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This is the PC
Engine section. I have a really nice selection of PC Engine Games, as well as PC Engine Consoles,
Handhelds and
bits and bobs of hardware in the Hardware section. Click any of these links to take you to the appropriate
section.
The PC Engine was
released by NEC, a Japanese company, in 1987. The PC Engine was a collaborative
effort between Japanese software maker Hudson Soft (which maintains a
chip-making division) and NEC. Hudson was looking for financial backing for a
game console they had designed, and NEC was looking to get into the lucrative
game market. The PC Engine was and is a very small video game console, due
primarily to a very efficient three-chip architecture and its use of HuCards,
credit-card sized data cartridges. It featured an enhanced MOS Technology 65C02
processor and a custom 16-bit graphics processor, as well as a custom video
encoder chip, all designed by Hudson.
The PC Engine was extremely popular in Japan, beating Nintendo's Famicom in
sales soon after its release, with no fewer than twelve systems released from
1987 to 1993. It was capable of up to 512 colours at once in several
resolutions, and featured very robust sprite handling abilities. The
Hudson-designed chroma encoder delivered a video signal more vibrant and
colourful than both the Famicom and the Sega Mega Drive/Sega Genesis and is
largely regarded as the equal to Nintendo's Super Famicom, although that system
was not released until 1990.
As graphics technology improved, gamers continued to stick to the PC Engine
despite its shortcomings. Erotic games were a key factor in making the PC Engine
popular, and this popularity was maintained far past the lifespan of a regular
video game console. New games were released for the PC Engine up until 1999.
It was the first console to have an optional CD module, allowing the standard
benefits of the CD medium: more storage, cheaper media costs, and redbook audio.
The efficient design, backing of many of Japan's major software producers, and
the additional CD ROM capabilities gave the PC Engine a very wide variety of
software, with several hundred games for each the HuCard and CD formats.
All PC Engine systems support the same controller peripherals, including pads,
joysticks and multitaps. Except for the Vistar, Shuttle, X1, GT and systems with
built-in CD ROM drives all PC Engine units shared the same expansion connector,
which allowed for the use of devices such as the CD ROM unit, game saves and AV
output.
The US TurboGrafx and Vistar units use a different controller port than the PC
Engines, but adaptors are available and the protocol is the same. The TurboGrafx
offers the same expansion connector pinout as the PC Engine, but has a slightly
different shape so peripherals must be modified to fit.
Despite the system's initial success, it soon lost ground to the Super Famicom.
NEC made one final effort to resuscitate the system with the release of the
Arcade Card expansion, bringing the total amount of RAM up to a then-massive
2048K; many Arcade Card games were conversions of popular Neo-Geo titles. The
additional memory even allowed the system to display pre-rendered 3D polygon
graphics well beyond what the competing Super Famicom and Megadrive/Mega-CD
could offer. By this time, however, it was too late -- only a relative handful
of Arcade Card games were ever produced, and the expansion was never released in
the U.S.
In 1994 NEC released a new console, the Japan-only PC-FX, a 32-bit system with a
tower-like design; it enjoyed a small but steady stream of games until 1998,
when NEC finally abandoned the video games industry.
The PC Engine GT is a portable version of the PC Engine. It had a very crisp
screen and an optional TV tuner was available. It could play all of the PC
Engine HuCard games, yet had low battery life.
Another variation of the hardware is the SuperGrafx. This system is very nearly
the same as the original PCE, except it has a duplicate set of video chips (and
an extra chip to coordinate the two) and four times as much RAM. Since the CPU
was not upgraded most developers were unable to utilize the extra graphics
capability, the CPU just could not keep up. Only five SuperGrafx games (and one
hybrid game - Darius) were released, and the system fell into obscurity.
Other members of the PC Engine family include the Shuttle, the LT (a laptop
version similar to the Game Boy Advance SP, but considerably larger), the
CoreGrafx I and II, the Duo R and the Duo RX. Contrary to popular belief the
CoreGrafx is not a European version of the PC Engine. It is simply a
reengineered version of the original (white) PC Engine with an AV output instead
of the original model's RF output. The PC Engine and its derivatives were never
officially sold in Europe, although many systems and most accessories and games
were available as imports. The PC Engine and its games had been extensively
covered by most major European video game magazines and were surprisingly
popular.
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