Ok, I’m a bit confused here. Konami had been teasing something special during E3 2019, and just a few minutes ago we found out what it was. Ready for this? The TurboGrafx-16 Mini, yes the same system from NEC, just bit sized. How Konami even got attached to this is beyond me.
The TurboGrafx-16 Mini will come in three different versions. TurboGrafx-16 Mini, PC Engine Mini (Japanese version) and the PC Engine Core Grafx Mini (Europe) which is just an upgraded PC Engine Mini with an A/V port and different color scheme. Of course, that was for the original systems. There won’t be any differences for these mini versions.
So far, six games that will be included with the console have been announced.
- R-Type
- New Adventure Island
- Ninja Spirit
- Alien Crush
- Dungeon Explorer
- Ys Book 1 & 2.
Hopefully there’s more to come and that Keith Courage is the included games as well. The TurboGrafx 16 was one of those systems that didn’t get the attention that it should have in the West. It had some amazing games, such as Blazing Lazers, Lords of Thunder, Cadash and Legendary Axe to name a few. Sadly, it came out at a really bad time, right when Sega was pushing the Genesis which trashed the TurboGrafx-16. Then Nintendo finished it off with the Super Nintendo, forcing NEC to pull out of the console wars. I quite enjoyed the system, but yeah, it wasn’t a looker.
To be honest, I was expecting Konami to announce another gaming collection, not a console. But here it is and I can’t say that I’m not intrigued by this announcement. Hopefully, this gets handled correctly because I already want one.
There’s currently no pricing or availability for the TurboGrafx-16 Mini/PC Engine Mini or PC Engine CoreGrafx Mini. We’ll let you know as soon as we know. Until then, check out the official website.
