Chinese players’ understanding of PC-E is probably only on the color page of Electric Soft. When I was still playing Little Bad King, I saw that there were 8-bit computers that could display such beautiful pictures, so I was envious. However, the domestic host market was firmly occupied by FC and MD in that era, and even SFC was a niche model. In addition, the early cassettes of PC-E were not pirated at that time, so the game was too expensive and naturally had few sales in China. Perhaps in the 1990s, the PC-E GT of the handheld console version had more people than the host. If you compare it with GB and GG of the same period, the functions will naturally be perfect, so it is not surprising that children with better conditions can play.
PC-E is not our childhood, but as a passionate player, it is inevitable that you want to try games from all old platforms. In "High Score Girl", as an arcade player, Haruho always plays a host that is not very mainstream. Haruho doesn't have FC, SFC, or PS at home. Instead, he keeps playing PC-E and SS. Although a girl gave him SFC and lent him PS, it was not his own choice. So after watching the animation, you may also have a little interest in PC-E. Today we will talk about this "-time 
-bit computer".
1985 Nintendo 's FC red and white machine has dominated the entire Japanese video game market, and consumers and retailers have made various calls and requests for Nintendo. One of them is launching more products to meet demand and lower the price of the game. However, due to the technical cost of that era, the inability to effectively drop the prices of integrated circuits and chips has made cassette games still at a relatively expensive price. Even if it's just a mini-game like "Ice Climber".
FC fully integrated cartridge is still the goal pursued by collectors
It is also in this case that Nintendo began to consider developing new peripherals and storage media. First, solve the problem of game price and cost, and then improve storage space. A company called Hudson came to Nintendo and promoted their "bee card" - Bee Card storage card. This card has been used on MSX home computers. Although it is only the size of a credit card, it can store four games. In addition, this card can be read and written repeatedly. After getting tired of playing the game, you can go to the store to buy a new cover. The design idea of BeeCard
used by Hudson on MSX computers is deeply rooted in Nintendo's heart, and it is also very recognized for this mode of readable and writeable replacement games. The problem is that the licensing fee of this technology is a bit too expensive, and Hudson has to be given a commission for every game produced. In the end, Nintendo did not accept Hudson's proposal.
Although Nintendo failed to reach a cooperation, he learned a lot of ideas from this time. At this time, a storage medium that has been used on personal computers for a long time came into their eyes - Floopy Disc - which is what we commonly call floppy disk . Floppy disks, born in the 1970s, quickly became the standard media storage medium on personal computers. The characteristics of this kind of floppy disk are that it is very cheap, has huge storage capacity and can be read and written repeatedly. This is exactly what Nintendo thinks. The maximum capacity of the
disk is 2MB, but the MMC chip without cassettes also greatly reduces the technical performance. But the real reason why FC drive systems are not widely popular is that Nintendo's inflated bureaucracy finally angered third-party manufacturers.
Nintendo has proposed new rules for the FC disk drive system: Nintendo enjoys half of the intellectual property rights for any original game sold on the FC disk drive system. Faced with such explicit greed rules, the weak group led by Konami only released non-mainstream games on the FC disk drive system to deal with it, while the two powerful groups, NAMCO and HUDSON, firmly refused to join. As we all know, although FC disk drives have sales of millions, the only games that can be remembered are "Zelda" and "Mario".
Disk version of Mario 2 is known for its high difficulty
In order to get rid of Nintendo's high-pressure policies, NAMCO and HUDSON assisted NEC in launching the TurboGrafx 16, which is the PC-E game console.At the same time, the Bee Card memory card is also used on the PC-E. This is a very lethal gaming console for FC, because PC-E itself is a "killer" specially launched for FC.
The protagonist officially debuted
On October 30, 1987, the "quasi-next generation" home game console - PC-ENGINE, referred to as PC-E, was officially released, with a price of US$189.95.
High score girl Haruho's PC-E
It can be said to be the strongest 8-bit game console, but in fact it is a quasi-16-bit "quasi-second-era" game console. Although its main processor is a 6502 enhanced processor called HuC6280 with a speed of 7.16 Mhz, it performs very close to a true 16-bit gaming console with a dedicated 16-bit graphics chip. There is 64K RAM on the PC-E host, with a maximum number of color hairs of 512, and 256 colors can be displayed on the same screen, with a maximum resolution of 256*216, and is equipped with a 6-channel stereo sound source. The controller of
PC-E is very similar to FC, and the cross key is similar to Sega machine, and the feel is much better than the FC handle. But there are only two buttons. If you need to change your fists and feet when playing Street Fighting, it is really a bit painful.
Because HUDSON has developed PC-E in cooperation, its own game must have a full support for PC-E. In addition to the previously mentioned NAMCO, they were also the top software production companies in the Japanese gaming industry at that time. NAMCO and HUDSON respectively occupied the chief and second seats of Nintendo's third-party manufacturers. With the support of these two powerful alliances, the release of PC-E is very successful. With its gorgeous graphics, shocking sound effects, and excellent software support, PC-E has acquired a considerable portion of the market, causing real damage to Nintendo's FC.
If you want to talk about PC-E, you must have a good chat about HUDSON.
HUDSON is a veteran Japanese game manufacturer. It was established on May 18, 1973. The company is located in Tokyo, Japan and is one of the members of the Konami Group. It mainly produces and develops casual games and mobile games. Its main works include the Bomb Man series, Momotaro Electric Iron Series, the Gold Digger Series, the Sky-Wild Realm Series, and of course, the Takahashi Celebrity Adventure Island series that is widely familiar to Chinese players. Later, Nintendo also asked Hudson to develop the Mario Party series on its behalf.
