Collecting PC-Engine in the early 90s in the UK

[Otaking]

Who remembers collecting PC-Engine games in the early 90s, here in the UK it was only the most Hardcore of Gamers who new about and collected for the PC engine.
Holy grail games of the time were Coryoon, Magical Chase and Dracula X. Games that seem quite common now used to sell for a fortune! one example is Parodius which was considered very rare and would go for a £100, which you can now pick up for around £12. A boxed mint LT seemed to regularly sell for a £1000!! a Super Grafx £300!!
This era ended with the advent of the internet and ebay which made all these import games readily available and the prices dropped.
It seems the reverse has happened with the TG-16 CD titles as in the early 90s they were quite common and cheap but now they're quite expensive particularly the RPGs.

[_Paul]

I remember buying Street Fighter 2 and a 6 button pad for about £75 (I think), the most I'd ever spent on a game. I was lucky to have a friend that would contantly buy new games and end up selling them off to me, so I managed to retain quite a few desirable games from that era. Splatterhouse was really expensive too, I remember picking it up from Raven Games I think when I was out on a day trip to London.

[LMS]

Parasol Stars was another expensive one I think. Do either of you guys remember 'The complete pc engine guide book' by a guy called Richard Gibbs? It was a photocopied book in a yellow cover that a lot of the importers used to stock. I still have an battered copy here from 1993.

I remember calling round different suppliers trying to track down games that had been released in Japan a week or so earlier... Dream Machines 2, PC Engine supplies (later console concepts I believe), Raven games, video games center in Bournemouth, there was one up in Scotland too run by some guy called Keith I think.

[ikobo]

The Scottish one was KT Konsoles. He was a top lad who provided me with my first ever briefcase setup (with arcade card), ah, days gone by!

[shubibiman]

When I was a student, I spent 2 months in London on a summer job in 1998. I found a shop called Computer Exchange. There were 2 shops, one for retro games, not far from the BT Tower. The seller was a very cool guy. As far as I can remember, it was quite a new shop at the time. Prices were not as insane as your examples, still it was much more expensive than in France.

[Otaking]

I remember buying Street Fighter 2 and a 6 button pad for about £75 (I think)

Yeh I remember when SF II was first released on the Super Famicom and the import copies were going for a £100 

Do either of you guys remember 'The complete pc engine guide book' by a guy called Richard Gibbs? It was a photocopied book in a yellow cover that a lot of the importers used to stock. I still have an battered copy here from 1993.

Funny should mention it I put up this post yesterday https://www.pcengine-fx.com/forums/index.php?topic=6640.0

I remember calling round different suppliers trying to track down games that had been released in Japan a week or so earlier... Dream Machines 2, PC Engine supplies (later console concepts I believe), Raven games, video games center in Bournemouth, there was one up in Scotland too run by some guy called Keith I think.

I used to do the same, I remember you could also trade games with the shops, i did that quite a bit with the Video Game Center in Bournemouth.
Other mail order shops were Console Concepts, Krazy Konsoles and Telegames 

When I was a student, I spent 2 months in London on a summer job in 1998. I found a shop called Computer Exchange. There were 2 shops, one for retro games, not far from the BT Tower. The seller was a very cool guy. As far as I can remember, it was quite a new shop at the time. Prices were not as insane as your examples, still it was much more expensive than in France.

Yeh Computer Exchange is now CEX a big high street chain.

My fondest memories of gaming in the early 90s is every weekend me and my mate would drive around London to all the different games shops looking for bargain PC Engine and Neo Geo stuff.
The shops included Computer Exchange on Whitfield Street which was the first ever one, Shekana in Tottenham Court Road, Advanced Console Entertainment just off Carnaby Street, Games Exchange in Notting hill Gate and the best one Machine Shack in Streatham which had all the new PC-Engine and TG-16 games in stock.

We would sometimes go to Raven Games in Beckenham but they were over priced even back then.

[shubibiman]

The shops included Computer Exchange on Whitfield Street which was the first ever one

That's the one!

[Digi.k]

I think there was also a shop called Advance Consoles . I think they went under the name of ACE before then and they used to do full RGB mods for pc engine/megadrive and snes


I  think I got into the pc engine from a uk magazine called C&VG and bought my first pc-engine console from a shop in tottenham court road back then called Shekhana

I also remember a mail order shop called....pc engine supplies ?? I'm sure they later renamed themselves as console concepts I think I got a lot of mail order stuff from there including parodius for pce brand new for 65 quid..

/IMG_1927.jpg

[LMS]

Yup, pretty sure ACE was 'Advanced Console Entertainment'.

Anyone remember 'PC Engine Supplies' before it became Console Concepts? I think I still have an old membership card around here somewhere 

[Tatsujin]

i was in london in '97 and found a import store which also sold some pce stuff. iirc i bought my wonderboy III - monsterlair for ￡12 there. if've also bought some other pce stuff, but of which i can't rememeber what it was exactly.

[Digi.k]

I also remeber they had a newly opened japan centre in soho (around 92~93) that provided all the japanese pc engine monthly mags and famitsu and then later imported 2nd hand pc engine HUcard games.

speaking of Advance console I remember hearing a story of a kid that bought a modified SNES from there and got mugged when he walked away from the shop..

And similar thing also happened to the japan centre too a japanese Super famicom got stolen from there.

and I also remember a similar thing happening to Raven games before they opened up a shop. they had a rented office not far from their current shop which also got broken into and had pc engine stuff stolen

[D-Type]

Do either of you guys remember 'The complete pc engine guide book' by a guy called Richard Gibbs? It was a photocopied book in a yellow cover that a lot of the importers used to stock. I still have an battered copy here from 1993.

Have this, even though it's getting a bit faded now. Theres lots of good info in his books, hardware and software. Quite a well informed person on the subject of the PC Engine. I always thought his game reviews were spot on.

I remember the first C&VG magazine which ran PC Engine reviews(APR 1989 #90 Wierd Dreams cover), Vigalante, Space Harrier and Dragon Spirit all got very generous scores. As a kid I had to have this console, then the Megadrive was featured just one month later. Confusing times for a child. 

[esteban]

Do either of you guys remember 'The complete pc engine guide book' by a guy called Richard Gibbs? It was a photocopied book in a yellow cover that a lot of the importers used to stock. I still have an battered copy here from 1993.

Have this, even though it's getting a bit faded now. Theres lots of good info in his books, hardware and software. Quite a well informed person on the subject of the PC Engine. I always thought his game reviews were spot on.

I remember the first C&VG magazine which ran PC Engine reviews(APR 1989 #90 Wierd Dreams cover), Vigalante, Space Harrier and Dragon Spirit all got very generous scores. As a kid I had to have this console, then the Megadrive was featured just one month later. Confusing times for a child. 

It would be awesome if you scanned / took a steady photo of some of the pages. This is the sort of thing that is nice to document and I'd gladly add high-quality scans to my site.

[D-Type]

Here are a few scans from the C&VG magazine.

/cvg900110.jpg

These scans were done by a chap named Mort over at the Zzap forum. They were selling a dvd of the first 126 issues not so long ago. First two are of the reviews, the third being an example of the sellers mentioned in this thread, and the forth was the image that really sold me the console all those years ago.

Will stick some photos up of the fanzine if I can find it.

[Otaking]

They were selling a dvd of the first 126 issues not so long ago.

is that a DVD of the first 126 issues of CVG? sounds interesting...

[esteban]

This is the item I am intrigued by:

"The complete pc engine guide book" by Richard Gibbs

Very interesting...

[LMS]

I'll get some scans up of the richard gibbs book if I get time. not all the reviews but some of teh stuff at he beginning.

[esteban]

I'll get some scans up of the richard gibbs book if I get time. not all the reviews but some of teh stuff at he beginning.
[/quote

Rock on.

Thanks in advance.

[futurematt]

