The History of the PC Engine
Added 2016-03-28 18:20:23 +0000 UTChttp://shmuplations.com/pcengine/
These two interviews offer a look back at the history and development of NEC and Hudson’s seminal home console system the PC Engine, aka Turbo Grafx 16 in the US. The 1987 interview with Hudson veteran Shinichi Nakamoto comes from BEEP Magazine, while the 2003 interview is from the GSLA. The fact of Hudson’s close association with Nintendo and the market dominance of the Famicom make for some interesting comments on a “console war” of a different, more amicable kind from the better-known Sega vs. Nintendo feud.
Comments
Oooh, good link on the Famicom Boom article (I think it's perfectly reasonable that I haven't read every interview on the website! :) It definitely is easy to forget (or to have never even known) what the Famicom was like in those years before the NES released. I thought Retro Game Challenge was really interesting in that regard--you didn't really see many of the types of games offered in the first half of of the game in the US, or they certainly weren't the ones that made the NES a hit!
Michael
2016-04-01 15:17:58 +0000 UTCI found it an especially interesting comment too. Here is the relevant jp if you're curious: その前年の1986年は｢高橋名人の冒険島｣が出た年でして､ファミコンのピークというのはやっぱりこの頃だったと思います。 Ultimately I think it's just their personal opinion as star programmers (Oyama especially was seen as a genius early programmer--see here <a href="https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%98%E3%82%AF%E3%82%BF%E3%83%BC'87)" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%98%E3%82%AF%E3%82%BF%E3%83%BC'87)</a> from that early Famicom era, but a little extra context might be helpful. I'd recommend looking that "Famicom Crisis" interview again: <a href="http://shmuplations.com/famicomboom/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://shmuplations.com/famicomboom/</a> It's a 1986 article with companies complaining about the fallout of the Famicom Boom, and the proliferation of mediocre/copycat titles. It was considered important enough of a "controversy" to merit attention from Nintendo's resident PR guy, Hiroshi Imanishi.
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2016-03-30 21:07:41 +0000 UTC
