Question about the Genesis Launch

[NeoZeedeater]

I'm not sure how much of that development time was spent coding the game and how much was spent deciding on a character and other concepts (it's clear that the people in Sonic 1's credits like Naka, Kodama, and Ohshima were also working on other games in the late '80s). My EGMs are all packed away somewhere but I think one of the times the "four year development" was mentioned was in the issue where they talked about Sonic's development and showed some of the pics of potential mascots that didn't make it, like the bulldog.

[Sik]

When did development on the console start, actually? Because Sega already knew by launch time that they needed a new mascot to go against Mario, but whether or not they had decided to take some action on that already is a different matter.

[kool kitty89]

When did development on the console start, actually? Because Sega already knew by launch time that they needed a new mascot to go against Mario, but whether or not they had decided to take some action on that already is a different matter.

From the Japanese standpoint, was that really the biggest issue? (there's Nintendo's stranglehold on 3rd parties for one thing -and possibly ways Sega of Japan could have combated that -like relying on in-house software and/or offering extremely low-risk/high-benefit licensing contracts to 3rd party publishers to make the risk of dumping Nintendo more attractive; and then there's the issue of said in-house software as well as marketing to appeal to the JP consumers)

RPGs probably would have been a major consideration, though Square's games didn't hit until 1987 (neither did Phantasy Star), so it would have been other early RPGs making the difference. (which Nintendo still had an advantage with) OTOH, there were some computer RPGs that were never on Nintendo platforms that Sega might have attracted. (but some of those also ended up on the PCE, so perhaps NEC had exclusive licensing)


From a US/EU perspective, you certainly have Mario to consider (especially in the US with Nintendo), but Sega had much bigger concerns that should haev come before any of that. In the US, their main problem by far was marketing (and distribution) and management/leadership in the NA division to facilitate that. (and management to facilitate software direction catering to the US market -including delegation with western developers/publishers for collaborative efforts as well as general 3rd party publishing)
That's the biggest change that took place with the Genesis, and a more definitive change than Sonic or any other single software hit . . . good management and marketing along with funding allocated to support that. Much of the successful/popular 1st and 3rd party software came out of that management environment too, and software that may have existed regardless was certainly made much more attractive to consumers through said management/marketing. (and some 3rd party releases may have existed regardless too, but may not have been published on the Genesis without that management . . . or not published under license -like with EA's threat to go unlicensed that likely would have led to a legal battle had it not been for Katz's handling of the situation and forming a positive partnership with EA)

Even with Sonic, the Genesis could have ended up another SMS or TG-16 (or perhaps moderately better) had it not been for the marketing and management that went along with that. (both leading to much stronger software support all around in the long run and -more importantly- much better consumer perception of the system and its software)

The SMS and TG-16 both failed in the US for similar reasons: lack of competitive marketing and management for the market's needs. Both had quite reasonable software for the time and enough potential to sell far better than they had . . . and attract far more software support along with that (and so on), and NEC's situation was even more ridiculous given their massive in-house monetary resources and vertical integration. (Sega would have been limited to either just investing more efficiently with proper management to make the best use of the existing resources, or they'd have to increase investment spending -namely with loans from investors much like what was done with the Genesis; while NEC had tons of in-house funding to work with more like Sony -allowing it to be a self-investor- as well as strong credit for additional 3rd party investment -when that was more attractive, but the TG-16 was obviously handled nothing like the PSX by Sony -and the PCE in Japan wasn't handled in that manner either . . . among other things, NEC didn't aggressively push for 3rd party publisher support from existing Nintendo licensees)

[Thenewguy]

Both had quite reasonable software for the time and enough potential to sell far better than they had . . . and attract far more software support along with that (and so on), and NEC's situation was even more ridiculous given their massive in-house monetary resources and vertical integration.

Master System's software was competitive (there were some quality games in many genre's with better graphics than you'd see in NES games), but releases were very low in numbers, I don't think the PC-Engine's 1989 software made it look particularly good though to be honest, there's really no RoS, Ghouls N' Ghosts, Golden Axe, or Mystic Defender killer in there (graphically speaking).

I think Mega Drive benefitted from the release timing, at the stage when the MD was coming out in the US the 1st bunch of heavy hitters were all already in development at SoJ, and they all appeared around the important 1st Christmas 1989/January 1990 as state of the art brand new games, whilst a bunch of the PC-Engine's big games (such as Legendary Axe, R-Type), were actually Japan's previous years games.

