just bought my first TurboGrafx-16 game

[gbpxl]

Power Golf. It was one of the cheaper ones ($12.66 complete.) I rarely see them in stores and didn't get any in when I worked at a game store for 9 months. I have a penchant for the oddball systems that no one talks about and I always felt like the "non-Nintendo" systems were the real gamers' games. A lot of history there that isn't as well documented as Nintendo.

At this point I don't know how much higher prices will get on these games and I'm sure they'll never come down but I gotta start somewhere. Lords of Thunder $180 on eBay um yeah that's insane.

[bb_hood]

Power Golf. It was one of the cheaper ones ($12.66 complete.) I rarely see them in stores and didn't get any in when I worked at a game store for 9 months. I have a penchant for the oddball systems that no one talks about and I always felt like the "non-Nintendo" systems were the real gamers' games. A lot of history there that isn't as well documented as Nintendo.

At this point I don't know how much higher prices will get on these games and I'm sure they'll never come down but I gotta start somewhere. Lords of Thunder $180 on eBay um yeah that's insane.

Its not that insane considering its a rare and one of the best shooters and it was released 25 years ago.

[Steve W]

$180? Yeah, that's pretty insane. Especially since I bought mine at a flea market for $2 a dozen years ago along with SimEarth.

I personally love non-Nintendo and oddball consoles. There's always one good game in their library, pretty much. The key is finding a good selection of games for that system to find out which one's the "good" one. And usually those machines that were cast away by the general public are easy to find in the secondary market cheap. I think the TurboGrafx-16 was kind of considered the "rich kid's console" back in its day and is a little more coveted than its competitors. And now that the era's kids have grown up and banked some disposable income, they're spending a fortune on single games. I can't imagine spending nearly $200 on a game, even one that I've coveted for decades. But then I don't earn as much as those guys who can happily shell out that much for a title.

[Bratwurst]

Turbo Grafx games have always been a little uncommon even at yard sales and fleas during the 90s and early aughts. I sold every single one of mine and got an everdrive- I've had particular concerns that the hucards aren't using maskroms at all and could be eeprom chips even like the original Hudson Bee Cards that were the progenitor format to the PC Engine.

They also seem to spontaneously die more easily than with cartridges for other systems. Purely anecdotal there because I've never encountered a dead card out of the 30 or so that I had... but either way, the PC Engine has a greater variety and the prices to import are still more reasonable.

[Tron 2.0]

TG16,hucards are rare in the wild beside being pricey at auctions.While PCE hucards is far more plentiful and cheaper to boot.Unless,you want play certain games in english such as neutopia id suggest going with a turbo everdrive.For the current price of lords of thunder it used to be to cheap but not anymore.For games on CD either go with burns or stick to japanese release.

[jb143]

I've had particular concerns that the hucards aren't using maskroms at all and could be eeprom


Is there a reason you think that other than pure speculation? NEC, I would think, would certainly know better than that.

[Bratwurst]

Nothing affirmative, but if I had access to an x-ray machine I would love to experiment with erasure or just get an image of the glob tops. For a chip manufacturer like NEC it would have been trivial to produce either way.

[bb_hood]

TG16,hucards are rare in the wild beside being pricey at auctions.While PCE hucards is far more plentiful and cheaper to boot.Unless,you want play certain games in english such as neutopia id suggest going with a turbo everdrive.For the current price of lords of thunder it used to be to cheap but not anymore.For games on CD either go with burns or stick to japanese release.

Yeah, Ive got a Turbo/PC Engine collection, and I also have a Turbo Everdrive. The everdrive can be used on a US or Japanese system also. Its pretty sweet.

Also I burn my authentic games like Lords of Thunder/Castlevania/Cotton and play the burnt discs so I can keep the originals in crispy condition.

Also Lords of Thunder was released on the Wii Virtual console.

[Tron 2.0]

Yeah, Ive got a Turbo/PC Engine collection, and I also have a Turbo Everdrive. The everdrive can be used on a US or Japanese system also. Its pretty sweet.

Also I burn my authentic games like Lords of Thunder/Castlevania/Cotton and play the burnt discs so I can keep the originals in crispy condition.

Also Lords of Thunder was released on the Wii Virtual console.
I just have a TED for convenient sake beside it letting me play games with fan translation.I'm just glad,i was able to buy lords of thunder,dracula-x and cotton years ago before the price spike.Speaking of lords of thunder that even had a vc release for the wii-u as well.

[jb143]

Nothing affirmative, but if I had access to an x-ray machine I would love to experiment with erasure or just get an image of the glob tops. For a chip manufacturer like NEC it would have been trivial to produce either way.

I wasn't aware there was a problem but if they do have a somewhat high failure rate then I'd image it'd be due to stress on the traces from flexing the cards, and maybe the contact being more exposed.

They just use epoxy blobs don't they? Is that UV resistant? You could try to bombard one with UV for a while and see if it does the trick. If you really wanted to try killing a HuCard, that is.

[Koa Zo]

I wasn't aware there was a problem but if they do have a somewhat high failure rate
There was an apparently significant number of JPN Bonk 2 HuCards which are defective. 5-10 years ago there were numerous brand new sealed JPN Bonk 2 on eBay. I bought one, but also already had a US copy.
The brand new one would glitch out and have garbled graphics. It was impossible to play past the first stage. These JPN Bonk 2 issues are reported from other people also.

I've also had 3 copies of Sega My Card Zoom 909 which don't work.

But overall; besides needing to occasionally clean the contacts, I have dozens of Hucards and MyCards, and none have failed besides those two mentioned.

[turboexpress]

Collectors and retro gamers are not letting go of their NEC stuff that easily and most of them will never let go of any Turbostuff. This is why and rightfully so Ebay and other places online charge ridiculous prices. Any Turbostuff in the wild (garage sales, craiglist, flea markets, thrift stores, etc.), is all dissapearing very fast, there is almost none left. So if you ask again is $180 a lot for that game? The answer is no, it's a reasonable price for a game that no one wants to let go of and a game that is non-existent in the wild. To me, my Raiden copy is worth $1000 dollars because I love the game, I know it's getting impossible to find and I will never let go of it.

[Gentlegamer]

A PSA:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvkXpRLspYE

[Rickstilwell1]

You have to start somewhere. My first 32X game was the Fred Couples golf game that the local store owner said he'd include free for buying the Genesis 2/CD/32X combo with Sonic CD, but what I really wanted for 32X was Knuckles Chaotix which he didn't have.

I'm on my second TurboGrafx-16 because I needed to sell my old one a while back. I want an ever drive but can't afford it yet so I'm emulating on laptops. Last week I found a good local deal on a boxed PC ENGINE Duo. $275, caps and laser replaced. I used to have a Turbo duo which I sold, but was kind of glad I found a pc engine duo first because now I could import the Japanese Hucards instead of sticking to us Hucards only. There's some japanese-only games I actually like. I burned all the us cd games to try them out and found I liked more of them than I expected. The Japanese library is huge so I'm looking forward to trying those out too. I'll collect whatever I end up really liking but not the mediocre to bad stuff. And I probably won't collect the the expensive shmups because those are generally too hard for me. No fun if I can't get past level 1.

[bb_hood]

Last week I found a good local deal on a boxed PC ENGINE Duo. $275, caps and laser replaced.

wow really good deal.

[Gamevet]

I’ve pretty much had the same 8 or so US TG-16 games since the early 90s. I kept telling myself that I’d get more games for it, but never did. 6 or 7 years ago, I’d see games for it at small town game stores, and the prices were pretty decent. The one day, common stuff like JJ and Jeff started becoming too expensive for what you are getting.