worth importing? - Defunct Games

the SPECS
Back by popular demand, I’ve once again dug into my collection of console curiosities and have dusted off a personal favorite:
NEC’s ill-fated answer to Nintendo’s Super Famicom, the SuperGrafx.
the CONSOLE
Manufacturer: NEC Availability: Limited
Year Manufactured: 1989 Cost: $150-300
For those of you who may not recall the console wars of the late ‘80s, allow me to regale you with
a quick video game history lesson. In the US, it was all about the SEGA Genesis and NEC TurboGrafx
16. At the time, Nintendo’s NES was showing its age and SEGA, having scuttled their 8-bit Master
System in lieu of the 16-bit Genesis, was capturing a huge market share. In Japan, Nintendo’s
powerful 16-bit Super Famicom (thanks to the power of the plumber and some nifty hardware
tricks) came out swinging, giving SEGA a run for their money. Unfortunately, somewhere in the
shuffle, NEC came out on bottom. Having enjoyed a long and prosperous run with their PC Engine
(the Japanese equivalent of the TurboGrafx), they knew that the 8-bit machine’s time was coming
to an end. To compete with Nintendo and SEGA’s 16-bit hardware, NEC went back to the drawing
board and came up with an answer: the SuperGrafx.
Basically an upgraded version of the PC Engine, the SuperGrafx promised 16bit quality graphics
and sound, but more or less failed to deliver on all accounts. Employing a similar chipset to the PC
Engine, the console’s main strength was that it had much more RAM allocated for its main CPU and
a second video chip with its own video RAM. Some of the nifty graphical tricks it could do included
parallax scrolling and the ability to have tons of sprites on-screen simultaneously without flicker or
slowdown. It also held the distinction of being backward compatible with the PC Engine and could
play pretty much the gamut of PC Engine HuCards and CDs (the latter with the addition of the
separately sold RAU-30 adapter). On the downside, the system used the same 8-bit sound chip as
the PC Engine, which resulted in sub-par music and sound effects that just couldn’t compete with
the likes of SEGA and Nintendo’s hardware.
The SuperGrafx still looks like a modern piece of hardware, with its grey-colored plastic casing,
unique rivet design and blue stencil logo proudly emblazoned on the top of the console. It has
one port for a game pad, and a slot for HuCards located on top of the system. Expansion ports on
the front and back were for extra add-ons (such as the RAU-30 CD adapter), as well as a special
“controller” called the Power Console: a huge peripheral that was to slide over the SuperGrafx and
featured a flight yoke, throttle and keypad (much like Capcom’s Steel Battalion controller for the
Xbox). Unfortunately, this monster controller never surfaced at retail and only exists in prototype
format.
The SuperGrafx’s major downfall was that there were only five true SG games produced for the
system, and most were disappointing at that. Oddly enough, the system, which used to be rare and
hard to find, has become commonplace on auction sites such as eBay, with prices to match. The
games, however, can be tough to find and fetch prices upwards of $100 per title.
CPU: 8-bit HuC6280A with a modified 65C02 chipset running at either 3.58 or 7.16 MHz
GPU: One 16-bit HuC6260 VCE (Video Color Encoder), two 16bit HuC6260A VDCs (Video
Display Controllers) and a HuC6202 VPC (Video Priority Controller)
Display Resolution: 256x224
Colors: 512 available with 481 on-screen
Memory: Work RAM = 32KB, Video RAM = 128KB
Audio: 6 PSG audio channels using the HuC6280A CPU.
28_FEATURE_CONSOLE CURIOSITIES: SUPERGRAFX HARDCORE GAMER MAGAZINE_VOLUME 1_ISSUE 9_WARM BUN