What makes you say that? The PC Engine version of Street Fighter II' was quite good.Originally Posted by Tempest
What makes you say that? The PC Engine version of Street Fighter II' was quite good.
True, but something tells me they weren't going to splurge on the memory for MK.
Tempest
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It does make you wonder, though, if that attitude explains why PC Engine Street Fighter II' never came out in the US. I usually give publishers the benefit of the doubt in terms of the value of their reasoning for not localizing a title, but that one just seems boneheaded to me.
If I remember, did NEC also like to randomly throw the word "CD" into their ads, or is it just me?
I remember Johnny Turbo. He was talking about how Gate of Thunder was "one of the most intense CD-shooters". Oh, a CD-shooter. So, the game's like Duck Hunt? Sounds like a good follow-up to a PC-98 game called Cray Shoot (actually a DH clone that should've been Clay Shoot). Y'know once we've rid the world of super-computers for whatever reason, gotta destroy the removable media they left behind.
And by the ad, Lords of Thunder has "seven of the most ruthless graphically-intense CD bosses". So... are we fighting evil CDs, controlling an army of audio-tapes perhaps?
That would make the final boss Soundwave, right?So... are we fighting evil CDs, controlling an army of audio-tapes perhaps?
It wasn't hard to find around here, TRU, Children's Palace, Babbages, EB, pretty much all the places people here were going to get games at the time had it. Yet I still never met another person who had one other than on the internet.
I knew other people with Genesises, SNESes, and nearly everyone had NESes, but never a TG16.
I don't think you can discount the lack of 3rd party support as a factor. Other than Working Designs stuff, how many 3rd party games were there? It's almost as bad as Sega Master System (in the US anyway) on that part.
Add to that how it came out at roughly the same time as Genesis, yet had graphics and sound which, while a huge step up from the NES, were inferior to that one, and on top of that, if you want to play with your friends not only do you need a 2nd controller but a friggin multitap?
Speaking of controllers, while the NEC pads were nice, basically a slight refinement of the NES pads, the Genesis pads had a lot more "wow" factor, with the sleek curves and the additional action button. Sure when you really look at it they both had the same number of buttons, but select and run plus two action buttons just seems less cool than start plus three action buttons.
And while back in the day it wasn't as much of an issue as it would become a few years later, the lack of support for anything but an RF box for hooking it up to a TV was a major drag. Sure, there were turboboosters and the CD addon to correct this, but like the multitap it just felt like they were trying to nickle and dime you with the system. It's like buying a car and finding out the tires aren't included.
Nintendo had more than enough third party support, quality games, and credibility to run the occasional really lame ad. The Turbografx-16, unfortunately, did not have the same luxury. I think one of the biggest sins that Johnny Turbo committed is that he left print ads that were easily scannable for posterity to snicker at. The lame Nintendo Stunt Race FX commercial, however, probably won't be as easy to track down on the internet and point your finger at and say, "Ha! Nintendo is lame!"
I sorta/kinda agree and don't agree with your point about the Johnny Turbo ads being "a success" because "people are STILL talking about the ads". Memorable can be good, but it doesn't necessarily guarantee the desired results. I'm not an expert on marketing by any means, but from my understanding part of marketing is making your product desirable. Creating curiosity is good but it ain't enough. Sure, Johnny T created curiosity but I don't think he made the TG-16 remotely desirable. In all honesty, without the games being there, no advertising campaign could have achieved that miracle. I imagine that 90% of retro gamers who remember Johnny Turbo were owners of the Turbografx-16 or Duo who cringed at this last ditch effort to save their system.
Even though I didn't quote your text pertaining to it, you are right in that MUCH of '90s video game ads were very lame in their attempts to be edgy and cool.
The same "nickle and dime" gripe came to mind yesterday as I was driving around, contemplating what the TG-16 did wrong (other than simply their lack of games). I really hate the RF box crap on my TG-16 over AV outputs, which the NES even had one generation earlier. Oddly enough, the only 2 player game I ever had for the system was Military Madness with its turn-based playing so I never needed a Turbo Tap.
No worse than the Game Boy version.