NEC needed to have increased their Hu-Card sizes earlier to stay competitive IMO, popular Mega Drive games in 1989 were half meg games, whilst most of the PC-Engine game competing with them were quarter meg games (except R-Type, which was originally sold in Japan as two parts, but was combined for the US release).

Early releases make the PC-Engine look misleadingly weaker than the Mega Drive IMO

[Sik]

From the Japanese standpoint, was that really the biggest issue?

Remember that back in the day the US market was considered the big thing and the main thing console manufacturers really cared about.

[Black_Tiger]

Master System's software was competitive (there were some quality games in many genre's with better graphics than you'd see in NES games), but releases were very low in numbers, I don't think the PC-Engine's 1989 software made it look particularly good though to be honest, there's really no RoS, Ghouls N' Ghosts, Golden Axe, or Mystic Defender killer in there (graphically speaking).

I think Mega Drive benefitted from the release timing, at the stage when the MD was coming out in the US the 1st bunch of heavy hitters were all already in development at SoJ, and they all appeared around the important 1st Christmas 1989/January 1990 as state of the art brand new games, whilst a bunch of the PC-Engine's big games (such as Legendary Axe, R-Type), were actually Japan's previous years games.

NEC needed to have increased their Hu-Card sizes earlier to stay competitive IMO, popular Mega Drive games in 1989 were half meg games, whilst most of the PC-Engine game competing with them were quarter meg games (except R-Type, which was originally sold in Japan as two parts, but was combined for the US release).

Early releases make the PC-Engine look misleadingly weaker than the Mega Drive IMO

I don't think that the graphics of Genesis launch games mattered as much as the gameplay and name recognition.

The PC Engine CD-ROM launched at the same time as the Mega Drive and was popular from the get-go. The MD didn't have anything like No-Ri-Ko and Space Adventure Cobra arrived a few months later. By the time around the MD launch, the PC Engine had for HuCard games the digital comic adventure game Sadachi Seven, the RPG Necromancer which was the first to use kanji(?) Shanghai, Sengoku Mahjong, Langrisser Zero and a good variety of other non-arcade games. There were also Sega games on PC Engine, which led people to correctly conclude that Sega games would continue to also come to PCE.

The Mega Drive started out with and remained strong in arcade-style games, which were more popular in Western territories. The PC Engine was perfect for Japan, but Hudson wasn't pushing developers to cater to the world. So although the PC Engine got enough Western-friendly games, the Mega Drive was pumping them out from day one. The early success of the CD-ROM, which NEC's desire to push was the reason they got involved in the PCE in the first place, didn't encourage Japanese developers to push for larger HuCards either.

Meanwhile the Mega Drive was the opposite and as such had the opposite success (popular abroad, not so much in Japan). Even if NEC had brought over the best PC Engine games that actually existed all along, the Mega Drive still had the advantage for Western-friendly software on cart. It's no wonder things turned out the way they did.

I think that for NEC's large resources to have helped the TurboGrafx-16 in North America, they would have had to pay to get the right games that weren't already being developed for PC Engine and they would have had to sell the CD-ROM at a huge loss and later sell the Super CD card in stores and dirt cheap. The PC Engine library that actually happened, didn't have enough of the right games early enough for the TG-16 and never would have nearly as many as the Mega Drive.

[Thenewguy]

Well, we were mainly talking about how competitive the software was in the west, but fair enough, that Necromancer RPG looks like it could've strengthened the US releases had it been translated.

I don't see the PC-Engine software library as being exclusively a case of East Vs West, I mean, the NES and the SNES didn't have any problems catering to the west early on, its more like the PC-Engine just attracted niche and/or low budget companies due to the cheapness of CD game development.

And personally I think the PC-Engine would've been better off without the CD unit, I think the CD unit was simply a huge liability, it even compromised the hardware in some aspects, and it was never going to be a particularly viable business model. Better to have a natural lifespan with Hu-Cards getting larger as time goes on IMO.

Lastly, I don't think the PC-Engine was particularly more popular in Japan anyway, sure it had a couple million more in hardware sales, but the system was released a year earlier, and most of its sales were prior to 1991, whilst the Mega Drive only started to get decent software during 1989. I would imagine by ~1993 the Mega Drive and PC-Engine/DUO were fairly even in marketshare (yearly marketshare, not total marketshare).