OK guys, this topic needs dusting off. It' sunny in London right now, I have a headache from internet authoring so I'm gonna sit back and recount some hardcore PC engine memories from the 80s and 90s.
I consider myself 'Generation Engine' as I was about 15 1/2 when the Engine was first talked about on these shores. C&VG was the first mag I came across that featured it - a 2 page spread if I remember. The reviews posted elsewhere on this thread, are also familiar.
There were at least 3 kids in our school who had bought one - two got them direct from HK through a Chinese guy called 'Chi' at school. One other had ordered his from PC Engine Supplies. He turned out to be a very good and long term friend of mine- PC engine was the catalyst.
Anyway, for some reason I decided to mail order a PC Engine - with my good parent blessing and sponsorship from Mention Technical Services. It was a little bit more expensive (about £200?) but it seemed a bigger company. I think they were based in the Scottish borders.
The thing arrived - with Vigilante, Dungeon Explorer, Tails of the Monster Path (a free game!) and Galaga '88. I think it was a 4 HuCard deal or something.. The four still remain in my collection. With the White Engine came the ubiquotous Colour Booster, which as you probably all know, screws up a lot of the colours and puts out greens instead of pinks etc....anyway flesh never looked very good and it started to bum me out, especially as my mate's one from PC Engine supplied worked fine on PAL as it had been modded.
So I ended up sending mine away to - guess who - Console Concepts - to repair....and the f****rs went bust, taking my PC Engine with them. I never saw it again..!   Another annoying thing was I threw away the box etc - what a berk! I was only 16 and boxes didn't seem worth keeping.
So, a little later, with my games and hobby intact, I managed to convince my - very annoyed - parents to buy a Core Grafx from some other supplier - I forget who - and it arrived, unmodded. I used the AV out for video signal but things were still far from perfect - after about 10 minutes of play, the screen would flash pink-red intermitently, due I think to the heat, as blowing across the vents seemed to ease it off. Not great when you're in the middle of a Formation Soccer match though....Anyway I could still use the AV booster for stereo sound, which was the best part about that ugly beast. It has since been thrown away - I should have kept it cos its still a dinky little add on . Never mind.
Anyway, my collection grew between 88 and 90 - and I amassed about 35 games. By the time the CDROM was brought out I (a) didn't have the money to get it (b) convinced myself it was a draft gimmick and (c) was getting more into rather less healthy persuits than gaming, or should i say the typical adolescent guy things.... anyway the collection reached its peak, with a couple of purchases from Computer Exchange on Whitfield Street ( I am intrigued by the other London shops mentioned here - now I think about it though I do remember vaguely something in the Middle of Tottenham Court Road!!) and then the hobby lay dormant. But before I skip to the 'Second Coming' I will give a couple of prices I paid - £40 for Don Doko Don (worth less now!!) and £30 for Outrun (ditto!!). The very last game I bought in that era was an unboxed version of Barunba for about £12 and it has stopped working since. Games were expensive cos we only had a few importers to buy them from. Talking about HuCard failures I have only ever had two but a couple are known to still be 'awkward' and take a few boots!
OK, well before I get to the return of the Engine, I will also say that I had an XE1-PC joystick, and a 5 way etc etc. This is important cos my first foray into buying new stuff for the engine, was after a ten year hiatus and on my return to London in about 1999 to work. There I found Computer Exchange, shortly to move to its current location of Rathbone Place, and its amazing little retro museum, which also went with it (for the first couple of years anyway, before they went mainstream...!)
An in CE I bought a XE1-PC Pro - still the best joystick for the engine IMO. Recently I picked another up - new and boxed this time!
As I didn't know about ebay then - one guy in my office was trading on it, but it meant nothing to me - I bought a few games from CE as well as starting my Sega Dreamcast and Saturn collections (but largely on ebay by that time).
I found a number of CHEAP! HuCards in CEX - Final Blaster £20, for example, but they also had some very expensive ones - I remember seeing Super Star Soldier there for £60 for like a whole year!! And of course, I didn't even LOOK at the Super CD ROMs!! What an idiot! I have in my head the idea that they were selling like Sylphia for £50, or Spriggan for a tenner. Was that the case???!!
Anyway, my collection grew at the tail end of the 90s into about 50 Hueys, and has since grown only a little more to about 70. I prefer shooters and some platformers / RPGs but nothing like the whole set. And anyway I have Magic Engine and HuE for the PSP to play anything!
Pulling this rather long story back into present day, to conclude, I was looking at stuff on the net and discovered Nexzr. I thought - sh*t that shooter looks good - and did a bit more research into the Super CD Rom setup. I ended up getting a boxed IFU-30 with SCDROM for about £85 off ebay, which I was very pleased about. CD drive is sketchy though. Since then I have built up a collection of about 20 of the 'must have shmups' for the system - Spriggan 1&2, Psychic Storm etc etc.....and recently acquired a boxed GT, then a boxed LT, then a Super CD ROM 2.

I'm really impressed by all the PCE resources on line - this being a PRIME example - just love the hardware compatibility chart for example! And the Bible PCE Daisuken etc etc ..... and You Tube of course, where I now have a channel (see link!) and have met some awesome PCE gamers like Dankss, Nectarsis, PhatPhunk, Lorfarius, the list goes on and on.....

Retro love people.

[shubibiman]

Computer Exchange on Whitfield Street

When was that? When I worked in London (I'm French and spent the summer of 1998 there), I often went to that place that i discovered by chance, when I was walking around near Oxford Street or something like that. If I remember well, it was not far from the BT Tower. I kept a bag of that shop and I think I still have it.

It wouldn't be too surprising thayt they sold Sylphias for 50£ as all the PC Engine games they sold were like 40 to 50£, no more, no less. At the time, it was quite difficult to get games from the internet so guies like me were ready to pay that much for games they really wanted (I bought Gulliver Boy, Garnzort and Legend Of Xanadu, that I discovered at the shop thanks to the guy who worked there). So the price were high but when you look at it now, the ones who got their copies of Sylphia in that shop for 50£ turned out to be the lucky one.