The point is though that passing on MK showed they were completely out of touch, which surely couldn't have helped.
That's pretty late, though. The system was already on life support.
Im pretty sure it would have handed the Sega version its ass if MK1 made it to the TG, the color limit for one is a huge advantage over Sega as far as fighters went. And couple that with TTi's lax censorship standards, it probably would have been the best overall port. Good graphics + No censorship ? Considering the Genesis port was ugly and the SNES version was neutered by request of Nintendo, it would be no contest.
True a product should be shown as desirable but that in itself can be very subjective and hard to really sell if you have competition. Look at beer: all the brands have had ads that say how smooth and great tasting their product is. Some will even state how they are made (spring water, cold water from mountains, the chilled urine from skunks, etc.) to entice you but when you stack them all up ad wise, they are all saying the same thing. In the end, it's the memorable that can win out. Did the Budweiser frogs make a Bud more desirable? Not really, but the commercial was funny and it stuck in a lot of brains. It's a derivative concept back when a jingle on the radio could make or break your product.
What makes the early 90's an interesting time is that the game companies took the system war pissing matches from the Atari/Intellivision/Coleco days and hooked their bladders up to gigantic fuel tankers. Lame though they may be in today's eyes, back then these ads created what we call "fanboys" today. Hard to think but it did. Flip through the letter sections of the popular magazines of the time and you could see the lines drawn in the sand.
In parting, gotta share some of the memorable ones:
Yoshi's Island
Sega Saturn: Theater of the Eye
"WHHATT'S GOING ON UP THERE???!!!!!"
It really depends. What format is Mortal Kombat Turbo on? If hucard, ROM size is a potential concern. Larger hucards were expensive and hucards were largely de-emphasized in favor of CD. Street Fighter II' was very much an exception -- it's the only hucard ever made larger than 8 megabit. Super CD didn't have enough RAM, and making it an Arcade Card game pushes it to early '94 at best (plus you have to release the Arcade Card).
Problems aside, the name "Mortal Kombat" was hot shit and TTI was offered it as an exclusive. They could've significantly cut into Sega.
Last edited by j_factor; 09-26-2011 at 02:17 PM.
Come now, it hardly ended with the early 90's. Acclaim's utter madness kept going for a few more years after Nintendo and Sega stopped being quite so crazy.
And then there's http://www.flickr.com/photos/5449059...7624961995025/ .
"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." --Bertrand Russel (attributed)
Holy crap, those are f•••ed up. Those had to be done in Europe, I can't imagine them trying to pull those off here.
I grew up in SE Michigan too (Canton) and TG-16 was available at K-Mart - that's where I bought mine at in June of 1990! I also bought all my games at Children's Palace in Westland til they closed then went to TRU through the mid 90s… (still have some receipts - $59.99 for Splatterhouse!)
games could be rented at Movies & More and Game Masters (where I worked in high school) I bought many of the games from both stores when they started selling off their stock…
I know the system wasn't very popular… I originally got suckered into getting it but I was really happy with it and love it to this day!
What played a significant role in my decision to purchase a Genesis over a TurboGrafx was that the Turbo requires an adapter to play 2-player games.
The numerous accessories which accompanied the TurboGrafx was a huge factor in turning-off many consumers.
True. Remember in 2007, when Sony used a decapitated goat to market God of War II in Europe?
"...Sony has created an uproar with a photo from their official magazine, showing a burly man wearing fur, a topless girl wearing body paint and no pasties, and a mostly decapitated goat. ... During a release party for God of War II in Athens, attendees were invited to reach into the head-hanging-on-by-a-thread goat and eat still-warm intestines... Sony has apologized and is recalling the 80,000 issues of the magazine."
http://kotaku.com/256198/sony-decapi...oat-raises-ire
Last edited by Rob2600; 09-26-2011 at 02:02 PM.
Oh yeah, I had forgotten about Children's Palace, that's where I got my Lynx. I never saw it at out local K-Mart though (West Bloomfield area), maybe that was a regional thing?
Tempest
--- www.AtariProtos.com ---
All Your Prototypes Are Belong To Us!
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