February 12, 2009by Chris

Released in Japan as a next generation '16bit' console by NEC in 1987, the PC-Engine was technologically superior to its competition, the 8bit NES/Famicom and Sega Master System.

It was not a true 16bit system, it was more of a hybrid - the PC-Engine used an 8bit CPU with a 16bit GPU, which gave it a lot of processing power; was said to be equal to that of the Super Famicom (SNES in North America).

It sold very well in Japan but never got a foothold in America and soon was trounced by Sega and Nintendo's 16 bit systems.

NEC released the PC-Engine in 1989 in North America as the 'TurboGrafx-16' but seemed to wait a little too long as Sega beat them to the plate - by releasing their 16bit Genesis two weeks earlier. Sega's advertisements ridiculed NEC by saying that their system was not a true 16bit system.

NEC fought it out with Nintendo and Sega in North America until 1991 when their system fell to forth place in 1991. In 1994, NEC released a 32bit system in Japan called the PC-FX and then quit the console business. NEC then partnered with Sega to produce the PowerVR 2 chipset for the Sega Dreamcast, which was incredible.

NEC engineered some amazing videogaming technology in the 1990's but didn't play hardball rough & tough enough with the extremely aggressive Nintendo and Sega.

The PC-Engine/Turbografx-16 was engineered to near perfection; has credit-card sized cartridges, CD-ROM compatibility (the first system to feature it, in fact), and was the most powerful machine in Japan for several years.

Looking back at the history of video gaming consoles, processing power was the defining factor of success (ie Atari 2600 crushed the Magnavox Odyssey only to lose ground to Mattel's Intellivision which lost out to Colecovision) but then as the 'fun factor' increased, the 'power' factor lost ground, as is obviously exemplified by the ruling Wii which has a fraction of the power compared to the 8 core PS3 or the lightning fast Xbox 360. The intelligence of Nintendo cannot be underestimated.

The Emulators

The best PC-Engine or Turbografx-16 emulator available today is the shareware Magic Engine for Windows and OS X. It gives you 5 minutes of free play (which may be reset if you save/load a game) and retails for around $20-30 American dollars, depending on which configuration is chosen.

A comparable emulator, Ootake, is also available, as freeware.

Both of these emulators do a near-perfect job at emulation. A minimum system will run each emulator - 256MB 600MHz P3 with a GeForce 2 or ATI Radeon 7500 with a SB Live or better.

The PC-Engine was the the king of the 2D shooters (Super Air Zonk, Gate of Thunder, Solder Blade, Super Star Soldier, Star Paradia, Blazing Lazers, and more). You can find ROMs all over the 'net and easily reproduce this fine console on your PC or Mac.

CS 2.9