Konami, IP owner of the NEC TurboGrafx-16 and PC Engine, has announced three new upcoming mini consoles, the TurboGrafx-16, PC Engine, and Core Grafx Minis. Each includes a controller and their own lineup of games.
While I am normally dismissive of the plastic monstrosities that are mini consoles, if this is done well, it would at least offer games that haven’t been as readily available as SNES and NES games.
But, honestly, the mini fad is a quickly fading cash-grab that brings nothing new to the plate for gamers, with the exception of a few never-before-seen games seeing the light of day. For decades, we’ve had the option of setting up superior software emulators with full coverage of the PCE/TG16/SGX/PCE CD libraries, and your phone is almost certainly going to be an order of magnitude more powerful than whatever SOC that Konami uses.
My advice to anyone interested in the PCE is to give the system the justice it deserves and set up a MiSTer FPGA-based Multi-Platform Emulator, which already has 100% support for all PC Engine, TurboGrafx-16, and SuperGrafx games, and will likely get PC Engine CD support in the near future. And the very best option, for real hardware enthusiasts like myself, is pairing a TerraOnion SSDS3 with a PC Engine or SuperGrafx. SSDS3 gives you an RGB mod, stereo audio, 100% Hucard support, ODE for CD games, and full system card support (Arcade Card, etc).
Unless Konami does something interesting like including new unreleased games, this is not something you should be excited for unless you just want more plastic for your shelves.
Bob and I had a great time discussing the state of the PCE world in a recent video: