Rumoured to be a follow up to the PC Engine, the Super Grafx turned out to be merely an update. It was released without any warning by NEC and never found a place in the marketplace because earlier PCE consoles were still being manufactured at the same time.
Despite having four times the RAM, it featured the same 8 bit processor and sound capabilities as the PC Engine, although it now had an extra GPU. Having two GPUs meant the Super Grafx could display two background layers and allowed more depth and colour, but they were limited by the processor and didn't really give the system much of a performance boost.
The console didn't sell well and games were expensive at around $110. Only six games were specifically released for the Super Grafx, the most notable being Capcom's 1941 which is not available for any other console, and today reaches very high prices, especially when in complete condition, as it had a rather fragile cardboard box that easily gets ruined.
Fortunately the Super Grafx was compatible with all the PC Engine's HuCard and CD games. In fact, it is the only machine that can play all the games released for the PCE series of consoles. Although it was designed to be used with the newer Super CD-ROM² drive, which was released at around the same time, it can also be used with the old CD-ROM² drive by using the RAU-30 adapter.
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Text co-written by *_Ste_* and Taneli Lukka
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