PC-FX

PC-FX
Manufacturer: NEC
Release Date RRP Code JP 1994-12-23

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The PC-FX (ピーシー エフエックス) is a video game console created by NEC as a successor to the PC Engine and its many add-ons and derivatives. After a protracted development timeline, it was released in Japan in December 1994.

Hardware

The PC-FX stands as a curious mid-point between traditional early-90s video game consoles and desktop computers (of which NEC already had a healthy stake in with the PC-9800 series line). It resembles a typical upright (albeit smaller) mid-90s PC, however is designed to play video games shipped on CD-ROMs with a traditional, six-button controller - the FX-Pad.

The CD drive is located on the top of the unit (a design also witnessed in the PC-8801 MC), and the console is designed to be expandable. No keyboard was ever manufactured for the PC-FX, meaning it was never suited to traditional office software such as word processing, but a mouse was created in the form of the FX-Mou, primarily used for strategy games.

History

Legacy

The PC-FX was considered by the Japanese public to be an expensive and underpowered system. Its lack of native 3D capabilities put it at a disadvantage against the Sega Saturn and Sony's PlayStation which had debuted in the same holiday season, and the console was largely shunned by third-party developers as a result. Only a hundred thousand units were produced as opposed to the millions of PC Engines, and the system did not leave Japan in any form, with even NEC citing price as a concern in Western markets.

In early 1998 the console was discontinued, and NEC effectively left the home console business.