@Midway offered TTI exclusive rights to the title which
TTI summarily turned down
Yes, that is true according to our head guy at TZD. He told me about this
one night way back in July '94 when I called to see if some titles were
still available. I happened to ask him how he got involved with TZD and he
said that he and almost everyone there used to work for TTI. Then I asked
him questions about the big fall and what happened and he mentioned that
Acclaim offered Mortal Kombat since they thought it would be a no brainer
for the SCD format. To their surprise, the head Japanese NEC/TTI official
turned them down right away. The only reason he gave was "Americans are
tired of fighting games." Hoo boy. That one example shows you the system was
doomed in the U.S. by bad management from the start. He then went on to say
that many of the bad decisions came from Japan. At one point, a Japanese
official was sent to help "save" the Duo in the U.S., but according to our
TZD man (sorry, keep forgetting his name), he was and I quote "Just a drone"
and didn't help at all. Big surprise.
He summed up his argument that working in TTI USA gave him this
understanding: The TG-16/Duo was/IS an awesome system with lots of great
games, but "...because of stupid people in Japan making stupid decisions,
the system was sunk. The problem is that they THEMSELVES viewed the system
as a potential cost and not as a potential winner." The equation for the
Duo's downfall is simple: stupid management not willing to put up a REAL
fight against the apathy of the U.S. market. You can't combat apathy with
apathy but that's exactly what they did. He also said, that one of his
friends who used to work with him at TTI USA, just got a job at Sega USA and
was telling him after working at Sega for awhile, "They're the next TTI."
And that was right before they released the Saturn. Talk about prophecy.
Dylan H.