FM Towns Marty

Lore & Background

In 1994, a new version called the Marty 2 was released, featuring a darker gray shell and a lower price (¥66,000), but was otherwise identical to the first Marty. It was widely believed that the Marty 2 would feature similar improvements to the FM Towns 2, which had a swifter CPU, but this was not the case. It has also been speculated that the Marty 2 featured an Intel 486 CPU, but this was discovered to be false. There is also the FM Towns Car Marty for installation in automobiles, which included a built-in navigation system with audio and video guidance and could be detached from the car and played at home. An optional IC Card for the Car Marty allowed it to use VICS, and it was subsequently sold with a video monitor.

The Marty had only composite and S-Video output; no other video connectors are possible. As some FM Towns games were VGA-only, the Marty had a down-scan capability for displaying on a household TV screen. The controller connector is a DE-9, referred to as an 'Atari Type' in Japan. The Marty's Run and Select buttons are the equivalent of pressing right and left, or up and down at the same time. A six-button controller from Fujitsu was available for use with Capcom's Street Fighter II, and Capcom also released an adapter for their CPS Fighter stick that made it compatible with the FM Towns/Marty as well as the X68000.

Despite having excellent hardware from a gameplay perspective, both the FM Towns and the FM Towns Marty were very poor sellers in Japan. They were expensive, and the custom hardware meant expandability was not as easy as with DOS/V systems. NEC's PC98 series computers were dominant in Japan when the Marty was released, making it difficult to break out before the DOS/V format took control of the market. This was despite such revolutionary features as bootable CD-ROMs and a color GUI OS on the FM Towns PC, something that predated Microsoft's Windows 95 bootable CD by seven years. Software today is rare and expensive due to the low production runs. Despite backward compatibility with most older FM Towns PC games, compatibility issues plagued the Marty as newer titles were released with the FM Towns in mind, further limiting its potential as a true 'console version' of the FM Towns PC. When Fujitsu lowered the price and released the Marty 2, sales started to increase, but the corporate attitude was that it was a lost cause, and so the system was dropped.

Reader's Guide

The FM Towns Marty occupies a unique place in video game history as a console derived from a personal computer, the FM Towns, released by Fujitsu in 1989. Its significance lies in its attempt to bring PC gaming to a dedicated console format with built-in CD-ROM and floppy drive, backward compatibility with FM Towns software, and advanced graphics capabilities for its time, including multiple display resolutions and a large color palette. However, its commercial failure in Japan—due to high cost, limited expandability compared to DOS/V clones, and the dominance of NEC's PC98 series—meant it never achieved widespread adoption. The system's rarity and the low production runs of its software have made both the console and its games collectible and expensive today. The Marty's legacy is also marked by the confusion surrounding the Marty 2, which many believed would include a faster CPU but did not, and by the niche Car Marty variant for automotive use. The console's technical specifications, such as its use of the AMD 386SX and custom graphics chip, and its support for PCMCIA cards and a modem, show an attempt to blend home computer functionality with console gaming, but ultimately the market did not embrace it.

Did You Know?

• The FM Towns Marty uses an AMD 386SX processor that is internally 32-bit but has a 16-bit data bus.
• The Marty 2 was widely believed to have an Intel 486 CPU, but this was discovered to be false.
• The Marty's IC Card slot is compatible with type 1 PCMCIA cards, but cannot be used for RAM expansions.