Nintendo Wii Fanboy

We love to talk about the Turbografx-16 and its games. Some of us feel a very special attachment to NEC and Hudson's system and its mind-bogglingly lil' cards. But as great as it was in the US for the few of us that picked them up, it was much more awesome in Japan.

The PC Engine was tiny compared to the Turbografx-16 and everything else; it used the same HuCards, but with a different region code. And, unlike over here, people were actually able to buy games made by someone other than Hudson.

This Select Button thread is a love letter to the little white system, in which the posters extol the design, the controller, and, of course, the games. Like proud parents, the Select Buttoneers have even started posting pictures of their own PC Engine setups in the thread. Can't do that with the Virtual Console (yet).

We were happy when Nintendo of America finally put up some preview videos so people could at least get a look at Virtual Console games before throwing their Wii Points into a hole. Now, Nintendo of Japan has done the same! You'll be able to preview new Virtual Console games long before they come to the US.

In many cases, you can just uselessly torture yourself by watching videos of games like Shin Megami Tensei and Mario's Super Picross that will never be released over here! And if there's anything we enjoy, it's uselessly torturing ourselves.

[Thanks, creamsugar!]

As you may have guessed, we're big Turbografx-16 fans here, so Brandon Sheffield's interview with Hudson USA president John Greiner, who was with the company through that system's lifetime, was an especially good read for us. The interview is long and detailed, and covers a lot of Hudson's lesser-known franchises like Tengai Makyou, as well as the fantastic Kato-chan and Ken-chan, which we got as JJ & Jeff. It also talks about how Hudson got into the Virtual Console biz.

Here's the quote of the freaking millennium for us: "We're looking at...you know, eventually all Turbo Grafx games will be on the Virtual Console, because they're going to be emulations." Oh, no, wait, that's awesome, but here's the quote of the millennium: "We're going to work on the Turbo Grafx titles, but there were 600 some-odd PC Engine titles, and there were only 150 or so Turbo Grafx titles, so I think that if people tell us they want these games, absolutely."
We cannot control our dancing. It is difficult to type at the moment.

2007 is the twentieth anniversary of the PC Engine (the Japanese Turbografx-16) and Hudson, who co-created the console with NEC, is honoring the little console and its little HuCards in two ways this year:

1. By releasing lots of awesome games on the Virtual Console, and
2. By featuring a multipart PC Engine retrospective on their home page

We're so happy to see the Wii bringing the PC Engine back into the limelight. It brought us a lot of games that deserve a second look, and deserve to be played by a new audience. Please, tip your hat to NEC and Hudson's masterpiece. Go check out the first part of the article, and then check out some Turbo games on the VC if you haven't already!