PC-FX by NEC

Credit: Evan Amos

Console Name: PC-FX Original Name: ピーシー エフエックス Release Date: December 23, 1994 Original Price: ¥49,800 Unit Sold: 111,000 Country of Origin: Japan Manufacturer: NEC Developer: NEC / Hudson Soft Discontinued In: February 1998 Number of Games Cartridges: 55

 

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History
NEC Corporation, originally known as the Nippon Electric Company, was founded in 1899. It started out as little more than a distributor of imported telephone equipment, and it later moved into manufacturing. In 1979, NEC released its first personal computer, the PC-8001, which made it the biggest PC vendor in Japan. The company then decided to enter the video game market. In 1987, NEC partnered with the game publisher Hudson Soft to create the PC Engine. It was a commercial success in Japan and received strong third-party support. The PC Engine sold 500,000 units in its first week of release. By 1989, NEC had sold over 1.2 million consoles and more than 80,000 CD-ROM units in Japan. The TurboGrafx-16, the overseas version, struggled in other markets. The PC Engine even outsold the Sega Mega Drive in Japan.

To remain relevant in this fast-changing market, NEC knew it needed to stay ahead of the curve. In December 1989, NEC released the SuperGrafx, an updated version of the PC Engine. It had four times as much working RAM, twice as many on-screen sprites and two independently scrolling background layers. Sadly, the SuperGrafx was a commercial failure and sold only about 75,000 units in total. No CD-ROM² games were made that took advantage of its added capabilities. NEC went on improving the PC Engine in other ways instead. The PC Engine Duo, which combined the console and the CD-ROM² drive, launched in Japan on September 21, 1991 at ¥59,800, followed by the Duo-R in March 1993 and the Duo-RX in June 1994. But NEC still needed a true successor

Partnering with Hudson Soft once again, the two companies designed a prototype 32-bit system called “Tetsujin” (“Iron Man”). Work on the Tetsujin started almost as soon as the 1990s began, and it was officially announced as early as 1992. The Tetsujin was set to launch in 1992, but the lack of finished software pushed the target date to spring 1993, which was also missed. Rumors began to circulate that NEC and Hudson were reluctant to replace the PC Engine while it was still selling well, at least in Japan. NEC announced a new console was announced in late 1993 but the release of more advanced consoles in late 1993, such as the Atari Jaguar and the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, made the Tetsujin’s hardware look more dated

In early 1994, the Tetsujin project was formally cancelled. Sources at the time said that development was abandoned after NEC and Hudson saw the specifications of Sega’s and Sony’s 32-bit consoles, which comfortably outshone the Tetsujin and promised considerable 3D capabilities. But with the release of the Sega Saturn approaching, NEC could not afford to spend too much time redesigning its console. In the end, NEC made only minimal changes to the Tetsujin prototype and chose instead to make the console a hybrid video game console and computer. The new console was a shown at the Tokyo Toy Show in June 1994.

Release
Released on December 23, 1994, the PC-FX was a beast when it came to 2D graphics. The PC-FX name was chosen both as a nod to the PC Engine and to represent its new form. The console was made to look like a PC tower, so that it could be upgraded like one.  With the ability to decompress 30 JPEG pictures per second while playing digitally recorded audio, it had superior full-motion video quality compared with all other fifth-generation consoles. But this strength was also its downfall. As the PC-FX was able to output glorious full-motion video, NEC chose not to include a polygon graphics processor. The reasoning was that since 3D graphics were still in their early days, a polygon processor could only be used to output low-polygon models, which were very blocky. With full-motion video, game designers could instead use pre-rendered polygon graphics. But this decision would come back to haunt NEC very shortly.

Demise
The reception was immediately disastrous. Magazine reviews of the console were not very kind to the PC-FX. The console also failed to release any significant blockbuster. The best-selling game was Dōkyūsei 2 (“Classmate 2”), a dating sim that sold over 40,000 copies. In the end, the lack of 3D rendering pushed developers away from the console, leaving the PC-FX with a thin game library of only 55 titles. In fact, only 15 games were released within the first year of the PC-FX. The last game of the console, First Kiss Story, was released in April 1998, two months after the console’s February 1998 discontinuation.

Technical Specifications

• Media: CD-ROM
• CPU: 32-bit NEC V810 RISC processor running at 21.475 MHz
• Performance: About 15.5 MIPS
• Main RAM: 2 MB
• Video memory: 1.25 MB
• OS ROM: 1 MB
• CD buffer: 256 KB
• Backup RAM: 32 KB, expandable with the 128 KB FX-BMP memory card (the card has 128 KB)
• Colors: 16.77 million (the same as the PlayStation)
• Resolution: 256 × 240 to 341 × 240
• Video decoding: Full-screen, true-color JPEG decompression at 30 frames per second
• Sound: 16-bit stereo with 2 ADPCM channels and six 5-bit sample channels
• CD-ROM drive: 2x speed, compatible with 12 cm and 8 cm discs
• Supported formats: FX-CD, CD-DA, CD+G, CD+EG and Photo CD
• Video output: Composite and S-Video
• Controller ports: 2
• Expansion ports: 3 (EXT1 for backup memory, EXT2 for extra functions, EXT3 for main memory expansion)
• Dimensions: 132 × 267 × 244 mm
• Weight: 2.9 kg
• Power consumption: 16 W
• Copy protection: None, because of the high price of CD burners and writable media at the time of release
• Graphics hardware: The HuC6271 “Rainbow” chip decodes motion JPEG video and writes the output into the RAM of the “King” graphics chip

Games
A total of 55 PC-FX games were officially released. The launch titles were Battle Heat!, Sotsugyō II: Neo Generation FX and Team Innocent: The Point of No Return, and the final game released was First Kiss Story. A large part of the library is made up of dating sims, visual novels and life simulations, which were very popular in Japan at the time. Many games come from the HuneX studio, and several are based on well-known franchises, such as Angelique (Koei) and Tenchi Muyō!. A few games are ports of Western titles, such as Return to Zork and Shanghai: The Great Wall (both from Activision).

Magazine Discs
Several PC-FX magazine discs were also released, each with a volume number. Anime Freak FX had six volumes, released from August 1995 to February 1998. The other discs came from the Japanese magazines PC Engine Fan and Super PC Engine Fan Deluxe.