What happend to NEC?

[SuperDanX]

I mean i know they are very much still around, but how come they quit the home console market? Back in the day they were second only to Nintendo in Japan having given the Megadrive a slap, then it all went wrong, disasterous worldwide launch for the pc engine, the underwhelming 'Supergrafx' console followed by the woeful pc engine fx = game over. Hmm, seems ive answerd my own question however if you can shed any further light on the matter id love to hear it.

[moonwhistle]

Don't know much about NEC but it sounds they suffered a similar fate to Sega. Pumping way too much cash into hardware variants and upgrades. Just a guess mind. It certainly couldn't of helped that they are the most confusingly branded consoles. I've had it explained to me a thousand times and I still don't understand the pc engine hardware series.

Also correct me if I'm wrong but didn't they have quite limited 3rd party support?

[ShadowDancer]

They sponsored Everton....Just a fact. No rhyme, No reason.

[sj33]

They also probably realised the PC-FX wasn't going to stand much of a chance against the Playstation and Saturn.

[MonkeyJuggleDX]

Also correct me if I'm wrong but didn't they have quite limited 3rd party support?

Capcom, Sega, Konami, Irem, NCS, Human, Tonkin House, Falcom, Hudson, Namco, Face, Sunsoft, Taito, Naxat Soft, Data East, Victor/JVC, Video System, Telenet

And that's nowhere near all of the developers listed.

[moonwhistle]

Capcom, Sega, Konami, Irem, NCS, Human, Tonkin House, Falcom, Hudson, Namco, Face, Sunsoft, Taito, Naxat Soft, Data East, Victor/JVC, Video System, Telenet

And that's nowhere near all of the developers listed.

eek, got that very wrong then.

[Silanda]

All I know is that the PC-FX was already an old design by the time it was released. My guess is that after it bombed hard and tarnished their reputation, NEC simply didn't have the will to risk going up against Sony with a new console. A risk/reward thing I suppose, NEC aren't primarily a consumer electronics company so it's easy to understand why they may not have wanted to spend $$$ fighting a war they didn't need.

[SuperDanX]

Well then you have to wonder why they entered the market in the first place? God bless them for doing so though

[Silanda]

Another thing I forgot about. NEC produced the PC-Engine and PC-FX, but AFAIK they didn't design them, Hudson Soft did. Perhaps it was Hudson who didn't want to risk going on.

[ShadowDancer]

Hudson deserve so much f-ing praise for so many reasons.

[garrz32]

Hudson deserve so much f-ing praise for so many reasons.

Agreed

[Baseley09]

Well yes very much in that PC Engine & PC-FX were Hudson Soft consoles, they designed the processors and were the first party developer. It's probably a better question to ask what happened to them in the hardware world, NEC are still strong in other areas by all accounts.

[Duddyroar]

Naturally this is the ideal time for me to pimp my Retro Gamer PC-FX feature.