[Sik]

And personally I think the PC-Engine would've been better off without the CD unit, I think the CD unit was simply a huge liability, it even compromised the hardware in some aspects, and it was never going to be a particularly viable business model. Better to have a natural lifespan with Hu-Cards getting larger as time goes on IMO.

Kool kitty rage in 3... 2... 1...

Lastly, I don't think the PC-Engine was particularly more popular in Japan anyway

It was more, but in the end the Super Famicom crushed both consoles as if they were tiny bugs...

[sheath]

From what I can tell from the magazines, the TurboGrafx-16 and Genesis sold equally poorly in 1989 and 1990. It wasn't until 1991 that the Genesis really took off, and by then magazines were labeling the Turbo "too quirky" for its Japanese characters. I think that negative press also reflected NEC's relative apathy towards advertising compared to Nintendo and Sega.

I'm not completely certain, but I don't think the Turbo CD was released outside of New York and Los Angeles in 1989. It definitely wasn't popular ever though.

[Thenewguy]

It was more, but in the end the Super Famicom crushed both consoles as if they were tiny bugs...

I've seen quite a respectable amount of info on the systems now, and I would say the info indicates that the PC-Engine was much more popular than the Mega Drive in Japan in the late 80s, after that however I doubt the PC-Engine was selling particularly more than Mega Drive, it could realistically have been selling less than Mega Drive yearly during the 1992-1994 period, with the early sales being the main reason why it stayed ahead in total sales.

EDIT: Actually, looking through all the info logically, I'd say it indicates that PC-Engine probably was always selling a little more than Mega Drive in Japan, out of the three selections of sources I've got, two of them would indicate PC-Engine (all models combined) selling maybe ~200,000 a year more than Mega Drive during the 90s, with only the third (which states DUO sales were closer to 1 million as opposed to 2 million) leaving room for the Mega Drive to overtake it in yearly sales.

From what I can tell from the magazines, the TurboGrafx-16 and Genesis sold equally poorly in 1989 and 1990.

We're not talking about how well either were doing in the US, Kool Kitty said that the software was in place for the PC-Engine to take off if everything else was managed properly, which I disagree with.

Albeit, if there'd been no lag between Japanese and US game releases that would've helped hugely, but still IMO early PC-Engine software supported the idea that it wasn't a true next generation console, why the heck didn't PC-Engine games look superior to Genesis games ffs?! the system had a years development lead on Mega Drive, it had much better colour capabilities, it had very respectable CPU power, and yet we have stuff like Keith Courage competing with Ghouls N Ghosts! Altered Beast with tiny characters and low colour counts etc

Also Genesis was going for 1 million sales in the US by the end of 1990, whilst TG-16 was aiming for 250,000, so whilst both were selling poorly in comparison to NES, the two were not "equal"

http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingt...k&pqatl=google

[kool kitty89]

Master System's software was competitive (there were some quality games in many genre's with better graphics than you'd see in NES games), but releases were very low in numbers, I don't think the PC-Engine's 1989 software made it look particularly good though to be honest, there's really no RoS, Ghouls N' Ghosts, Golden Axe, or Mystic Defender killer in there (graphically speaking).

I was speaking more in terms of the total Japanese libraries of the time . . . and among other things, the PCE could have been pushed out earlier in the US and (among the other management/marketing areas I already mentioned) should have pushed for ports/licenses of western software to supplement that. (and localizations of some games to make them more marketable -including celebrity licenses or graphical changes -like what Sega did end up doing with the Genesis)

And in both the case of the SMS and TG16, both would have had a considerable boost in overall software with better marketing and management. (better market perception and better negotiations with 3rd party devs and publishers -in Japan and the US)

Of course, NEC's funding and vertical integration (along with older/simpler hardware) also should have meant significantly lower hardware prices than the competition. (possibly lower software prices too, but even with their vertical integration, the cost of the fast ROMs the PCE used probably would have been an issue -for games of the same ROM sizes at least, plus the PCE had less RAM to decompress into)

I think Mega Drive benefitted from the release timing, at the stage when the MD was coming out in the US the 1st bunch of heavy hitters were all already in development at SoJ, and they all appeared around the important 1st Christmas 1989/January 1990 as state of the art brand new games, whilst a bunch of the PC-Engine's big games (such as Legendary Axe, R-Type), were actually Japan's previous years games.

