NEC's intended successor system to its PC Engine videogame console.
Resembling a tower computer more than a game machine, the 2D powerhouse was unable to compete with its polygon-pushing competition, the Sega Saturn, Sony PlayStation, and Nintendo's N64.
NEC's alienation of Hudson Soft did not help either - many of Hudson's planned games were either ported to other consoles (as in Hi Bomberman, a.k.a. Saturn Bomberman) or dropped altogether.
The system had several unusual features - owing to its resemblance to a tower PC, the system had 3 expansion slots inside it. Like the Sega Saturn, it had internal save game memory and a removable storage device called the FX-BMP. NEC ceased support of the console in 1998, and pulled out of console gaming altogether shortly thereafter.
Technical specifications:
Processor: NEC V810 RISC @ 21.5 MHZ;
Memory: 2MB RAM, 1.25MB VideoRAM, 1MB ROM(boot software), 256KB CD Read-ahead, 32KB battery backed save game RAM;
Graphics: 16,777,000 colors on screen from a pallete of 16,777,000, 9 Parallax Scrolls, Cellophane, Fade, Rotation, and Priority Effects, Resolution 640x448;
Sound: 16-bit stereo, 2 ADCPM channels, 6 sample channels @ 44.1 KHZ;
I/O: 2x CD-ROM w/ 256 KB Read-ahead, Audio CD playback, JPEG decompression @ 30 FPS, CD+G, and Kodak Photo CD;
Appearance: 132mm wide x 267mm deep x 244mm high, light grey, CD-Door on top, Controller ports(x2) lower front center;
Release: JP @ 12/12/1994, US @ (never), EU @ (never), World @ (never).