MK for the Turbografx-16!?

- Poor Marketing Decisions. Like with many American branch offices of Japanese game outfits, all the decisions were made by the head office in Tokyo, leaving the US directors powerless. "In 1992, TTI was offered an exclusive on Mortal Kombat," claimed TTI sales director and Turbo Zone Direct founder Steve Garwood in a 2001 interview. "But this one particular software guru in Japan said 'I think Americans are tired of fighting games.' Need I say more?"


http://www.1up.com/features/20-years...pager.offset=3

Really I have never heard this one before but if it's true then its was a big blunder over here.

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Originally Posted by Da_Shocker

- Poor Marketing Decisions. Like with many American branch offices of Japanese game outfits, all the decisions were made by the head office in Tokyo, leaving the US directors powerless. "In 1992, TTI was offered an exclusive on Mortal Kombat," claimed TTI sales director and Turbo Zone Direct founder Steve Garwood in a 2001 interview. "But this one particular software guru in Japan said 'I think Americans are tired of fighting games.' Need I say more?"


http://www.1up.com/features/20-years...pager.offset=3

Really I have never heard this one before but if it's true then its was a big blunder over here.

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I've heard this many times before but it's nice to finally have a name to attribute the claim to. For the record, I don't believe for a minute that they were offered exclusivity in any capacity - Mortal Kombat was ported to EVERYTHING. Absolutely everything. Maybe they were offered a port - I would believe that in a heart beat, but exclusivity? Nope, the director of TTI isn't gonna convince me of that.

With the Turbo's proficiency at animation thanks to the way the ROM is treated as RAM, an MK port could have turned out VERY well. But by 1992 the US was pretty much done with anything that didn't say Genesis or Nintendo on it. Wait, didn't Mortal Kombat 1 only turn out on the Genesis and SNES in 1993 in the first place? This whole story seems off then. Did Akklaim even make games for the Turbo?

I'm pretty sure the Acklame never touched the Turbo but i'm thinking that maybe this would've been a direct port by Midway but idk.

More likely Hudson or NEC Avenue would have had to port Mortal Kombat. Either way, IGN interviews are suspect at best, they just love to cater to their audience by trashing the "failed" platforms.

NEC Avenue was pretty great at converting arcade games to the PC Engine, so I could see Midway (who didn't do console programming at the time) going to them first. They likely could have produced a perfect port of the game.

Acclaim was just the publisher anyways. Each console port was handled by a different team - Probe did the Genesis port while Sculpture Software did the SNES port. I think the Euro Computer ports were handled by probe too.

I've seen this a lot of times over the years. I don't think the interview was originally IGN either. It's always sounded like B.S. to me though. Maybe the guy was misinformed or something, but there's no way I would believe the Turbo was offered exclusive rights to MK. That game was just too massive at the time for anyone (TDZ or Midway) to make such a massive GAF.

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Originally Posted by sheath

More likely Hudson or NEC Avenue would have had to port Mortal Kombat. Either way, IGN interviews are suspect at best, they just love to cater to their audience by trashing the "failed" platforms.

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That was 1up.com not IGN.

Yeah, they're all the same to me. ;)

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Originally Posted by TheSonicRetard

Mortal Kombat was ported to EVERYTHING.

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This is true, I once went to take a piss only to see the attract mode floating in toilet water.

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Originally Posted by sheath

With the Turbo's proficiency at animation thanks to the way the ROM is treated as RAM, an MK port could have turned out VERY well. But by 1992 the US was pretty much done with anything that didn't say Genesis or Nintendo on it. Wait, didn't Mortal Kombat 1 only turn out on the Genesis and SNES in 1993 in the first place? This whole story seems off then. Did Akklaim even make games for the Turbo?

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The console ports of MK came out in 1993, but the arcade version was 1992 and that's when any offers would have been made.

That said, I still don't believe it.

Anybody know if there is a TG16 equivalent of Sega Base? I'd love to see what was gonig on with the American branch of NEC during this time.

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Originally Posted by Da_Shocker

Anybody know if there is a TG16 equivalent of Sega Base? I'd love to see what was gonig on with the American branch of NEC during this time.

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The thing with the Turbo Grafx 16 is that it sorta switched hands midway through it's life cycle. Around the time the Turbo Duo was released, handling of the system switched from the US division of NEC to a new company called Turbo Technologies Incorporated, or TTI. TTI held on for a long time after the Duo's death, and in the late 90s/early 2000's, reformed as the internet-only Turbo Zone Direct.

So figuring out what was going on with the Turbo Grafx seems like it'd be a difficult venture. I can say this, however - the Turbo Grafx was mishandled almost the exact same way the Sega Master System was.

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Originally Posted by TheSonicRetard

The thing with the Turbo Grafx 16 is that it sorta switched hands midway through it's life cycle. Around the time the Turbo Duo was released, handling of the system switched from the US division of NEC to a new company called Turbo Technologies Incorporated, or TTI. TTI held on for a long time after the Duo's death, and in the late 90s/early 2000's, reformed as the internet-only Turbo Zone Direct.

So figuring out what was going on with the Turbo Grafx seems like it'd be a difficult venture. I can say this, however - the Turbo Grafx was mishandled almost the exact same way the Sega Master System was.

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SMS had no chance in hell of doing much here unless Sega had enough money to strongarm Nintendo. The SMS had what Park Brothers and Activision as its 3rd party supporters. I'm sorry but even the 32X had better 3rd party support.