PC Engine - A Forgotten Gem

Guest Blog by Jason @

In late October 1987 I noticed a curious white box was released on to the Japanese market, the “PC Engine” as it was named by NEC was an unusual little console that was 14cm X 14cm square to be precise, around the size of a bag of crisps to the layman. It was tiny compared to the competition.

With 8K RAM, 64K video RAM plus a custom Hudson soft 8­bit processor plus a single joypad connection it was a fantastic games console that would go on to have a massive cult following and eventually outsell the Nintendo Super Famicom in Japan, Now that’s saying something!

I’d first read about this machine in C&VG after they did a small article on it, showcasing some of the forthcoming titles on it such as R­Type, Victory Run and The Kung fu (terrible name). I was immediately drawn to the machine for one thing only... R­-Type!, being a massive arcade player and huge fan of the IREM game I pretty much decided there and then I had to own one, I wasn’t sure how I’d go about this but my mind was set.

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