Number of Turbografx CD attachments sold?

DildoKKKobold · 05/31/2016, 06:53 PM

I'm trying to find out how many US TGCD units (not Duos, just the attachment) were sold. Wikipedia is useless. My google-fu has failed. Any help would be appreciated.

Additionally, if anyone knows if the sales numbers of TG16 on Wikipedia are legit, it would be appreciated. The source cited on Wikipedia seems less than trustworthy.

CrackTiger · 05/31/2016, 06:57 PM

We'll never know, but some people like to take a passing comment by Vic Ireland and take it out of context and make a leap from there that they made 200,000.

esteban · 05/31/2016, 07:37 PM

Quote from: DildoKKKobold on 05/31/2016, 06:53 PMI'm trying to find out how many US TGCD units (not Duos, just the attachment) were sold. Wikipedia is useless. My google-fu has failed. Any help would be appreciated.

Additionally, if anyone knows if the sales numbers of TG16 on Wikipedia are legit, it would be appreciated. The source cited on Wikipedia seems less than trustworthy.

At least 100-200 units.

wilykat · 05/31/2016, 08:33 PM

Going by the serial number of the CD system I sold last month, probably 2 million. I bought it originally when it was being clearance'd out in favor of Duo.

tbone3969 · 05/31/2016, 08:37 PM

17

SignOfZeta · 05/31/2016, 08:47 PM

1) These numbers don't exist, nobody has them. We all want them, would love to have them. This goes for almost everything TG. You can keep looking on Google but I'm pretty sure you're just going to find lies.

2) Probably like 1000 until they hit clearance. It was a massive massive flop since the price was nuts. After clearance I assume they sold all they made. So...however were made was probably how many were sold.

3) It would be interesting to take a survey here and see how many people currently own one. I think it's like...4.

bob · 05/31/2016, 08:55 PM

jelloslug bought them all.

like BT said, vic made a comment that CF2 almost sold 1:1 to units sold. he referenced around 100K.

SignOfZeta · 05/31/2016, 08:58 PM

Vic also announced Lunar 3 so...worthless info, IMO, especially since "made vs sold" is a constant shell game popular with people who want to inflate their numbers and a LOT of NOS CF2s have turned up over the years, cases and cases of the things.

bob · 05/31/2016, 09:34 PM

Quote from: SignOfZeta on 05/31/2016, 08:58 PMVic also announced Lunar 3 so...worthless info, IMO, especially since "made vs sold" is a constant shell game popular with people who want to inflate their numbers and a LOT of NOS CF2s have turned up over the years, cases and cases of the things.

right, the ones that turned up over the years didnt sell back then. he never claimed they made LESS copies of it than systems sold. he just made a quick comment that he thought they sold as many as systems. he said it when talking about how cadash was a flop and i dont think he was even asked about the CF2 numbers, he just said it in general. i doubt there was any predetermined force behind his comment. maybe he mentioned lunar 3 at some point and they probably had some level of intent to do it, but shit happens and we never got it.

ToyMachine78 · 05/31/2016, 09:51 PM

I bought mine from electronics boutique once they cut the price in preparation for the anouncement of the duo.

CrackTiger · 05/31/2016, 10:22 PM

Quote from: gynt on 05/31/2016, 09:34 PM
Quote from: SignOfZeta on 05/31/2016, 08:58 PMVic also announced Lunar 3 so...worthless info, IMO, especially since "made vs sold" is a constant shell game popular with people who want to inflate their numbers and a LOT of NOS CF2s have turned up over the years, cases and cases of the things.
right, the ones that turned up over the years didnt sell back then. he never claimed they made LESS copies of it than systems sold. he just made a quick comment that he thought they sold as many as systems. he said it when talking about how cadash was a flop and i dont think he was even asked about the CF2 numbers, he just said it in general. i doubt there was any predetermined force behind his comment. maybe he mentioned lunar 3 at some point and they probably had some level of intent to do it, but shit happens and we never got it.