Man, I can't believe it was 12 years ago. I spent so much time in that shop talking to the salesman that he once invited me at the pub. That was cool.

[imparanoic]

i had a ok collection of pc engine games, even had coryoon (paid 35quid at telegames in leicester), pc engine was/is a expensive hobby as it was only imported in Uk via  unofficial means, pc engine supplies/console concepts had a good collection for games in the midlands ( based in stoke on trent), but i lost my collection ( lent to a friend, he moved away), now i have rebuilt my collection again and moved to Hong Kong, most pc engine stuff are cheaper in Hong Kong.

[Otaking]

OK guys, this topic needs dusting off. It' sunny in London right now, I have a headache from internet authoring so I'm gonna sit back and recount some hardcore PC engine memories from the 80s and 90s.
I consider myself 'Generation Engine' as I was about 15 1/2 when the Engine was first talked about on these shores. C&VG was the first mag I came across that featured it - a 2 page spread if I remember. The reviews posted elsewhere on this thread, are also familiar.
There were at least 3 kids in our school who had bought one - two got them direct from HK through a Chinese guy called 'Chi' at school. One other had ordered his from PC Engine Supplies. He turned out to be a very good and long term friend of mine- PC engine was the catalyst.
Anyway, for some reason I decided to mail order a PC Engine - with my good parent blessing and sponsorship from Mention Technical Services. It was a little bit more expensive (about £200?) but it seemed a bigger company. I think they were based in the Scottish borders.
The thing arrived - with Vigilante, Dungeon Explorer, Tails of the Monster Path (a free game!) and Galaga '88. I think it was a 4 HuCard deal or something.. The four still remain in my collection. With the White Engine came the ubiquotous Colour Booster, which as you probably all know, screws up a lot of the colours and puts out greens instead of pinks etc....anyway flesh never looked very good and it started to bum me out, especially as my mate's one from PC Engine supplied worked fine on PAL as it had been modded.
So I ended up sending mine away to - guess who - Console Concepts - to repair....and the f****rs went bust, taking my PC Engine with them. I never saw it again..!   Another annoying thing was I threw away the box etc - what a berk! I was only 16 and boxes didn't seem worth keeping.
So, a little later, with my games and hobby intact, I managed to convince my - very annoyed - parents to buy a Core Grafx from some other supplier - I forget who - and it arrived, unmodded. I used the AV out for video signal but things were still far from perfect - after about 10 minutes of play, the screen would flash pink-red intermitently, due I think to the heat, as blowing across the vents seemed to ease it off. Not great when you're in the middle of a Formation Soccer match though....Anyway I could still use the AV booster for stereo sound, which was the best part about that ugly beast. It has since been thrown away - I should have kept it cos its still a dinky little add on . Never mind.
Anyway, my collection grew between 88 and 90 - and I amassed about 35 games. By the time the CDROM was brought out I (a) didn't have the money to get it (b) convinced myself it was a draft gimmick and (c) was getting more into rather less healthy persuits than gaming, or should i say the typical adolescent guy things.... anyway the collection reached its peak, with a couple of purchases from Computer Exchange on Whitfield Street ( I am intrigued by the other London shops mentioned here - now I think about it though I do remember vaguely something in the Middle of Tottenham Court Road!!) and then the hobby lay dormant. But before I skip to the 'Second Coming' I will give a couple of prices I paid - £40 for Don Doko Don (worth less now!!) and £30 for Outrun (ditto!!). The very last game I bought in that era was an unboxed version of Barunba for about £12 and it has stopped working since. Games were expensive cos we only had a few importers to buy them from. Talking about HuCard failures I have only ever had two but a couple are known to still be 'awkward' and take a few boots!
OK, well before I get to the return of the Engine, I will also say that I had an XE1-PC joystick, and a 5 way etc etc. This is important cos my first foray into buying new stuff for the engine, was after a ten year hiatus and on my return to London in about 1999 to work. There I found Computer Exchange, shortly to move to its current location of Rathbone Place, and its amazing little retro museum, which also went with it (for the first couple of years anyway, before they went mainstream...!)
An in CE I bought a XE1-PC Pro - still the best joystick for the engine IMO. Recently I picked another up - new and boxed this time!
As I didn't know about ebay then - one guy in my office was trading on it, but it meant nothing to me - I bought a few games from CE as well as starting my Sega Dreamcast and Saturn collections (but largely on ebay by that time).
I found a number of CHEAP! HuCards in CEX - Final Blaster £20, for example, but they also had some very expensive ones - I remember seeing Super Star Soldier there for £60 for like a whole year!! And of course, I didn't even LOOK at the Super CD ROMs!! What an idiot! I have in my head the idea that they were selling like Sylphia for £50, or Spriggan for a tenner. Was that the case???!!
Anyway, my collection grew at the tail end of the 90s into about 50 Hueys, and has since grown only a little more to about 70. I prefer shooters and some platformers / RPGs but nothing like the whole set. And anyway I have Magic Engine and HuE for the PSP to play anything!
Pulling this rather long story back into present day, to conclude, I was looking at stuff on the net and discovered Nexzr. I thought - sh*t that shooter looks good - and did a bit more research into the Super CD Rom setup. I ended up getting a boxed IFU-30 with SCDROM for about £85 off ebay, which I was very pleased about. CD drive is sketchy though. Since then I have built up a collection of about 20 of the 'must have shmups' for the system - Spriggan 1&2, Psychic Storm etc etc.....and recently acquired a boxed GT, then a boxed LT, then a Super CD ROM 2.