Yes, PCE games lagged too much (somewhat like the NES)
They could either have pushed harder and launched the whole system a year earlier with similar games, or they could have kept the same release date and pushed for more/newer games available by that point. (and even a year earlier in the US would still be a full year after the JP launch -of course, there was never an official release in Europe at all, another major problem for the system)

NEC needed to have increased their Hu-Card sizes earlier to stay competitive IMO, popular Mega Drive games in 1989 were half meg games, whilst most of the PC-Engine game competing with them were quarter meg games (except R-Type, which was originally sold in Japan as two parts, but was combined for the US release).

Again, the fast ROMs may have been a limiting factor here too, but the bigger issues would probably have been many TG releases being somewhat older by the time they got to the west (vs Sega's faster turn-around) and most later hucard games were targeting the budget market, with CD going mainstream in Japan.
The solution to that could have been and emphasis on CD to hucard ports targeting the US market (since the CD unit would be hard-pressed to go mainstream even at more aggressive prices), but that didn't really happen. (and the limited sales in the US -and ever increasing CD sales in Japan- made it even less attractive as time went on)

Early releases make the PC-Engine look misleadingly weaker than the Mega Drive IMO

Yes, though that wouldn't have been so much the case had the system been released a full year earlier in the US (as it had in Japan), or if those earlier games were pegged mainly as budget releases alongside the newer games for an '89 launch. (again, among other potential management changes that could have bolstered software support -ie significant contracting and licensing from US and EU software houses, though even the Japanese end could have been pushed harder -it doesn't seem like they did enough to facilitate 3rd parties taking the risk of dropping Nintendo . . . like offering very attractive/low-risk/flexible licensing/publishing agreements, at least for early sign-ons -at least prior to the platform becoming a huge success)

As we know, most 3rd party publishers (in Japan and the west) were not happy with Nintendo at the time, so offering an attractive and viable alternative would have been very significant.

I don't see the PC-Engine software library as being exclusively a case of East Vs West, I mean, the NES and the SNES didn't have any problems catering to the west early on, its more like the PC-Engine just attracted niche and/or low budget companies due to the cheapness of CD game development.

CD games weren't usually cheaper to develop, but the publishing/manufacturing/distribution end was where that came into play. (actual software development costs -in terms of time and resources- would tend to be significantly greater than contemporary cart games -especially with significant multimedia use -detailed cutscenes, instrumental soundtracks, decent quality voice acting, etc -not to mention the programming requirements to cater to the limited RAM)

And personally I think the PC-Engine would've been better off without the CD unit, I think the CD unit was simply a huge liability, it even compromised the hardware in some aspects, and it was never going to be a particularly viable business model. Better to have a natural lifespan with Hu-Cards getting larger as time goes on IMO.

In terms of a western product, certainly, but for Japan, the CD was instrumental in their success. (they certainly made other mistakes too though, both in Japan and the US)
Again, at very least, they could have put an emphasis on porting CD games to larger cards to cater more to the western market. (cutting the price on the system -and CD unit- earlier could have helped too, though I still doubt the CD could have gone mainstream in the US -let alone Europe- at that time -maybe with the Super CD a bit later on, with the right marketing and very aggressive pricing -taking advantage of NEC's financial position and vertical integration)

Lastly, I don't think the PC-Engine was particularly more popular in Japan anyway, sure it had a couple million more in hardware sales, but the system was released a year earlier, and most of its sales were prior to 1991, whilst the Mega Drive only started to get decent software during 1989. I would imagine by ~1993 the Mega Drive and PC-Engine/DUO were fairly even in marketshare (yearly marketshare, not total marketshare).

Are you talking about just the hucard based PCE, or the CD sales? (I'd gotten the impression NEC held over 1/3 the Japanese market until around 1994 -I seem to remember Tomaithous having some more specific figures on that)
And also that the MD (and MCD) sales stagnated in the early 90s. (and, while MCD hardware sales were relatively low, MCD software still sold relatively close in volumes to cart software -due to the proportionally small cart software sales for the MD by 1993/94)

Remember that back in the day the US market was considered the big thing and the main thing console manufacturers really cared about.

