Who was lucky enough to have TG16 rentals in your area?

[esteban]

No TG-16 rentals in Northern NJ that I was aware of. I honestly don't think they would have had any demand for TG-16 games, since nearly everyone seemed to own a Nintendo/Sega console. I knew more people that played old Atari 2600 than TG-16.

Curry's Home Video (R.I.P.)
Of course, the best local video store did have a lot of SMS titles for rent. That was kool. They later expanded to all the big systems. No TG-16, of course.

[Black Tiger]

The first store in my home town of Prince Rupert to carry TurboGrafx-16 products was called East Wind and was owned by a wealthy family. They even brought in the Turbo-CD and Monster Lair and Fighting Street just about as early as they became available. After a trip to Japan, the family brought back 3 PC Engine CD games to sell in the store, Golden Ax, Side Arms Special and Super Darius. They opened up Golden Axe and the Turbo CD and ran them as a playable demo in the store. It blew away every kid who saw it. When I eventually got my Turbo-CD, I ordered it through Radio Shack since East Wind wouldn't budge much on it's asking price of something like $800. But I bought Golden Axe and Super Darius while waiting for the Turbo-CD to arrive and Side Arms Special and Monster Lair soon after.

East Wind was more of a small, but high end department store that specialized in TVs and stereos. The same family opened up a music and video store across town called Audio Vision. They let a creep who had somehow married into the family run it. His employees nicknamed him "Rip-Off Ray". The first game rentals in town were NES games at one of the only video rentals places at town: Mackenzie Furniture. Back then VHS and Beta was such a novelty and there was no such thing as a video rental store, so other types of stores just started renting them out of a corner of their regular business. After actual video rental stores began to open, Audio Vision started carrying and renting games. They brought in pretty much every SMS, NES and Genesis game that was released. They became the main store to buy and rent games from and even brought in a lot of import Famicom games. At one point, the RCMP raided them and confiscated a bunch of them. Although several were probably pirated games, I think that it had more to do with Nintendo than piracy, since some clearly non-bootleg carts were seized and several clearly bootleg carts remained. I remember that Robocop had cheat codes printed on a label on the backside of the cart. We played through Super Mario Bros 3 what seemed like years before The Wizard came out.

It wasn't until towards the end of the Turbo's lifespan and my time living there that Audio Vision kinda started renting most of the Turbo games that never sold at East Wind. I say kinda, because at first they weren't displayed and Ray would just ask me when I came in if I'd like to rent any of them. For a while before that, the games had just sat in the same box behind the counter to be sold to pretty much only me. But once they started renting them, Ray for some reason ordered some used Turbo games from one of his weird suppliers (ranging from Chips & Bits to the Sears Catalogue) and rented them as well. At that time I finally got to try Fighting Street and Sherlock Holmes.

During the peak of the TurboGrafx-16 lifespan, when there were far more Turbo games than Genesis, a major rental chain called Superior Video open up in town and rented, among other things, TG-16 games. They gave them to you in a plastic pocket sheet, a little larger than a 4 card binder page. The front side had a Turbochip sized pocket that the game rested in, which had a block-only Turbochip-sized TG-16 logo printed across it. The reverse size had a large pocket that carried the manual. What was cool about Superior Video, is that they not only carried the newest games at the time that East Wind/Audio Vision never had, but they also had some American games. At the very least, I'm sure that they had Parasol Stars, Cadash and Sinistron, because that was the only way I got to play them back in the day. I'm not sure if they had Tricky Kick, I might've just not bothered to try it. I'm sure they didn't have Side Arms, since I specifically requested my Mother to pick it up for me during a trip to Seattle. They also had a couple import Mega Drive games: Monster Lair and Chiki Chiki Boys and later 32X games (only place in town with Space Harrier and Afterburner II). It was at Superior Video that I rented most of the games that I never got to buy before moving away. Some memorable rentals (not yet mentioned) were Legendary Axe (this is what all the fuss was about?), Legendary Axe II (hated it), Champions Forever Boxing (loved the samples), Jacki Chan (didn't think much of it) and New Adventure Island (weird). The most import games I got to rent there were Aeroblasters and Ninja Spirit. Rarely had games had such an impact on me and I asked for and received them both as X-Mas and Birthday gifts at the end of the year.

Not long before I moved away, Superior Video's Turbo stock got picked up by a hole-in-the-wall rental store that opened up in the perpetually dead Pride of the North Mall. My friends and I always called it "Pree O He Nort", because as long as we remembered half the lights on the logo were burnt out and the mall had always been completely dead. Even though this forgettable (who knows what they were called?) rental store didn't last long, it was memorable to me, because I begged the employees there to sell me Bloody Wolf. I'd never found Bloody Wolf for sale anywhere, except for an overpriced PC Engine version at Metrotown mall in the Vancouver area during a sports trip (I had SFII', a converter and the Turbo BW by then anyway). Even though I explained that I was the sole Turbo market in town and that I was the only one actually renting their Turbo games and offered them the full price of a new TG-16 game, they still refused. So after they finally went under, it was Audio Vision that scooped up their old stock and that was what led to them starting to rent Turbo games. Needless to say, Rip-Off Ray was happy to sell me Bloody Wolf and I lived happily ever after.