I'm really impressed by all the PCE resources on line - this being a PRIME example - just love the hardware compatibility chart for example! And the Bible PCE Daisuken etc etc ..... and You Tube of course, where I now have a channel (see link!) and have met some awesome PCE gamers like Dankss, Nectarsis, PhatPhunk, Lorfarius, the list goes on and on.....

Retro love people.

interesting read Matt 
just sitting up watching up the UK election coverage and switched to Youtube for a bit and watched your new vids, good stuff, cool collection you got.

[JAPJAC]

.

[brightmidnight]

OK guys, this topic needs dusting off. It' sunny in London right now, I have a headache from internet authoring so I'm gonna sit back and recount some hardcore PC engine memories from the 80s and 90s.
I consider myself 'Generation Engine' as I was about 15 1/2 when the Engine was first talked about on these shores. C&VG was the first mag I came across that featured it - a 2 page spread if I remember. The reviews posted elsewhere on this thread, are also familiar.
There were at least 3 kids in our school who had bought one - two got them direct from HK through a Chinese guy called 'Chi' at school. One other had ordered his from PC Engine Supplies. He turned out to be a very good and long term friend of mine- PC engine was the catalyst.
Anyway, for some reason I decided to mail order a PC Engine - with my good parent blessing and sponsorship from Mention Technical Services. It was a little bit more expensive (about £200?) but it seemed a bigger company. I think they were based in the Scottish borders.
The thing arrived - with Vigilante, Dungeon Explorer, Tails of the Monster Path (a free game!) and Galaga '88. I think it was a 4 HuCard deal or something.. The four still remain in my collection. With the White Engine came the ubiquotous Colour Booster, which as you probably all know, screws up a lot of the colours and puts out greens instead of pinks etc....anyway flesh never looked very good and it started to bum me out, especially as my mate's one from PC Engine supplied worked fine on PAL as it had been modded.
So I ended up sending mine away to - guess who - Console Concepts - to repair....and the f****rs went bust, taking my PC Engine with them. I never saw it again..!   Another annoying thing was I threw away the box etc - what a berk! I was only 16 and boxes didn't seem worth keeping.
So, a little later, with my games and hobby intact, I managed to convince my - very annoyed - parents to buy a Core Grafx from some other supplier - I forget who - and it arrived, unmodded. I used the AV out for video signal but things were still far from perfect - after about 10 minutes of play, the screen would flash pink-red intermitently, due I think to the heat, as blowing across the vents seemed to ease it off. Not great when you're in the middle of a Formation Soccer match though....Anyway I could still use the AV booster for stereo sound, which was the best part about that ugly beast. It has since been thrown away - I should have kept it cos its still a dinky little add on . Never mind.
Anyway, my collection grew between 88 and 90 - and I amassed about 35 games. By the time the CDROM was brought out I (a) didn't have the money to get it (b) convinced myself it was a draft gimmick and (c) was getting more into rather less healthy persuits than gaming, or should i say the typical adolescent guy things.... anyway the collection reached its peak, with a couple of purchases from Computer Exchange on Whitfield Street ( I am intrigued by the other London shops mentioned here - now I think about it though I do remember vaguely something in the Middle of Tottenham Court Road!!) and then the hobby lay dormant. But before I skip to the 'Second Coming' I will give a couple of prices I paid - £40 for Don Doko Don (worth less now!!) and £30 for Outrun (ditto!!). The very last game I bought in that era was an unboxed version of Barunba for about £12 and it has stopped working since. Games were expensive cos we only had a few importers to buy them from. Talking about HuCard failures I have only ever had two but a couple are known to still be 'awkward' and take a few boots!
OK, well before I get to the return of the Engine, I will also say that I had an XE1-PC joystick, and a 5 way etc etc. This is important cos my first foray into buying new stuff for the engine, was after a ten year hiatus and on my return to London in about 1999 to work. There I found Computer Exchange, shortly to move to its current location of Rathbone Place, and its amazing little retro museum, which also went with it (for the first couple of years anyway, before they went mainstream...!)
An in CE I bought a XE1-PC Pro - still the best joystick for the engine IMO. Recently I picked another up - new and boxed this time!
As I didn't know about ebay then - one guy in my office was trading on it, but it meant nothing to me - I bought a few games from CE as well as starting my Sega Dreamcast and Saturn collections (but largely on ebay by that time).
I found a number of CHEAP! HuCards in CEX - Final Blaster £20, for example, but they also had some very expensive ones - I remember seeing Super Star Soldier there for £60 for like a whole year!! And of course, I didn't even LOOK at the Super CD ROMs!! What an idiot! I have in my head the idea that they were selling like Sylphia for £50, or Spriggan for a tenner. Was that the case???!!
Anyway, my collection grew at the tail end of the 90s into about 50 Hueys, and has since grown only a little more to about 70. I prefer shooters and some platformers / RPGs but nothing like the whole set. And anyway I have Magic Engine and HuE for the PSP to play anything!
Pulling this rather long story back into present day, to conclude, I was looking at stuff on the net and discovered Nexzr. I thought - sh*t that shooter looks good - and did a bit more research into the Super CD Rom setup. I ended up getting a boxed IFU-30 with SCDROM for about £85 off ebay, which I was very pleased about. CD drive is sketchy though. Since then I have built up a collection of about 20 of the 'must have shmups' for the system - Spriggan 1&2, Psychic Storm etc etc.....and recently acquired a boxed GT, then a boxed LT, then a Super CD ROM 2.