Yes . . . at least that's the logical assumption, but whether Japanese companies did that actively seems to be the bigger question. (tons of things Sega did didn't make much sense outside of the Japanese market, and similar for NEC -and both companies had poor management/marketing in the US for the SMS and TG-16 . . . and the PCE didn't even get a European release -let alone the sort of management/support that the SMS did in that region)

Both may have put priorities on the US market, but neither managed to establish the necessary management to facilitate that (prior to Sega bringing in Katz in late '89 at least), and neither seemed to have a good understanding of the market needs either. (albeit, lack of good regional management is a part of that problem -be it building up an internal division in that region or outsourcing to established distributors/marketing firms -and taking signiifcant feedback from said partners to better cater to the market needs for marketing budgets, pricing, software, etc)

It was more, but in the end the Super Famicom crushed both consoles as if they were tiny bugs...

The MD, perhaps, but the PCE/CD held up rather well against the SFC, even as an aging platform and in spite of NEC's mistakes. (not being aggressive enough with attracting 3rd party publishers away from Nintendo, then some odd decisions with the Supergrafx, Super CD, and very late release of the Arcade card -which was still expensive at that time . . . SGX could have been an add-on and/or integrated with the Super CD/Duo standards or shouldn't have been released at all . . . Super CD should have had more RAM or at least gotten another -more modest- RAM upgrade sooner -RAM prices were dropping rapidly from 1989-1992 and NEC had vertical integration on top of that . . . but DRAM prices ended up stagnating after 1992 such that the arcade card wouldn't have been any cheaper in 1994 than in 1992 -may have actually been more expensive, and not that much cheaper than it would have been in 1991 due to the way RAM prices went at that time -and even with vertical integration, NEC would have those same trade-offs since any RAM devoted to their in-house products would be RAM sales/profits deprived from the open market -on top of that, the Super CD used SRAM, so even more potential to use more RAM and save on cost -especially since the original PCDCD already used DRAM . . . and obviously 512k DRAM on an 8-bit bus with the Super CD would still have been much cheaper than what Sega did with the MCD -more RAM, more buses, wider buses, more overall hardware, and lack of vertical integration . . . not to mention economies of scale)

Though, NEC's biggest mistake in Japan was probably the PCFX. (ie developing a next-gen console a bit early, shelving it -and halting development, and then rushing it out at the last minute as an underpowered virtually unmarketable mess that dropped backwards compatibility on top of all that -yet retained most of the PCE/SGX/CD hardware as core features)

From the figures I've seen, SFC sales didn't totally dominate PCE/CD sales until around 1994 (prior to which, the PCE/CD was at least at a decent 2nd place -somewhat like the N64 in the US), and at that point the PCE was both aging considerably (plus the SGX never caught-on) and NEC's efforts were divided with the PCFX and next-gen market with Sony and Sega. (albeit, had they not rushed out old hardware to meet the new competition and instead kept to the 16-bit market alone for a little longer -enough time to work out a reasonably competitive next-gen console- things probably would have been much different -late gen PCE sales probably would have fared better and they'd have had a realistic successor to the system, perhaps even a year ahead of Nintendo still -and not limited to carts . . . obviously the better move would have been to not halt development of the PCFX in the first place and either release it back in 1993 or continue followon development with competitive 3D functionality -also might have been really interesting if they'd partnered with 3DO rather than Panasonic being the primary investor)

Albeit, NEC also had the issue of their Japanese computer monopoly falling apart in the early 90s.

[kool kitty89]

I've seen quite a respectable amount of info on the systems now, and I would say the info indicates that the PC-Engine was much more popular than the Mega Drive in Japan in the late 80s, after that however I doubt the PC-Engine was selling particularly more than Mega Drive, it could realistically have been selling less than Mega Drive yearly during the 1992-1994 period, with the early sales being the main reason why it stayed ahead in total sales.

EDIT: Actually, looking through all the info logically, I'd say it indicates that PC-Engine probably was always selling a little more than Mega Drive in Japan, out of the three selections of sources I've got, two of them would indicate PC-Engine (all models combined) selling maybe ~200,000 a year more than Mega Drive during the 90s, with only the third (which states DUO sales were closer to 1 million as opposed to 2 million) leaving room for the Mega Drive to overtake it in yearly sales.

If this is true, then I've gotten the wrong impression on the overall PCE market/sales in Japan (albeit you seem to be more commenting on hardware than software so there's more to it than that too -ie if the overall PCE install based remained very active throughout the generation).

