The Martlet

This week I’d like to take a look at a home video game console you probably have never heard of — the TurboGrafx-16.

The TurboGrafx-16 was arguably the first 16-bit game system released in North America (while it had 16-bit graphics, it actually had an 8-bit CPU). Its 1989 release set it up to compete not only with the highly-established-but-less-visually-impressive Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), but the new, up-and-coming, and slightly more powerful Sega Genesis.

The Turbografx console featured a sleek, black design similar in size and shape to a laptop PC. It came with a single controller very much like NES’s, but its most interest¬ing feature was its games, which came in a special “Turbochip” format that essentially looked like a credit card with a chip on top.

While the TurboGrafx initially showed some promise, gaining a small share of the home video-game market with a number of quality games, it was doomed to failure. One of its main disadvantages was its hardware — playing multiplayer games meant not only buying more controllers but also buying an external “Turbotap” device that extra controllers had to be plugged into. And while the TurboGrafx actually had the first CD-ROM device available for a home system — beating the Sony Playstation by six years — not only was the CD add-on twice as expensive as the system itself, but only a trickle of games were ever released for it.

But while hardware is important, what typically makes or breaks a game console is its software. Besides a low-key marketing campaign that didn’t help matters much, the TurboGrafx simply couldn’t compete with the sheer number of quality games available for the NES or Genesis.

Nintendo, besides boasting the hugely successful Mario and Zelda series which remain popular to this day, had a lot of third-party companies developing great NES games.

The Genesis also secured a strong early foothold due to Sega’s selection of classic arcade titles and firmly entrenched itself as the dominant system in North America throughout the early ’90s with mega-hits like Sonic the Hedgehog and NHL Hockey.

With few popular titles available for it, TurboGrafx soon fell behind in the market. By the time Super NES was released in 1991, it was pretty much all over for TurboGrafx.

Fortunately TurboGrafx-16 lives on via Nintendo’s Virtual Console service. Many of these games, now two decades old, still stand the test of the time for the avid retro-gamer.

Some personal favourite TurboGrafx games include Bonk’s Adventure and Bonk’s Revenge (Mario-style platformers), Neutopia 1 & 2, (essentially well-done Zelda clones), Blazing Lasers, Splatterhouse, R-Type, The Legendary Axe, and the amazing turn-based strategy game Military Madness.