJ&Jef or a pic of Mario 2 or 3 at the time and its not hard to see how out of touch Nec was. Bonk is the obvious choice of course but he was never advertised as much as he should have been.

JJ & Jeff came out well before Bonk existed. I don't think that NEC ever advertised JJ & Jeff over Bonk after Bonk's Adventure was released.

Mario 3 isn't a fair comparison, since kids chose it over Sonic at the time and it remains the best selling game of all time.