I'm really impressed by all the PCE resources on line - this being a PRIME example - just love the hardware compatibility chart for example! And the Bible PCE Daisuken etc etc ..... and You Tube of course, where I now have a channel (see link!) and have met some awesome PCE gamers like Dankss, Nectarsis, PhatPhunk, Lorfarius, the list goes on and on.....

Retro love people.

Matt, your channel is awesome. Please make more videos again! I have a fairly similar PC Engine background to those shared in this thread. I got introduced to the scene back in the late 80's by a good friend who's now a game designer. In the very early days of the UK grey import scene there was a notorious outfit called PC Engine Services, run by two crooks who sold shoddily modified systems with the dodgy colour booster. They ended up serving jail time for their fraudulent activities if I recall correctly, as they ripped off a lot of people before going bust. I think that might be the company you got yours from, as PC Engine Supplies were a great outfit that later became Console Concepts and carried on well into the 90's. I believe Colin Diamond was the person behind Console Concepts and he was a really top guy. I bought many of my import games from them back in those days, along with the other companies mentioned in this thread, like Raven Games, Telegames, Rhine Games and Shekhana. I used to go to Shekhana's shop on Tottenham Court Road all the time before I discovered Advance Console Entertainment, or ACE. I spent many, many hours hanging out at ACE through the 90's and early 2000's and got very friendly with Nick and Dimitry who ran the place. Not the cheapest shop, but then none of those places were cheap back then. Import gaming really was a hardcore pursuit and a very expensive hobby. Raven Games in Beckenham was a cool shop too and was one of the first physical import shops in the UK dating back to 1988, the year I started collecting. Tony who ran Raven Games was another top guy. Amazingly, the shop still existed until fairly recently, but sadly I think it's closed down now as their website has disappeared.

I've only just got really back into gaming over the past few years after a long hiatus from the hobby. It seems to be quite a common story that I hear from other people my age who were also serious hardcore import gamers back in the late 80's and 90's. You reach a certain age and then life has a way of steering you away from the hobby as adolescence gives way to adulthood. But life also has a way of bringing you full circle and back to your roots, which is where my journey has taken me. I was very, very into PC Engine collecting through the early 90's, but unfortunately I gradually drifted away from that scene when I got a Mega Drive and Super Famicom, so my collection didn't grow much after around 1994 until recently when I picked it up again. I have a fairly decent HuCard library, but my CDROM collection is still rather lacking. The prices that some games sell for now is quite breathtaking. The same goes for a lot of the sought after HuCards. I once had two sealed copies of Coryoon that I foolishly sold about 10 years ago when I lost interest in gaming and I'm really kicking myself now. I also sold off my entire Japanese Saturn collection too, but that's another story. Suffice it to say that I'm paying dearly now trying to replace it all!


