Why No TG-16 Knockoffs?

[FieryReign]

All of these retro clone systems have been coming out over the years. NES, SNES, and Genesis. Well what about the Turbografx? Is it hard to clone the PC Engine or something? Is it because the TG-16 wasn't very popular? The system was right there during the 16-bit wars, albeit doing very poorly. Why hasn't a company looked into this? It would probably piss off those snobby collectors and greedy-low-life resellers, and that would bring a smile to my face.

[The Adventurer]

I think it's two fold. One, it's not very popular so nobody bothered to engineer a emulation chip.

Two, Turbochips slots are a bit weird.

[buzz_n64]

There is one being made. http://forum.digitpress.com/forum/sh...-game-consoles

[celerystalker]

I've often wondered that myself. I can see why they don't do a standalone unit, because Turbografx games aren't floating around all over the place to drive demand for systems up beyond the collecter's market that goes for real hardware. However, you'd think it would make an attractive addition to something like the Retron systems. Another thing that might have lessened the will to produce such a thing is the different pinout of PC Engine HuCards, as allowing import play has been a marketing point there as well.

[Emperor Megas]

I was going to say that it was because it wasn't popular, but then the SMS wasn't at all in the U.S., and there were still All-in-1 handhelds at least like the Coleco one that features several pre-installed SMS games. I don't see why that sort of thing can be released at least.

[CastlevaniaDude]

The very simple answer is that it was an unpopular console and there's no money to be made. /thread

[CastlevaniaDude]

There is one being made. http://forum.digitpress.com/forum/sh...-game-consoles

That thing has vaporware written all over it.

[stargate]

The system was such a colossal failure that many people don't even remember it existed. I have friends that were gamers back when it was released and they never even heard of it. It's a shame that it tanked so hard of course because it had such huge potential.

So yeah, just not enough demand I suppose.

It also sucks because it's hard to find ports on modern systems. My understanding is that quite a few TG-16 games were released on PSN, but now only a few remain. I would have loved to get my hands on Devil's Crush when it was available. And playing Ninja Spirit on my PS3 (and 75" LED) would be pretty sick.

[A Black Falcon]

I was going to say that it was because it wasn't popular, but then the SMS wasn't at all in the U.S., and there were still All-in-1 handhelds at least like the Coleco one that features several pre-installed SMS games. I don't see why that sort of thing can be released at least.

The SMS benefits from having sold okay in Europe and Brazil, other Western nations. And the SMS sold about 2 million in the US, too. Who knows how many Power Base Converters and Master Gear converters sold to play the games on the GG and Genesis, but those could add a little to the numbers as well.

Meanwhile the TG16 was only released in Europe in miniscule quantities as a test-market thing, and only 900,000 systems were produced for all of the Americas. That doesn't include Duos, but the Duo is thought to have sold only in the tens of thousands. (Same for the Turbo CD addon.)

The end result is, the TG16 sold worse than the SMS, selling less than half the number of systems, and games for the TG16 are similarly less common. SMS games are not common, but they're definitely a lot easier to find than TG16 games. There are some areas where the TG16 did better than others, particularly in cities where NEC apparently focused some of its early marketing, but overall games and hardware are much scarcer. And if the games are so hard to find, where would the demand for a clone system be? People only want clone systems if they actually have real games for the system that they want to play, after all.

And of course, the issue that a lot of games are on CDs and doing a clone of the Turbo CD would be tough is also an issue; no Genesis clones also have a Sega CD for instance, but so many of the better Turbo/PCE games are on CD that it's kind of essential, even more so than the Sega CD or 32X are (though clones of those would be nice, sure, for people who want to play those games without relying on old hardware).

That said, we well may see a Turbografx clone system sometime, but I can understand why we haven't so far. The system is fantastic, but it just didn't sell at all, sadly.

[stargate]

The SMS benefits from having sold okay in Europe and Brazil, other Western nations. And the SMS sold about 2 million in the US, too. Who knows how many Power Base Converters and Master Gear converters sold to play the games on the GG and Genesis, but those could add a little to the numbers as well.

Meanwhile the TG16 was only released in Europe in miniscule quantities as a test-market thing, and only 900,000 systems were produced for all of the Americas. That doesn't include Duos, but the Duo is thought to have sold only in the tens of thousands. (Same for the Turbo CD addon.)

The end result is, the TG16 sold worse than the SMS, selling less than half the number of systems, and games for the TG16 are similarly less common. SMS games are not common, but they're definitely a lot easier to find than TG16 games. There are some areas where the TG16 did better than others, particularly in cities where NEC apparently focused some of its early marketing, but overall games and hardware are much scarcer. And if the games are so hard to find, where would the demand for a clone system be? People only want clone systems if they actually have real games for the system that they want to play, after all.

And of course, the issue that a lot of games are on CDs and doing a clone of the Turbo CD would be tough is also an issue; no Genesis clones also have a Sega CD for instance, but so many of the better Turbo/PCE games are on CD that it's kind of essential, even more so than the Sega CD or 32X are (though clones of those would be nice, sure, for people who want to play those games without relying on old hardware).

That said, we well may see a Turbografx clone system sometime, but I can understand why we haven't so far. The system is fantastic, but it just didn't sell at all, sadly.

