My TurboGrafx-16 Pocket PC emulator research came to a crashing, jarring halt today.I'd been gathering TurboGrafx emulator information for a surprise update to my Pocket PC emulator guide.
I would have produced it by next week, with as much fanfare as I could muster.
Admittedly, I'd only previously done some light reading on the TG-16. I hadn't been a big fan, but I wanted to get a first-hand view of this potentially reclusive mania.
There were some real Insult McNuggets hurled against this console as they eventually wound up behind Sega Genesis and the Super NES in market share by 1991.
Lack of third party North American software developer support sealed its gaming console fate.
Emucamp.com pans it severely in this unfortunate blurb:
NEC's TurboGrafx-16 suffered from a case of extreme bad timing and marketing. Released in 1989, just before the Sega Genesis, the Turbo was too little, too late. The Turbo had two things going against it. First, NEC was new to the gaming industry, going up against arcade veteran Sega, who was releasing their second home console. Second, the Turbo's hardware was inferior to that of the Genesis.
Ponder that for a second. "...inferior to that of the Genesis."
My awaited Batman cartridge for this system, in my recollection, had turned out to be a disappointing, chunkylicious, pixellated affair that made me want to hurl it into a wall and gleefully shower in tape debris.
The NEC TurboGrafx arrived at your doorstep in an oversized box that was 85% styrofoam.
This was an unprecedented marketing move by NEC; literally adopting the bigger is better adage and running away with it by releasing massive amounts of non biodegradable materials into our environment.
They also branded themselves the first to foray into the 16-bit graphics arena, only it wasn't quite 16-bit graphics processing. Then there was also the matter of having to purchase that pesky Turbotap peripheral to add another controller.
Two-player gaming at a premium, ladies and gentlemen.
I could quote more sources and make this more tedious than it has to be, but I opt not to. Do some googling if your memory of this $399.00 cost-prohibitive monster is hazy.
Suffice it to say that I'll be looking for other Pocket PC emulators besides the TG-16, because in my experience a dearth of developer support for the console leads to even scarcer ROM downloads.
This is a big minus for folks who like to play a wide range of Pocket PC ROMs with their PDA as opposed to a handful.
My upcoming C64 emulator article should hopefully be more promising.
