Pc Engine


Ganepark32

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I was looking at some of them on eBay but there all really expensive. I like playing the games on my GP32 but i would like to add it to my ever growing collection of consoles. So is it worth buying one cause all the games are going cheap?
 
This is a system that has escaped my collection as well, I know this system sold relatively well in the US, not as good as the NES, but it did ok, but I saw you were from Scotland so I don't know how well they sold up there to see if you can hold out til you find one at a flea market.

If you have the money, do not get the base model, get the Turbo Duo. Its the system that had the cd and hue cards in 1.
 
Yeah i was going to get one of those aswell as one of the GT handhelds thats use the hue cards. I've still to get the atari's and a nes and snes but i want the PC Engine more cause ninja spirit is amazing. I'll see if there's one at a flea market but i don't think i'll find one there cause they're kinda rare.
 
Yeah I've tried eBay but they don't have the turbo duo on the lists but they have the GT handheld but it's selling for like £100 and it's on a buy it now for £600 which is stupid. The games are going cheap though. ninja spirit was going for £2 on the hue card so if i get one at least the games will be cheap.
edit: does anyone know any retro gaming sites where i might be able to get the turbo duo and the GT handheld?
 
I recently sold my PCE GT on ebay, got about £150 for it. I have to admit that I never really played on it that much, it was huge, ate batteries and most text was very difficult to read on the screen because it has a much lower resolution than a TV so things are scaled to fit less pixels. Get a duo, you can burn CD images (do you think anyone noticed that comment sneeked in?) You probably want a US system because of the language, but you can buy Jap systems, brand new, very cheap from websites based in south asia (can't remember the site names).
 
YES! Get one!

My Duo is my favourite retro system. There were many different versions released, but a quick summary is:

Base systems which play credit card sized games
US = TurboGrafx / TG16
Jap = PC-Engine (white) / CoreGrafx (grey) / Coregrafx 2 (dark grey/black) / Shuttle

Portable systems which play credit card sized games
US = Turbo Express
Jap = PC-Engine GT / PC-Engine LT (semi portable with big lcd screen)

CD Addon hardware for the base consoles
US = TGCD (black)
Jap = PC-Engine CD (white, to match original PC-Engine)

Combined card/CD systems
US = Turbo Duo
Jap = PC-Engine Duo, Duo-R, Duo-RX

Odd one out that plays its own special games
Jap = SuperGrafx

Right, the next bit may be a bit tricky... so read carefully!
The cards and CDs came in both US and Jap formats.... all CD systems will read both CD formats. US consoles will read US cards and Jap cards (with a hard-to-find convertor), Jap consoles will only read Jap cards unless you do a hardware mod (not many people like to hack the Jap consoles as the US ones are much cheaper if you just want to play any of the US versions of the cart games). The SuperGrafx can be treated as a Jap base console, except that it also plays special supergrafx games that took advantage of its extra hardware (dont worry, there were only 5 or 6 games made for it - ghouls n ghosts, battle ace, aldynes, granzort, erm... something else and a special version of Darius that is also playable on normal consoles.).

All base consoles apart from the Shuttle can be hooked up to one of the CD addons and an option card (a system card, super system card or arcade system card = extra memory and cd rom routines) to play virtually the entire library of games.

To play the majority of games out there the best combo would be....

[a US Turbo DUO to play US/Jap CD's and US cards]

AND

[a Jap PC-Engine - they're just so cute! to play Jap cards] OR [a US <-> Jap convertor for the US Duo]

Of course you could get a Jap Duo and a basic US TG16 and that would give you the same effect... but Jap Duos tend to be more expensive as they look much more stylish.

Most people only remember the luke warm reception that the TurboGrafx got when it was launched in the US... they do not realise that the PC-Engine in Japan and Asia was a huge success and had a software library that dwarfs what was available for the US release. It also lasted until 1996 when the last releases were made. If you have only heard of the Turbo, then I reccomend you checkout the software catalogue for the PC-Engine... not only is it immense, but there are some absolutely amazing games amongst it.

Some links for you to look at, if you want to see some of the PC-Engine games available:

http://www.pcecp.com/index.php?mode=home [register for free and you get to see many more images of the games]
http://pcenginebible.roarvgm.com/index.htm
http://nec-ro-pole.emuchina.net/ [go to downloads and offline catalogue and save a software catalogue for the card and cd based games to your pc to browse]

-John
 
Make sure you also get the japanese<->US conversion cart, since its cheapish, and you really need one for some of the classics. (ie: If you want Street Fighter ;)

jeff
 
Oh, and watch out for the cheap hu-card based games... they tend to be loose, 'game only' unless they say otherwise. Still, most PC-Engine games are still quite affordable... I picked up a bundle of 20 loose hu-cards (including both Devils Crush and Alien Crush!) for around 50 quid. Even the really, really good CD games, like Macross, Star Parodia etc.. can be had for sensible money....

but you'll never, ever, ever finish your collection :-D
 
unfortunately i sold my jap white pc engine(rgb converted and boxed) about two years ago cause i never used it, i sold mine with 7 games all boxed(pac land,chase hq,rastan 2,winning shot, space harrier, ninja warriors, sci) for £127.00. gp engine was the main reason i bought a gp32 but i really wished id never have sold it, the moral is NEVER sell old consoles, however much your missus moans.
 
Yeah I know. My mum's always on bout how many consoles i have and threatens to throw them out but the only one she threw out was megadrive 1 and im still looking to find another one although i've got a megadrive2. Yeah i was going to get an american turbo duo for playing the cd'd and a jap one for the cards. Is ninja spirit on a cd as well as a card cause i love that game along with turrican and bonk!
 
If you can go for the SuperGrafx. Together with the right CD setup and arcade card it allows you to play almost any (japanese) PC-engine came.
 
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