PC-FX - What went wrong?

[ZeoDefender]

The PC Engine wasn't a huge success, but it did well in Japan and helped cement NEC's place in the video game industry as a competent competitor of Nintendo and Sega. It served a similar purpose as the Sega Master System or the original Xbox; a stepping stone for bigger and greater things in the following generation. Unfortunately, that didn't happen for NEC. The stepping stone was all that they had.

The PC-FX was a disaster of epic proportions. Nowhere to be seen were Bonk, Military Madness, Legendary Axe, Star Solider, Neutopia, Air Zonk, or anything else that defined the TG-16. But we did have plenty of crappy anime FMV and porno games. Who needs an awesome Bonk's Adventure 3D as a launch game when you have pixelated boobies? Apparently, most of us.

I know the system sucked, but I don't know why. How did NEC manage to not only drop the ball, but have it dig through the ground until it was incinerated by the molten core of the Earth? What went wrong?

[o.pwuaioc]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC-FX

[BoneSnapDeez]

Everything in generation "4.5" pretty much bombed.

PC-FX, Amiga CD32, Jaguar/Jaguar CD, 3DO, CD-I, FM Towns Marty, Virtual Boy...

Everything was too expensive, 3D graphics looked like shit, there were lots of terrible "experimental" games released, and the FMV craze never caught on like developers thought it would.

[Ghegs]

I know the system sucked, but I don't know why.

But we did have plenty of crappy anime FMV and porno games.

I think you do know.

[marurun]

The PC Engine was largely Hudson's hard work. NEC added some ideas and manufactured the units, but Hudson was the primary hardware designer. By the time the PC-FX had come out, Hudson was producing games for almost every platform in existence, including their own. They didn't need another system just for themselves. The PC-FX was probably just NEC failing badly without much Hudson vision.

[Thierry Henry]

Underpowered as to what the competition could offer.
The lack of dedicated 3D hardware effectively meant that it couldn't hope to compete with the PS and Saturn in this regard.
(It did have the potential to display 3D graphics to a certain extent and we did see a hint of that in the game Zenki )


NEC took a radically different approach to what type of games were released for the PC-FX and this was undoubtedly a major factor in the failure of the console.
Gone were the arcade conversions, shooters and platform games from the PC Engine.
In came FMV versions and anime type games.
Lack of backwards compatibility with the PC Engine also didn't help matters.

[sneth]

Pretty much the same reason Saturn failed...

In that awkward phase where people thought FMV was the future.

High powered 2d. not 3d. in hindsight, could have been amazing but people went gaga over 3d.

Poor Gameplay

No backwards compatibility

People weary after the SuperGrafx.