From what I remember, he talked about an offhand comment a Turbo guy made pre-Super CD/Duo and that so far, it was one for one.

But we had clowns taking out of context comments about E.T.'ing Magical Chase and how they had proof that it wasn't ever released in Canada and how that meant that there were only 800 copies in existence before they destroyed 2000 of them, so their copy is a steal for only $99,999.99.

I really wish I made up each of those parts.

There is only one certainty with manufactured and sold numbers: it is definitely impossible to ever know anything accurate.

TheClash603 · 05/31/2016, 11:25 PM

I imagine the closest anyone would come to an exact number would be to use the serial numbers. They are all stamped with a date as well.

I had three at one point, due to brokenness. One was gear replaced, one broken was sold, and I have another busted one.

I regret parting with the unit I did, because it had a later date stamped on it. The two I kept have the same earlier date and I would imagine this was the original production run with the majority of the systems. The later run is probably more rare and the serial numbers more helpful in determining units sold, as I can't imagine they did more than a few manufacturing runs.

DildoKKKobold · 06/01/2016, 01:01 AM

Quote from: TheClash603 on 05/31/2016, 11:25 PMI imagine the closest anyone would come to an exact number would be to use the serial numbers. They are all stamped with a date as well.

I had three at one point, due to brokenness. One was gear replaced, one broken was sold, and I have another busted one.

I regret parting with the unit I did, because it had a later date stamped on it. The two I kept have the same earlier date and I would imagine this was the original production run with the majority of the systems. The later run is probably more rare and the serial numbers more helpful in determining units sold, as I can't imagine they did more than a few manufacturing runs.

That is actually a pretty clever idea.

A similar thing was done with the Sharp NES TV - there is even more information, as it gives the manufacturing date. I'm not sure if this info could be used to approximate the number of Sharp NES TVs manufactured.

http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=5&threadid=49598

uiengineer · 06/01/2016, 11:40 AM

I currently have the CD dock, but not the CDROM unit.

SignOfZeta · 06/01/2016, 11:49 AM

Serial numbers are equally useless unless you can say for sure you understand their numbering scheme, that there weren't huge batches of rejected product, etc.

OldTurboBastard · 06/01/2016, 03:23 PM

Just to give some idea, I had 2 friends, plus myself, in the early 90's that had the CD attachment (pre-duo) in the virginia beach area.

SignOfZeta · 06/01/2016, 04:12 PM

Quote from: gynt on 05/31/2016, 09:34 PM
Quote from: SignOfZeta on 05/31/2016, 08:58 PMVic also announced Lunar 3 so...worthless info, IMO, especially since "made vs sold" is a constant shell game popular with people who want to inflate their numbers and a LOT of NOS CF2s have turned up over the years, cases and cases of the things.
right, the ones that turned up over the years didnt sell back then. he never claimed they made LESS copies of it than systems sold. he just made a quick comment that he thought they sold as many as systems. he said it when talking about how cadash was a flop and i dont think he was even asked about the CF2 numbers, he just said it in general. i doubt there was any predetermined force behind his comment. maybe he mentioned lunar 3 at some point and they probably had some level of intent to do it, but shit happens and we never got it.

There was a year where WD and Sega had a rough patch. I guess there was a trade show and WDs booth ended up in an out of the way area or something like that. It was at this point where Bernie Stollar was working overtime ruining the Saturn for Amercians as much as he could so I don't doubt Vic was correct in feeling Jilted. Everyone in the US with a Saturn felt jilted.

This was the moment when WD switched to Sony, more or less.

And it was at this event that I can barely remember that Vic said he'd do Lunar 3 for PlayStation. I suppose he should have said "assuming anyone ever makes it". At the time it seemed like he was hugely full of himself, like even more than normal.