That would also make NEC's lagging in getting out a full next-gen platform a bit odd too . . . and the lack of emphasis on the SGX for that matter. (ie dropping it rather quickly rather than trying to reposition it for greater success -not making it an add-on in the first place was a problem -since the hardware facilitated exactly that sort of add-on, but not encorporating it into the Super CD/Duo standard was a bigger issue -in terms of allowing more competitive software late in the generation -short of a full next-gen successor)

Albeit, success in the west could have had major impacts on the late-gen PCE market in Japan too. (among marketing/management decisions that could have led to stronger Japanese publisher support too)

We're not talking about how well either were doing in the US, Kool Kitty said that the software was in place for the PC-Engine to take off if everything else was managed properly, which I disagree with.

Albeit, if there'd been no lag between Japanese and US game releases that would've helped hugely, but still IMO early PC-Engine software supported the idea that it wasn't a true next generation console, why the heck didn't PC-Engine games look superior to Genesis games ffs?!

Yes, a harder push for localizing software as well as investment for western software (commissions and negotiations for 3rd party publishers too) to truly round-out software (and increase overall volumes). Not to mention potential for building up in-house software development resources too.

Aggressive pricing and marketing would obviously have helped too, and NEC's financial advantages, vertical integration, volume production, and generally simpler/cheaper hardware. (unless they chose to launch the SGX alone in 1989 in place of the TG-16 in the US/Europe, though that still should have had the vertical integration and funding advantages) Having more than 1 controller port built-in would have been nice too. (with the bulkier form factor of the US release -and NEC's manufacturing advantage- they probably could have afforded to integrate the full 5 controller ports)

the system had a years development lead on Mega Drive, it had much better colour capabilities, it had very respectable CPU power, and yet we have stuff like Keith Courage competing with Ghouls N Ghosts! Altered Beast with tiny characters and low colour counts etc

A year of development time without killer in-house programming and without killer 3rd party support either. (western or Japanese) If nothing else, Sega always had strong in-house software development.

As for the software end: having the system released a year earlier was part of that problem . . . much of the software being older and NEC not pushing hard enough to get the newest JP releases localized quickly. (plus the general software support the platform catered to in Japan -including a significant number of NES developers and PC88/98 game developers)
And, on top of that, there WERE much more impressive looking/sounding/playing games already available in the US in 1989 too, but NEC didn't use any of those as the pack-in option.

Finally, I don't believe Ghouls n' Ghosts was actually among the 1989 releases either, and possibly not even 1990 (Apolloboy mentioned it was released in 1991 in another thread), so some of these software comparisons are still problematic. (rfgeneration isn't flawless either as some of the dates seem to be primarily based on the copyright date rather than an official release date)
Then again, that could also apply to release dates for PCE/TG16 games, making this comparison even tougher. (same thing for NES and SMS games) Which is the issue I brought up a couple pages ago too. http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...l=1#post441614
And Apolloboy's original post:
http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...608#post441608

It was also mentioned that Revenge of Shinobi, Golden Axe and Alex Kidd in Enchanted Castle were 1990 releases and Castle of Illusion was 1991. (and Joe Montana was actually mentioned as a 1990 release, though I'd seen some claims that it was delayed until January 1991 prior to that)
rfgeneration does seem to match all of that too, save for Ghouls n' Ghosts which is listed as 1989. (so maybe that's the exception)

The actual august launch 1989 lineup was even more limited too (I think that was mentioned in one of the early pages in this thread), but (assuming GnG is the only RFGENERATION error) the total 1989 US library ended up being:

Altered Beast

Arnold Palmer Tournament Golf

Forgotten Worlds

Last Battle

Rambo III

Space Harrier II

Super Hang-On

Super Thunder Blade

Thunder Force II

Tommy Lasorda Baseball

World Championship Soccer



While the TG-16 got:

Alien Crush

Blazing Lazers

China Warrior

Dragon Spirit

Dungeon Explorer

Fantasy Zone

Galaga '90

Keith Courage in Alpha Zones

Legendary Axe

Power Golf

R-Type

Sidearms

Victory Run

Vigilante

World Class Baseball

World Court Tennis

Also Genesis was going for 1 million sales in the US by the end of 1990, whilst TG-16 was aiming for 250,000, so whilst both were selling poorly in comparison to NES, the two were not "equal"

Well, obviously both would sell poorly compared to the NES even under the best circumstances . . . the NES was the mainstream system at that point (had the SMS been big, it would have been outselling the next-gen systems too), this happens almost every genration where there's an established, very popular platform on the market during the transition to next-gen. (ie aside from cases like the '83 crash which left a gap -but for NES to Genesis/SNES to PSX to PS2 to 360/ps3/wii/etc)

[sheath]

Ghouls N Ghosts was released in 1989, probably as early as other Genesis launch games.

http://www.retromags.com/forums/file...november-1989/

Ghouls N Ghosts was released for the Master System in 1990 and it was definitely after the Genesis version.