Speaking of UK fanzines, there was an excellent one back in the 90's called Electric Brain produced by a guy called Onn Lee, who was quite a legend in the UK import scene at the time. They're highly sought after nowadays and seem to change hands for quite a bit on eBay when they pop up. It was produced to a very high standard and was even sold in high street newsagents like WHSmith. The Complete PC Engine Guide Book by Richard Gibbs was also very highly regarded. I still have my copy and I actually tracked down Mr Gibbs recently by sheer luck. He has a YouTube channel by the name of GYRUSS. He said he might make a video some day about the making of his legendary PC Engine guide and I really hope he does.

Retro love indeed!

[Vimtoman]

This is the item I am intrigued by:

"The complete pc engine guide book" by Richard Gibbs

Very interesting...

You can find it here. http://www.archives.tg-16.com

I still have one copy which I bought from Richard. The first one died from over use.

[CrackTiger]

This is the item I am intrigued by:

"The complete pc engine guide book" by Richard Gibbs

Very interesting...

You can find it here. http://www.archives.tg-16.com

I still have one copy which I bought from Richard. The first one died from over use.

What do you think the odds are that he found it during the past seven years?

[NecroPhile]

And on his own site? 

[Vimtoman]

Is that his site?

[NecroPhile]

Yarr, but don't mind the ribbing.  You meant well. 

[Ex_Mosquito]

Found this in my Mums attic earlier. It's a flyer from Telegames selling off a couple of bargains! £70 + game for a TG. The Jaguar is pretty cheap too

[Otaking]

Cool find.
When I took out an old CVG to take photos (pages to big to scan) for a PC Engine feature I found an old Telegames price list and scanned it here:
https://www.pcengine-fx.com/forums/index.php?topic=19762


I've got a load of old (maybe all) issues of Electric Brain that I'll scan at some point if I can get my scanner working.
For years and years I've been searching for Onn Lee's precursor fanzines Console Ma'zine and PC Engine Fanatics. I even messaged him on Facebook a year or so back to see if he had any issues and he didn't.

Below image from VGDen website

[Ex_Mosquito]

Hah that's excellent. That would be great if you could scan those electric brain issues in Wow those PC Engine fanzines look neat, love old stuff like that.

I also found this old French copy of Mean Machines which I got on a school trip to France, it's strange why they didn't review PC Engine games in the UK version, especially when CVG had them pretty much every month.

[Otaking]

I also found this old French copy of Mean Machines which I got on a school trip to France, it's strange why they didn't review PC Engine games in the UK version, especially when CVG had them pretty much every month.

Yeah and the Complete Guide to Consoles had loads of PC Engine reviews and then after when Machine Machines magazine (UK) started there was nothing.
I vaguely remember hearing or reading in a Julian Rignall interview regards PC Engine in Mean Machines that he said it was something to do with waiting for the UK Pal Turbografx release, expecting it to launch and then it never happened (other than Telegames). But that doesn't make any sense because as you said the sister magazine CVG that he was also the Editor of had PC Engine reviews in it.

[esteban]

Found this in my Mums attic earlier. It's a flyer from Telegames selling off a couple of bargains! £70 + game for a TG. The Jaguar is pretty cheap too

This! Would it be possible to lay flyer flat and photograph it again? Or scan it?

I can take a photo and crop it/adjust it so it looks like it was scanned (take photo parallel to plane of flyer).

[NecroPhile]

Or perpendicular so you actually see the flyer. 

£70 for a Turbob with one game or a mere £15 for a Jaguar and two games.  Poor Jag Wire, nobody wanted you. 

[Psycho Punch]

"A LOT OF ITEMS IN THIS LEAFLET ARE COLLECTABLE LIMITED STOCK AND BECOMING RARE ITEMS"

telegames was right

[brightmidnight]

"A LOT OF ITEMS IN THIS LEAFLET ARE COLLECTABLE LIMITED STOCK AND BECOMING RARE ITEMS"

telegames was right

Damn right!  Telegames were great, I used them loads back in the day.  They always had an amazing amount of stock across all platforms and a really good service.

[Ex_Mosquito]

Here you go!

[Otaking]

Found this in my Mums attic earlier. It's a flyer from Telegames selling off a couple of bargains! £70 + game for a TG. The Jaguar is pretty cheap too

I just realised this confirms something I've discussed before on this forum. Note that in that old Telegames flyer that, that is a UK PAL "Turbografx" console not an imported USA "Turbografx-16".
Some on this forum have said there was never a UK PAL Turbografx console release, even I tiny unsuccessful one. But I've said there was an extremely limited (very unsuccessful) UK PAL Turbografx console release that was somehow linked to Telegames and this flyer confirms what I had remembered.