Vic and his fans really love Working Designs. They love it too much. Too many of them don't seem to understand that WD, while *extremely* important to hardcore video gamers at that time, didn't actually make games. They just translate other people's games. Lunar 3, as far as I know, was never announced by Gamearts. It's now almost 20 years later and there STILL isn't a Lunar 3. He just wanted to say "Fine! I don't need you assholes anyway!" which turned out to be true but...Lunar 3? I'm not sure if WD could make a decent Army Men game let alone Lunar 3. Who's going to like...draw stuff? Can you imagine how many Jerry Springer jokes and fart gags would be in an all WD game? It's preposterous.

Hero: "Is my new sword finished?"
Smithee: "That depends on what your definition of "is" is."

GET IT!!?! ITS TOPICAL LIKE SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE!!! THIS IS FUNNY!!!

And yeah, I realized this is all a poorly written barely remembered third hand anecdotal tale, but sadly so it's every other method I can think of for measuring the sales of almost anything regarding the TG-16 or even the PCE. NEC doesn't remember jack shit about PCE.

If we ever get good numbers it will be from former employees that took notes. Maybe Takahashi Meijin will tell us something someday, or some sales rep from Toys R Us, but until then I trust the non-collectard fan consensus and that route is currently turning up very very little data. I know it's not very exciting but if you want to be accurate about something sadly a lot of "data" has to be thrown out.

jbeedham · 06/01/2016, 04:29 PM

So as far as serial numbers go do we know if the Japenese CD systems were counted in that same serial number scheme?

SignOfZeta · 06/01/2016, 06:12 PM

I don't know if anyone has deciphered the serial number scheme but it would be much easier to do so with JP systems since there so many more of them and they were in production so much longer.

CrackTiger · 06/01/2016, 07:08 PM

They definitely said that Cosmic Fantasy 3 was on its way.

And they were going to prove naysayers wrong by actually porting a couple Neo Geo games themselves... but couldn't complete a single screenshot.

Psycho Punch · 06/01/2016, 07:25 PM

Quote from: CrackTiger on 06/01/2016, 07:08 PMThey definitely said that Cosmic Fantasy 3 was on its way.

And they were going to prove naysayers wrong by actually porting a couple Neo Geo games themselves... but couldn't complete a single screenshot.

I always wondered how King of Monsters would have been on a US Arcade Card release if Hudson didn't stop them... but reading this thread now I'm not so sure that it would be good, or it would at least get released.

SignOfZeta · 06/01/2016, 07:59 PM

I think I'd rather have one of Takara's shitty SNES ports.

To be fair, Cosmic Fantasy 3 is an game that actually exists that they could have theoretically translated. I'm not sure why they didn't, really. I guess they ran out of time before moving to Sega CD. Lunar 3 is just a fan's wet dream. It doesn't exist in any way, never did, never got anounced or anything by anyone but him, which is why Vic's statement was so nuts.

Most WD fans are like most video game fans though, almost unbelievably ignorant of how their favorite thing in the world gets made. It's honestly kind of incredible.

Any rational person would say,

"Wait, the only piece of original art I remember from you guys was the cover to CF2 and it was next level bad. Will Lunar 3 look like that?".

"Shouldn't there already be a JP version on the market?"

"I didn't hear about you guys quadrupling your staff and making them all work 80 hour weeks. It must be tough!"

"Shouldn't Game Arts have a say in this?"

And last but not least,

"Will the save point system from Lunar 2 remain? I really love putting extra hours on my system because your dumb translation makes me earn every save."

wiseau · 06/01/2016, 10:54 PM

Quote from: SignOfZeta on 06/01/2016, 07:59 PMI think I'd rather have one of Takara's shitty SNES ports.

To be fair, Cosmic Fantasy 3 is an game that actually exists that they could have theoretically translated. I'm not sure why they didn't, really. I guess they ran out of time before moving to Sega CD. Lunar 3 is just a fan's wet dream. It doesn't exist in any way, never did, never got anounced or anything by anyone but him, which is why Vic's statement was so nuts.

