- Joined
- Jul 9, 2001
- Posts
- 3,771
I agree they’ve outlived their usefulness, but at the time what they offered was above quality wise what many if not most were using.I've never understood the appeal of these TV/console units. Especially these days, that's just a whole lot of parts that can go bad and a huge pain in the ass to repair. Plus if the tube goes out it's completely useless. I saw some guy on FB that had like 4 of the SFC ones and I think 3 of them were broken... awesome "collection".
No doubt they were an awesome demo unit in a japanese store back in the day but as a collectable?. Everything about them is limiting.
I also wonder about what kind of video signal these types of units use internally.
My X68000 monitor is a monitor but has also a TV tuner built in.This is not a TV. It’s a computer monitor that for reasons only NEC could understand has a PC Engine built into it. Nobody was supposed to buy this unless they a PC, likely a matching one from NEC.
A TV has a TV tuner in it.
I've never understood the appeal of these TV/console units. Especially these days, that's just a whole lot of parts that can go bad and a huge pain in the ass to repair. Plus if the tube goes out it's completely useless. I saw some guy on FB that had like 4 of the SFC ones and I think 3 of them were broken... awesome "collection".
No doubt they were an awesome demo unit in a japanese store back in the day but as a collectable?. Everything about them is limiting.
I also wonder about what kind of video signal these types of units use internally.
This is not a TV. It’s a computer monitor that for reasons only NEC could understand has a PC Engine built into it. Nobody was supposed to buy this unless they a PC, likely a matching one from NEC.
A TV has a TV tuner in it.
Analogue tuners are pretty useless now anyway unless you want to play on an unmodded Atari 2600 or 7800. At least here TV is only digital now.
He states in the video it was handy for magazine reviewers at the time to capture images for magazines, so this is probably something more geared to journalists a la PVMs to medical/media companies which weren’t geared to appeal to the masses or nerds to play video games, but big tymers could buy them.…I guess. It’s the same shape. It’s more “weird computer hardware” than “home gamer convenience”. ¥138,000 is a lot of money to pay for what is clearly a one player, nerds-only, wanking directly into the screen sort of experience.
“The rest of the Famicomily won’t be invited to whatever is being played on the NEC KD-863G.” - actual ad slogan
To me it reminds me of that one computer that has a Mega Drive in it that is totally separate from the PC in every way making it pointless. I can’t remember what that one is called…