[esteban]

Found this in my Mums attic earlier. It's a flyer from Telegames selling off a couple of bargains! £70 + game for a TG. The Jaguar is pretty cheap too

I just realised this confirms something I've discussed before on this forum. Note that in that old Telegames flyer that, that is a UK PAL "Turbografx" console not an imported USA "Turbografx-16".
Some on this forum have said there was never a UK PAL Turbografx console release, even I tiny unsuccessful one. But I've said there was an extremely limited (very unsuccessful) UK PAL Turbografx console release that was somehow linked to Telegames and this flyer confirms what I had remembered.

So, UK PAL TG-16 existed

[imparanoic]

Here you go!

i actually purchased brand new coryoon from telegames in 1994 or 1995 for only 40 quid, but i lost the game in 1996 when i lend to a mate and forgot about it as i was doing my a level exams

obviously, from that moment onwards, i realised how expensive this game which i lost

[esteban]

Ex_Mosquito: I would love HIGH QUALITY scans, if possible. Email me the raw files. Or, I'll take raw images from your camera and clean them up myself

https://archives.tg-16.com/magazine_database.htm?col=main&val=telegames

Can we get a more precise date for the Telegames flyer? I used the Lynx game "3D Planar" as a guide... since it was released in summer of 2000... but that would be the *earliest*... and I didn't check the other "new releases" listed in the flyer.

I put "$" before "£" because I sort by price in that column... but I might find another solution.

[Vimtoman]

Yarr, but don't mind the ribbing.  You meant well. 

Done a browse and found it on his site

I have a physical copy so if he has a few duff pages I can scan it

[Ex_Mosquito]

Ex_Mosquito: I would love HIGH QUALITY scans, if possible. Email me the raw files. Or, I'll take raw images from your camera and clean them up myself

https://archives.tg-16.com/magazine_database.htm?col=main&val=telegames

Can we get a more precise date for the Telegames flyer? I used the Lynx game "3D Planar" as a guide... since it was released in summer of 2000... but that would be the *earliest*... and I didn't check the other "new releases" listed in the flyer.

I put "$" before "£" because I sort by price in that column... but I might find another solution.

Heya. I used the fax\scanner\phone thingy in work, I'm not sure if it scans higher than a 1meg file, I'll check tomorrow. Amazing website btw, amazing resource

[shubibiman]

Wow ! When does this flyer date from ?

Otaking, as far as I knew until I saw this flyer, I hadn't heard of an official release of the PAL Turbografx. The only thing I knew was that there were huge dead stocks of Pal TGX in France and in England. I still have no idea of when it was released.

This flyer might help have a clue.

What we can tell is that these PAL TGX where produced before the NEC logo changed, ie at the latest in early 1993.

Edit : ok, those "new" Lynx games helped me to find the info about the year this flyer was published : 2000.

Here is a pic of my PAL TGX :

/TGX-PAL.JPG

The question is not "has the PAL TGX ever existed" : the answer is yes.
The question is : "Has it been released and if so, when ?"

The cables came in a box separated form the box of the system itself. There were two versions : one with an AC cable for England, one with an AC cable for continental Europe.

Here you go!

[esteban]

Shubibinman, you could have saved yourself some work if you read my prior post/link

[shubibiman]

 

[TheClash603]

GBP 20 for a Jaguar and 3 games, including Doom!?!?!?!?

Step 1:  Buy a time machine and go to the UK when this scan was current.

Step 2:  Get the Jaguar and games.

Step 3:  Be pissed I wasted GBP 20.

[gradius]

I bought my first PC Engine from Mr Disk in Birmingham in 1989. I think it was about £200 plus another £30 for a pal booster because I never had a scart telly. I got Kato & Ken and Bikkuriman World with it although the obvious choice was R-Type.

I used to buy most of my games from Console Concepts in Stoke (I'm pretty sure they were called PC Engine supplies at the time.

[imparanoic]

I bought my first PC Engine from Mr Disk in Birmingham in 1989. I think it was about £200 plus another £30 for a pal booster because I never had a scart telly. I got Kato & Ken and Bikkuriman World with it although the obvious choice was R-Type.

I used to buy most of my games from Console Concepts in Stoke (I'm pretty sure they were called PC Engine supplies at the time.

so it seems Mr Disk did sell imports, i wasn't sure, i do recall amiga demos/pds and a vaguely seen a a few imports

console concepts ( stated off as pc engine supplies, only know this as i seen old advert and has same address as pc engine supplies,) then closed, i vaguely recall console concepts still there in 1997, but closed in 1998,  then apparently they partnered with another world in stoke and continued selling import games, bizarre thing, there expanded their selection with japanese only rpg which no one buys apart from half japanese friend who studied at studied at staffordshire uni