Most WD fans are like most video game fans though, almost unbelievably ignorant of how their favorite thing in the world gets made. It's honestly kind of incredible.

Any rational person would say,

Any rational person would try to verify your claims, and see that vic never said working designs themselves were making lunar 3.

SignOfZeta · 06/02/2016, 01:45 AM

It's funny that you'd try to defend the guy with an article with even more bullshit in it than I accused him of. I do thank you for finding this though. While I'm not sure if this is the same article I read at the time it's the right time period for sure. He's mad about the same things and dreaming the same dreams.

It also makes him look like a mega dick, flatly saying that he would enthusiastically use his Lunar trademark to thwart any sale of a Lunar 3 unless it was on a Sony system. (Luckily this never had to happen since Lunar 3 doesn't exist in the first place). He sounds like...drunk when he talks. He's saying that Lunar 3 is in production. Nobody else to my knowledge has anounced this game TO THIS DAY. He says it's coming sooner than we think or maybe not, maybe he'll release it on PS2, a system that hadn't even been anounced yet at the time of the original interview. How's it going to actually *get* on PS2, the system that it's definelty coming for in the US through his company sooner than you think if nobody in Japan will do it or of Sega stops them? Who? Him. He's the only one. He'd have to port it himself or subcontract or something. There is no other party in this equation.

Follow his logic. Where the hell is it coming from? Not Game Arts of course because they aren't important anyway. It's coming FOR SURE, but he doesn't know who's going to make it or what system it's going to be on. Vic's going to have to make it. He might as well since he invented Lunar 3 anyway.

The whole thing is crazy. If someone else makes a game, he can translate it (in twice as much time as it took to make the entire game in the first place of course) if someone else happens to port that game to another system that he luckily agrees with politically he can translate that one instead, but that's it. He can't do anything else. He can't speak for the actual creatives who's credit he leaches.

I think Grandia *is* Lunar 3 and they just changed the game so they could get it out, so Sony could release it. I kid, that's obviously something they wouldn't even bother to do.

EmperorIng · 06/02/2016, 02:04 AM

That interview from crazy ol' Vic was a good laugh. Man, that was an artful display of bullshit.

I bet you the game he was ACTUALLY talking about was Grandia 2. I agree that Grandia was essentially the successor to the Lunar series (and, mechanically speaking, improved upon Lunar 100 fold through its battle system alone).

QuoteThe whole thing is crazy. If someone else makes a game, he can translate it (in twice as much time as it took to make the entire game in the first place of course)

Don't forget the "rebalancing" in order to totally fuck up the natural flow of a game (hey, let's double the health of everything on Elemental Gearbolt! Hey, let's make it literally impossible to beat RayStorm on its arcade default difficulty, because that's too "easy"! Triple the health on all Albert Odyssey bosses, why not!).

tbone3969 · 06/02/2016, 10:24 AM

I currently own a functioning US Turbo Cd unit.

SignOfZeta · 06/02/2016, 10:35 AM

Current ownership is meaningless in determining how many sold. Most people here are not the original purchasers of %99-100 of their collection.

NecroPhile · 06/02/2016, 11:07 AM

Quote from: wiseau on 06/01/2016, 10:54 PMAny rational person would try to verify your claims, and see that vic never said working designs themselves were making lunar 3.

So who was going to make it? He says the JP version would be on Dreamcast but the US version will be on PS2, so wouldn't that mean he'd have to port the game in house? Unlike all their other games, he wouldn't have a complete game to simply translate. I suppose he could've contracted a third party company to do it for him, but that'd still be a WD initiated and controlled venture, no different than the thousands of games attributed to various developers that were farmed out to outside companies (either in whole or in part).

CrackTiger · 06/02/2016, 12:04 PM

Any rational person would acknowledge that there is no interpretation of the "Cosmic Fantasy 3 Coming Soon!" or the official announcements of the Neo Geo ports. Why split hairs over b.s. game announcements that followed?

