The History of the PC Engine

The PC Engine launched in Japan on October 30, 1987. Hudson Soft designed it; NEC manufactured it. North America received a larger black shell as the TurboGrafx-16 on August 29, 1989. It was the first console of the fourth generation. In Japan it fought the Famicom; its late U.S. debut sat it against the Sega Genesis and, later, the Super NES. An 8-bit HuC6280 CPU sat beside dual 16-bit graphics chips, the HuC6270 VDC and HuC6260 VCE. The “16” in the American name oversold that pairing. At 14 × 14 × 3.5 cm, the Japanese unit is still the smallest major home console.

Games first shipped on HuCards. In December 1988 the CD-ROM² add-on made this the first console platform that could play compact discs. Bonk’s Adventure became the Western mascot. R-Type showed what a HuCard shoot-’em-up could be. The CD library added Ys Book I & II, Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, and long RPGs that would not fit on a card. SuperGrafx, Super CD-ROM², and Arcade Card revisions split the hardware and confused buyers.

Japan took to it. NEC sold about 10 million HuCard machines there, plus roughly 1.92 million CD-ROM² and Duo units. Combined Japanese and U.S. sales passed 11 million. America never caught the same wave: a late launch, a weak pack-in, and thinner marketing left it behind Genesis and Super NES. Official European plans were cancelled after the U.S. stumble. The last hardware left production in 1994. The PC-FX succeeded it in Japan and failed. The PC Engine still matters as the tiny Japanese rival that proved CDs belonged on a console.

PC Engine Technical Specifications

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