Not to mention other games, Adventure Island should have played
HUDSON was once a partner in Nintendo's FC R&D. Due to this relationship, Nintendo naturally thought of this partner when recruiting third-party developers for FC game consoles, and HUDSON was on the verge of bankruptcy. In 1984, after joining Nintendo, HUDSON tentatively launched "LODE RUNNER". The game unexpectedly sold 1 million sets, and the whole club was full of joy. After the club paid a dividend of a year's salary, the president and all employees chartered a flight to Hawaii for vacation.
After the great success of "Digging Gold", HUDSON struck while the iron was hot and launched "Bombman". There is no battle mode necessary for Bombs in this game, so the fun is greatly reduced. However, all the basic structures of the game have been formed in the game, and overall the gameplay of the game is also very outstanding. Bomb Man has become a classic in the history of gaming with enduring vitality, and HUDSON has also become one of the most important third parties in Nintendo's early days.
Battle is the essence
As mentioned earlier, Hudson failed to reach a cooperation with Nintendo. They are looking for financial support for the home game consoles designed by the company, and NEC is looking for a way to join the electronic game market. Later, the two sides hit it off and started cooperation. It sounds very similar to SONY entering the game market. Yes, Nintendo made these opponents successful.
PlayStation prototype
PC Engine is a very small home game console. The main reason for its slimness is that it adopts a high-efficiency three-chip architecture, as well as HuCard, a credit card-sized data card. It uses an enhanced version of the MOSTechnology 65C02 processor, an exclusive 16-bit image processor, and an exclusively designed video encoding chip. All three chips were designed by Hudson.
It is worth remembering that PCE is the first home gaming console system to use CD-ROM (external). NEC released the PC-E CD-ROM system in December 1988. Although it is quite expensive ($400), it still pioneered an era! To be precise, PC-E sounded the death knell of FC. By the late FC stage, software manufacturers turned to PCE one after another, and the accelerated PCE market and the FC market buffered with inertia became a sharp contrast. 1988 and 1989 were the peak period of PC-E.
Haruzuo did not play the CD version of PC-E
Because it was the first to use CD as a storage medium, PCE's game far surpassed the content complexity and gorgeousness of the picture at that time in terms of content complexity and picture splendor, and after its launch, it sold more than FC for a period of time. Even without the large capacity of CDs, the PC-E itself can port many arcade games, not to mention that after adding CDs, many games even had exquisite cutscenes and live voices, which were incomparable to the 8-bit computers at that time. Compared with cassettes or disks, the huge capacity of CDs provides a broader space for third-party manufacturers to produce, and since then, PC-E has won in terms of performance. By 1990, PC-E had sold 2.5 million units in Japan, and by March 1992, it had sales of 4.65 million units.
NEC later launched many variants of PC-E, among which the more famous portable model is called PC-E GT (called TurboExpress in the US). PC-E GT supports all PC-E home game cards and is the world's first palm-phone to share software with home computers. Due to the use of a TFT LCD screen, the display effect far exceeded that of GB and GG at the same time, but the price was that the six-section No. 5 batteries could only run for less than 3 hours. Thinking about it, you can play excellent traditional Japanese home games such as "Castle of Demons", "Great Demons Village", "Street Fighter 2" on the handheld machine, especially in the era of Street Fighter of the Arcade Hall, playing the original Street Fighter 2 on the handheld machine should be able to instantly kill a group of arcade fans. After
, NEC also launched the PC-E DUO enhanced PCE-CD all-in-one machine, but it was late, and ended due to outdated performance in the later 16-bit host battle with other companies and even the 32-bit host battle. In November 1989, they also launched the second generation of PC-ENGINE product, namely SUPER GRAFX, referred to as SG. The machine is equipped with a new high-speed image chip that can produce extremely high-quality images. Its hardware function is much stronger than that of the prototype PC-E, and a particularly corresponding gaming cassette appears.
To the 16-bit computer era, although with the improvement of graphics technology, the shortcomings of PC Engine gradually emerged, many gamers are still happy to use PC Engine. The Eighteen banned games are a major reason why PC Engine continues to be popular, and the market life of this game console is far beyond other game consoles of the same period. The franchise of many third-party manufacturers injected lasting vitality into PC-E. It was not until the 3D era that NEC announced the suspension of PC-E in 1997. Until 1999, new games were still launched on PC Engine.
PC-E version Dragon Knight 3
PC-E games are numerous, and there are naturally many classic games. If you want to review the PC-E game, of course you have to try the games mentioned in "High Score Girl".
"Kung Fu"
"PC Original Man", "Beast King", "Strange World", "Darrius" can also be played on other platforms
"Yuanping Demons" and "Corrosion House" are must-play action games
In addition to the games mentioned in the above animations, there are many classic games for PC-E, such as "Ninja Warrior Wind Mist", "The Last Ninja Road", "The Great Demon Village", "New Adventure Island", "The Demon Realm of the Sky", etc., which completely surpass FC games. To this day, works such as "Castle of Demon X Blood Reincarnation" are also first-class. If you have the chance to receive a PC-E, don't hesitate. Even if you use the simulator, there are many games worth experiencing. Without further ado, I decided to decorate the ROM of PC-E for MINI SFC immediately...