Well stated and I agree with most of this with the exception of games and hardware being hard to find. The TG-16 console and games are still commonly found on eBay. Actually, the best games for the system can still be easily had for reasonable money (although the prices have been increasing lately).

Of course, I would suggest that there are about 10 "must have" hucard games for the TG-16. After that it's pretty slim pickings.

[celerystalker]

While it's true that TG-16 games are all over ebay, they aren't all over actual storefronts. These clone systems make the vast majority out of nostalgic casual customers who see an old game they used to like or see an Atari Flashback and get all, "I gotta show my kids REAL games" for a minute, or see an NES game in one of the many vintage media stores popping up in malls with a buddy and have that, "Dude, remember when we used to rent NBA Jam?" moment and pick up a clone system with a few old favorites. The Turbo market is almost exclusively the domain of collectors these days, and they want real hardware with a Turbo Booster or a recapped duo with a video upscale mod, not a Yobo Turbo Game Player+.

Realistically, I live in a pretty decent video game market. St Louis is a mid-sized metro area with dozens of stores. However, if I went out tomorrow and snapped up every Turbo and Turbo CD game in stores within 50 miles, I might scrounge up 60-75 games, 2/3 of which will be Keith Courage, China Warrior, and TV Sports Baseball, with a couple of copies of Alien Crush, Legendary Axe, and a JB Harold for good luck. I like most of those games, but I don't think most people would see any of those and get Turbo wood.

[Steve W]

There have been PC Engine clones before, it'd be cool if somebody would do like Famiclone makers and pack a few dozen games into a PC Engine clone (games that aren't too heavy on Japanese text). And put out a few multi-carts for it too.

http://nfggames.com/games/pceclones/

[The Adventurer]

Don't SMS games just run on Genesis clone hardware any way? All you need is some kind of pass through and you're good to go. You'll notice nobody is rushing to clone SMS card game compatibility.

[Gentlegamer]

I'm fine with no TG-16 clones, there doesn't need to be anything else out there to drive demand for games and inflate the market.

[Tanooki]

Aside from the small group of people trying to extract irrationally amounts of money out of TG16 HuCards and CDs just in the last 3 years, because before that the prices were very rock bottom, no one cares, and definitely not enough care by any means to qualify making a clone. The system itself wouldn't be hard to clone, or to even pull a Retron5 type emulation plugin device (which that link waaaaay up top shows it being done) it's just not really worth it. It's catering to a very small group of people, not that even in the big picture those still wanting NES games are that large either, but at least there's a mass of store fronts beyond private sellers so the stuff just recycles. TG16 wasn't around terribly long either so it doesn't have a huge library, so that doesn't help either.

It's a good system but it has been rationally priced out of many peoples hands so that's a problem too. Look what a used console (complete) goes for, then look at addons like the turbo booster, the CD attachment, hell even the DUO goes for used or new....it sucks. Then when you get a game of good name like the Bonk titles among others, the prices would scare a good many off who were curious into quitting to care or just emulating it with ROMS. If the prices were more like the common NES stuff currently ($1-15 range) and were even in half the supply of those on the NES again, I think you'd see more caring.

[Flojomojo]

I'd be satisfied if the TurboGrafx 16 Gamebox for iPhone were updated by Hudson. It seems to have been abandoned, since it hasn't been updated since 2011 and is no longer in the store.

At least the machine is easy to emulate. Its presence on the Wii Virtual Console is sufficient for me.

[Jorpho]

I was going to say that it was because it wasn't popular, but then the SMS wasn't at all in the U.S., and there were still All-in-1 handhelds at least like the Coleco one that features several pre-installed SMS games. I don't see why that sort of thing can be released at least.

I had the impression that the Colecovision hardware wasn't too different from the SMS hardware.

Don't SMS games just run on Genesis clone hardware any way? All you need is some kind of pass through and you're good to go. You'll notice nobody is rushing to clone SMS card game compatibility.

For the longest time I understood that the Majesco Genesis III lacked the hardware for SMS compatibility (due to the lack of a discrete Z80), but then someone demonstrated that it could be fixed with a little rewiring.

[Tanooki]

I was under that belief too they left some chip out, at least that's what the running story was back in the day which is why also Virtua Racing and the 32X won't work on it either.

[turboexpress]

I'm fine with no TG-16 clones, there doesn't need to be anything else out there to drive demand for games and inflate the market.

agreed!

no clones. I like how PCE/TG-16 is still a hidden gem of a system in US. It would be good if it stayed that way.

[SparTonberry]

Don't SMS games just run on Genesis clone hardware any way? All you need is some kind of pass through and you're good to go. You'll notice nobody is rushing to clone SMS card game compatibility.

From what I understand, the SMS hardware ("Mode 4") in the Genesis was purely for backwards-compatibility and largely separate architecturally from the native Genesis (at least, I think Sega told Genesis developers to only develop in Genesis mode "Mode 5")
So if the Genesis clone hardware bothered to replicate the SMS mode, that's pretty amazing.

But TG-16, while very popular in Japan, I suppose it did not equal to a internationally large following, making it less interesting to clone developers (= profittable).