The TurboDuo is a fourth-generationvideo game console developed by NEC Home Electronics and Hudson Soft for the North American market. The TurboDuo was test-marketed in Los Angeles in October 1992, before a nationwide rollout in May 1993. It is the North American version of the Japanese PC Engine Duo game console which was released in September 1991. In the United States, the TurboDuo was marketed by Turbo Technologies, Inc. of Los Angeles, a joint venture of NEC Home Electronics and Hudson Soft. It was established to market NEC consoles in North America after NEC Home Electronics USA failed to effectively market the platform. The TurboDuo integrates the capabilities of the TurboGrafx-16 and its CD-ROM drive into a single, redesigned unit with an updated BIOS and 192 KB of additional RAM. TTI also offered the Super System Card via mail order, which provided the original TurboGrafx-CD with the 192 KB RAM upgrade. The RAM increase and BIOS update afford the TurboDuo and PC Engine Duo compatibility with all CD-ROM² and Super CD-ROM² titles. Like the TurboGrafx-CD, the TurboDuo can read Compact Disc Digital Audio and CD+G discs. The TurboDuo, however, cannot read PC Engine HuCards without modification or an adapter. With a HuCard adapter and an Arcade Card Duo, the TurboDuo can also read Arcade CD-ROM² games.
Marketing
Japan
When the PC Engine Duo launched in Japan on September 21, 1991, it retailed for ¥59,800. The product garnered a Good Design Award. NEC later revised the design of the console to reduce both manufacturing costs and the sale price. This new version, the PC Engine Duo R, went to market on March 25, 1993 with a retail price of ¥39,800. The Duo R omits the 3.5 mm phone connector for headphones, and the locking switch for the lid of the Duo's top-loadingCD-ROMdrive. The Duo R has an off-white, differently shaped chassis. NEC released its final variation of the PC Engine Duo on June 25, 1994. The PC Engine Duo RX has a bluer chassis, and was bundled with the Arcade Pad 6, a six-button controller, instead of the standard Turbo Pad controller. In a game console comparison published in May 1995, Famicom Tsūshin rated the PC Engine Duo 22 out of 40.
North America
TTI released the TurboDuo to consumers in North America in October 1992, at a retail price of US$299.99. The price was, in part, a consequence of the relatively high cost of CD-ROM drive manufacturing. Since TTI understood that the price was too high for many people in their target market, they included a booklet of coupons for TurboDuo games and accessories, plus several pack-in games on two CD-ROMs: Ys Book I & II and a Super CD compilation of four of Hudson Soft's more popular TurboGrafx-16 titles: Bonk's Adventure, Bonk's Revenge, Gate of Thunder, and Bomberman. The package also included one TurboChip game: Dungeon Explorer. Later, TTI replaced Dungeon Explorer with one of a variety of TurboChip titles, such as Ninja Spirit and Final Lap Twin. With the release of the TurboDuo, TTI reduced the retail price of the TurboGrafx-CD peripheral for the TurboGrafx-16 to $150.00, and began marketing the Super System Card, which enabled the TurboGrafx-CD to play the new Super CD games. The Super System Card is programmed with the updated v3.0 BIOS, and increases the TurboGrafx-16's RAM by 192 kilobytes. The TurboGrafx-CD requires the updated BIOS to read Super CD discs, and the additional RAM to run the software capably. The Super System Card retailed for US$65 or, when bundled with the TurboDuo's Super CD compilation disc, US$95. For the TurboDuo marketing campaign, TTI used a character called Johnny Turbo. In 1998, Jonathan J. Burtenshaw of GameSpy described the advertising campaign as "petty" and "overly confrontational," and conjectured that the campaign hurt TurboDuo sales.