That's all separate from Vic's narcissistic rambling in general.

TurboXray · 06/02/2016, 12:31 PM

His "Neo Geo" ports would have been ass terrible. They guy himself (Vic) didn't know how to program, and what.. he's going to higher some ace crew to do all of this? Yeah, no.

ginoscope · 06/02/2016, 01:11 PM

Quote from: EmperorIng on 06/02/2016, 02:04 AMThat interview from crazy ol' Vic was a good laugh. Man, that was an artful display of bullshit.

I bet you the game he was ACTUALLY talking about was Grandia 2. I agree that Grandia was essentially the successor to the Lunar series (and, mechanically speaking, improved upon Lunar 100 fold through its battle system alone).

QuoteThe whole thing is crazy. If someone else makes a game, he can translate it (in twice as much time as it took to make the entire game in the first place of course)
Don't forget the "rebalancing" in order to totally fuck up the natural flow of a game (hey, let's double the health of everything on Elemental Gearbolt! Hey, let's make it literally impossible to beat RayStorm on its arcade default difficulty, because that's too "easy"! Triple the health on all Albert Odyssey bosses, why not!).

Let's not forget Exile 2 and how Working Design made the game almost unbeatable. You know it's a long road when the first scorpion you see will own you. I am really proud I beat this last year but man was it difficult.

CrackTiger · 06/02/2016, 02:10 PM

Vic also claimed that he duckered GameArts into a lifetime contract for tge tights to publish Lunar games in English. He actually said something along the lines of "No one but me will ever touch any Lunar games for any pkatform!" or something arrogantly crazy.

Thankfully he was still full crap.

xcrement5x · 06/03/2016, 12:08 PM

I believe Vic had what was called the first right of refusal with the Lunar franchise, so not really anything too crazy. I think he alludes to that in the interview. From Google:

QuoteRight of first refusal (ROFR or RFR) is a contractual right that gives its holder the option to enter a business transaction with the owner of something, according to specified terms, before the owner is entitled to enter into that transaction with a third party.

So someone else could bring out another Lunar game (obviously Ubisoft did so on the GBA), but Working Designs had the option to localize/distribute the game in the US first.

CrackTiger · 06/03/2016, 12:54 PM

I assumed bitd, that in reality it must be something like that. But I remember that in one of his quotes, he made a point of phrasing things to say that if they didn't localize a particular Lunar game, then we wouldn't get it at all.

DragonmasterDan · 06/03/2016, 01:42 PM

From my understanding they had actually sold their rights tied to the series (first right or refusal) back to Game Arts along with the English localization of the Sega CD Lunar's which Game Arts then packaged to allow Ubisoft to use the Working Designs town/character names.

esteban · 06/05/2016, 09:02 AM

Answer: 42

Otaking · 06/05/2016, 09:27 AM

Answer: 69

esteban · 06/05/2016, 09:36 AM

Answer: n + 1

Otaking · 06/05/2016, 09:48 AM

Answer: 1337

wildfruit · 06/05/2016, 10:56 AM

Int n;
//n is the number of rich kids in
// America
Cout >> "how many kids parents had money to burn in the 90s? : " ;
Cin << n << endl;

Cout >> "the number of turbografx cd attachments sold is: " >> (n++) * 2 >>endl;

Return 0;

// may or may not be true

CrackTiger · 06/05/2016, 11:25 AM

My family was not rich and spent very little money on me. I bought the Turbo-CD twice myself. The first time was at the full launch price. The store that advertised in EGM kept my money and never sent anything. I just realized that I also bought Ys I & II twice because of this. I think that the Turbo-CD I bought which I actually received was $400 Canadian.

The Genesis and TG-16 were marketed towards teens, since Nintendo had an illegal monoply and was targeting kids. Lots of us earned the money used to buy our video games stuff.

Psycho Punch · 06/05/2016, 11:32 AM

If that happened to me I would have been pissed off to this day, BT. The mail order scam, I mean.

esteban · 06/06/2016, 02:11 AM

Quote from: CrackTiger on 06/05/2016, 11:25 AMMy family was not rich and spent very little money on me. I bought the Turbo-CD twice myself. The first time was at the full launch price. The store that advertised in EGM kept my money and never sent anything. I just realized that I also bought Ys I & II twice because of this. I think that the Turbo-CD I bought which I actually received was $400 Canadian.

The Genesis and TG-16 were marketed towards teens, since Nintendo had an illegal monoply and was targeting kids. Lots of us earned the money used to buy our video games stuff.

Yup. Ditto, here.

My two brothers and I saved up every last cent (birthday + Xmas + chores/part-time jobs) to buy all our video game paraphernalia (including TG-CD). It was a "demo" unit (we called it a "floor model") from a local shop and, IIRC, $50 off.

My brothers and I replayed our games a billion times.

We didn't have money for many games, but we were able to get a few every year.

Gypsy · 06/07/2016, 07:08 AM

Quote from: EmperorIng on 06/02/2016, 02:04 AMDon't forget the "rebalancing" in order to totally fuck up the natural flow of a game (hey, let's double the health of everything on Elemental Gearbolt! Hey, let's make it literally impossible to beat RayStorm on its arcade default difficulty, because that's too "easy"! Triple the health on all Albert Odyssey bosses, why not!).

Yeah I like most of the games WD brought over but I very much agree. I used experience codes in Albert Odyssey and gave no effs.

Sometimes there were some positive changes, but all of the game difficulty stuff was bullshit.

gatsu25 · 06/07/2016, 10:46 AM

It would be so nice to have numbers like this. I don't see why companies don't go back and offer sales numbers from their past.

Surely someone from Hudson or NEC in Japan has an idea of sales numbers for systems and games...

I feel like companies don't want to release this information, and thus its just eventually becomes lost forever. It's kind of a shame.

wiseau · 06/07/2016, 12:31 PM

Quote from: gatsu25 on 06/07/2016, 10:46 AMIt would be so nice to have numbers like this. I don't see why companies don't go back and offer sales numbers from their past.

Surely someone from Hudson or NEC in Japan has an idea of sales numbers for systems and games...

I feel like companies don't want to release this information, and thus its just eventually becomes lost forever. It's kind of a shame.

Far as i can tell, most publishers only like to release sales numbers if they have something to brag about, otherwise it's just shameful

gamerslife · 06/08/2016, 12:36 AM

i wish i knew, but will say I've had 3 in the past 5 yrs (all in the wild finds) so it seems to be a high run number. I also see a bunch in peoples collections so they deft can't be a low run or rare in any sense. On the other hand i do know more people with duo's than the cd systems but that might not have any correlation....

780racer · 06/08/2016, 01:38 AM

Quote from: gamerslife on 06/08/2016, 12:36 AMi wish i knew, but will say I've had 3 in the past 5 yrs (all in the wild finds) so it seems to be a high run number. I also see a bunch in peoples collections so they deft can't be a low run or rare in any sense. On the other hand i do know more people with duo's than the cd systems but that might not have any correlation....

That does not tell much of a story as your town/area could have had good advertisement or people in the area jived with the Turbo where other area's didnt. I can safely say that they are very uncommon in other areas.

TurboXray · 06/08/2016, 04:57 PM

Definitely a local thing, but in the small city here - I've seen TG16 systems and games in the wild over the years. The population here is only ~700,000 people (not even a major city). I met random people who owned Duos or TG16s as well. Same for other friends that knew of other people that had TG/Duo systems. It's weird to think of this stuff as rare, for me. I've even bought PCE CD import games here, from local shops when it turns up from time to time. Actually bought GnG for SGX, loose, for $5 at a local used game shop a few years back.