TurboGrafx-16 - Legacy

Legacy

Today, the TurboGrafx-16 is mainly known for its much-vaunted shoot 'em ups and the Ys and Bonk games. After the system died, NEC decided to concentrate on the Japanese market, where it has had much more success.

In 1994, NEC released a new console, the Japan-only PC-FX, a 32-bit system with a tower-like design; it enjoyed a small but steady stream of games until 1998, when NEC finally abandoned the video games industry. NEC would then partner with former rival Sega, providing a version of its PowerVR 2 Chipset for the Dreamcast.

There is a niche collector's market for TurboGrafx games and Japanese imports, mainly centered around the system's many arcade ports of shooters. Spurring this interest is the fact that Turbo ports from the arcade tended to be closer to the original than Sega Genesis, Super NES, or NES versions, in terms of graphics and sound. Hudson Soft also released some shooters which were exclusive to the Turbo, such as Super Air Zonk: Rockabilly-Paradise, Gate of Thunder, Soldier Blade, Super Star Soldier, and Star Parodia (Japan). The most famous North American shooter is probably Blazing Lazers (Gunhed in Japan) and was featured in all of the early television ads.

Several PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 games are available for download on Nintendo's Virtual Console download service. More games among the "greatest hits" of the system are planned to be released at as-of-yet undetermined times; the exact number or titles of games selected for future release is still unknown. Since then several TG-16 games became available on the Virtual Console that were originally never released in America for the system.

On October 15, 2007, the game Gate of Thunder was released on the Virtual Console in North America, marking the first TurboGrafx-CD game to be released on the North American Virtual Console.

As of July 15, 2009 four PC-Engine games have been released on the Japanese PlayStation Network for play on the PlayStation 3 and PSP. The four games are Bomberman '94, New Adventure Island, Sengoku Mahjong, and Devil's Crush. The price for all four has been set at 600 Yen. Since then more games have been released on PSN.

At the 2011 GDC, Nintendo announced that TurboGrafx 16 and Game Gear games would be available for the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console.