Description

The TurboGrafx-16 (known as the PC Engine) was the first fourth generation console, it was released in Japan in 1987 as a competitor to the Famicom and was ironically developed by Hudson Soft who were ironically Nintendo’s first third-party developer. Despite having an 8-bit processor the console’s graphics were more in line with the 16-bit SNES and Mega Drive. Many of the games on the console were sequels to games that Hudson Soft released on the NES like Bomberman and Adventure Island. The console also had good third party support with many arcade games ports from Namco, Konami and Capcom with an unusually high number of these games being shoot-em-ups. The system used an unusual type of cartridge known as a HuCard which were small and thin, similar to the cards used by the Sega Master System. In a CD-ROM add-on was released only a year after the console’s launch in Japan which was very unusual for the time as most PC users were still using floppy disks, the add-on was a flop due to the high price and lack of games. In Japan the PC Engine became the country’s best selling console, although this came to an end in 1990 with the release of the Super Famicom but remained ahead of the Sega Mega Drive. In North America and Europe it was a very different story, the console came out only months before the Sega Mega Drive which was a huge success unlike in Japan, additionally most of its games appealed more to the Japanese market and the name TurboGrafx-16 was controversial as it did not have a genuine 16-bit CPU unlike its fourth generation competitors.