What killed me all along, is that the next town down the highway (Prince Rupert is a port city), Terrace, which was our "Shelbyville", was Turbo-crazy and had so much stuff even early on. If I'd lived there, I could've rented and bought pretty much any Canadian release at any time. Of course it wouldn't have been worth it, because it was Terrace, but at least it was a major source of Turbo purchases for me. I saw Ys I & II there years before I was able to buy it and the image of the packaging in my hands has never faded. Terrace was where I first saw and briefly tried Raiden and where I got Dungeon Explorer II, John Madden Duo CD Football, Cotton & Magical Chase ($5 each), Duo Tap and Pads, TE TV Tuner and I believe my official Turbo to Duo cable adaptor.

[esteban]

Random thoughts:

Black_Tiger, you reminded me that I was lucky enough to have a local mom-n-pop video store (Video Dynasty) that supported the TG-16 during the early years (they dropped the TG-16 eventually).

Anyway, they had a TG-CD demo (which we eventually purchased at discount) and Final Zone II was the first CD game ever got to see running on actual hardware. I still remember the opening cinema, with the bloody bodies floating in space. Very kool.

Of all the games I could have seen, it's funny that Final Zone II (which is crappy) is the one that was showcased. At least the opening cinemas were decent, and of course I liked the song that played on the title screen  

[Necromancer]

... where I got Dungeon Explorer II, John Madden Duo CD Football, Cotton & Magical Chase ($5 each)...

That almost brings tears to my eyes. 

[Tatsujin]

We hadn't even any turbo stuff officially. Nevertheless, the import scene was strong, so we all could put hands on our beloved system sooner or later

[nat]

I can't remember which places had TG-16 rentals when I was a kid, but Seattle was one of the "big" Turbo markets so they were around. I thought rentals were for pussies though, real men actually bought games. And since I was a real boy hoping to one day be a real man, I bought games. I'd go to the TG-16 section at EB, Toys 'r Us, Software Etc, etc (no pun intended) and look at the back of boxes until I found one that looked bad-ass enough to be worthy of a purchase. This is how I ended up picking up Dungeon Explorer (this was 1991), it was a total impulse buy, and one of the best impulse buys I ever made.

The only video game I ever rented, in my entire life, was Super Mario All-Stars on SNES.

[Sadler]

Allow me to necro this thread without even reading it and without really contributing. Buy Back Games in Colorado used to rent TG games, it was completely awesome!

[jayamine]

None whatsoever ... there was a flea market that would get stuff from time to time though ... matter of fact, found Psychosis there about a year ago for two dollars :-D

[BigusSchmuck]

There was a Hastings store that rented TurboGrafx games in my area.  When they got out of the TG renting business I bought World Class Baseball and Psychosis from their old rental stock.

A more interesting place was a little "arcade" in the same shopping center.  It was a small place with a small game sales business up front with a register and a place to sit, but the back 2/3 of the store was an "arcade" of sorts.  All it was was about fifteen televisions with TurboGrafx-16's and Genesis' hooked to them.  You would buy time, like an hour or something, and then go back and play whatever games they had running.  I specifically remember playing Boxy Boy, China Warrior, Legendary Axe, and Ninja Spirit there.

Glad someone else heard of a Hastings. ^^ Used to work there in Kennewick Washington until some lame Gym bought the building and they closed shop. >< Interesting thing about Hastings, they were buying old school games (at least in my area) until about mid 2005 when they decided to only buy back current gen games. Unfortunately, I never got to see any Turbo games there, but they did have Jaguar and Dreamcast games up for rent.

[DesmondThe3rd]

I was lucky enough to have a place a couple blocks from my house. I rented ones like Parasol Stars and Veigues a lot.

[guyjin]

I had a Blockbuster that had about 8 or 9 TG16 games to rent. It looked so pathetic next to the rows of dozens of NES and Sega games.

Must have been a regional thing, 'cuz the Blockbusters here did not carry turbob games. I would have noticed.

[Shrapnoid]

I don't remember a single place near or far in NC where TG16 rentals were available. Even if there had been, they probably would have only been in the bigger cities like Greensboro or Charlotte.

[SuperPlay]

We did not have any rental places for PCE / TG16 however I was lucky enough to work in a computer store and then at a console importers (Console Concepts) here in the UK in the early 90's.  As such I had access to pretty much every key system and game of the time :@) Guess where most of my wages went ;-) LOL.

There were some local stores later on that did rent games however these were generally for the SNES and Megadrive.

[allyourblood]

Our Blockbusters never carried it, but a few mom & pop rental stores had 'em. I remember looking at them longingly while I was there to select a Genesis or NES game.

[motdelbourt]

One out of the way place had hucards. I rented Silent Debuggers. Still a game that I enjoy for short periods.