[Thenewguy]

I was speaking more in terms of the total Japanese libraries of the time . . . and among other things, the PCE could have been pushed out earlier in the US.

From what I've seen, PC-Engine didn't have an impressive title for 1989 even in Japan (Maybe Kyukyoku Tiger?), but agreed, pushing in 1988 with titles like Legendary Axe would've made the system look very impressive at that stage.

Though as has been said before, beating the Mega Drive in the early stage isn't really getting them closer to winning the war, albeit its still a start, and could've led things to going very differently (EA maybe jumping onto TG-16 instead of Genesis, more money for investment allowing them to find their own "Sonic the Hedgehog"), something to build on etc.

With a release in 1989 I really think they needed to invest more money into software to show off the system, and put to rest all the "its not really next gen" naysayers, as you said, investing in ports of western games, and maybe bigger more impressive arcade games would've also been important.

CD games weren't usually cheaper to develop, but the publishing/manufacturing/distribution end was where that came into play. (actual software development costs -in terms of time and resources- would tend to be significantly greater than contemporary cart games -especially with significant multimedia use -detailed cutscenes, instrumental soundtracks, decent quality voice acting, etc -not to mention the programming requirements to cater to the limited RAM)

I wouldn't imagine the kind of games we're talking about for the late 80s (menu based adventure games, datings sims etc, with anime stills or digitised photos) would've cost much to make, the later adventure games with the FMV, sure.

Are you talking about just the hucard based PCE, or the CD sales? (I'd gotten the impression NEC held over 1/3 the Japanese market until around 1994 -I seem to remember Tomaithous having some more specific figures on that)

Well, according to Famitsu there were 4 million core systems sold in Japan (3 million white, 1 million grey), and 2 million DUO's, leading to a total of 6 million consoles in the country, Famitsu states that half of these sales were prior to the SNES being released. other sources state a high estimate at 7 million total.

According to Nintendo they sold 17 million Super Famicom's in Japan, and according to this article they'd sold 1.6 million in Japan in the 1st 5 months -

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id...%20japan&hl=en

Being that PC-Engine had a 3 million head start, I guess its possible that it took a while for SNES to reach 66% total marketshare, but that still being in effect as late as 94' seems unlikely.

And also that the MD (and MCD) sales stagnated in the early 90s. (and, while MCD hardware sales were relatively low, MCD software still sold relatively close in volumes to cart software -due to the proportionally small cart software sales for the MD by 1993/94)

According to the source I posted in the Euro Market thread a couple of days ago, the MD was selling 500,000 odd a year in Japan around 93-94, and around 25% of Japanese MD owners had a Mega-CD.

Finally, I don't believe Ghouls n' Ghosts was actually among the 1989 releases either, and possibly not even 1990 (Apolloboy mentioned it was released in 1991 in another thread)

Dude, no way! Ghouls N Ghosts is all over the US magazines in 1989, it was everywhere, I'm sure it got game of the month in EGM in November 1989 (I would check, but the scans were hosted on Megaupload -_-')

EDIT: Cool, looks like Sheath had a scan anyway LOL (thats the buyers guide I believe, I was thinking of the November issue, hence the date).

And no, I didn't just read his post and then copy what he said, even though it totally looks like that

The MD, perhaps, but the PCE/CD held up rather well against the SFC

Half the PC-Engine's sales were prior to the release, that leaves the PC-Engine selling like 3 million systems in the amount of time it took Nintendo to sell 17 million, that doesn't seem like its doing well to me.

[sheath]

EDIT: Cool, looks like Sheath had a scan anyway LOL (thats the buyers guide I believe, I was thinking of the November issue, hence the date).

Oh no! Retrogramers was using megaupload too. Okay folks, it is time to get educated on shared hosting, it costs less than $60 a year to keep files like this. I'm a little gunshy on any kind of ROM or ISO files, I'm pretty sure that would get flagged. But articles relevant to the history of gaming need to be saved. I have attempted to catalog whatever has been posted on this site, and retromag's old big torrent release. But none of that is complete.

I do have a five drawer filing cabinet full of old gamepros, egms and gameplayers that aren't in either of these if anybody needs a scan.