FM Towns Marty

FM Towns Marty Specifications

The FM Towns Marty is a fifth-generation home video game console released in 1993 by Fujitsu, exclusively for the Japanese market. It is often claimed to be the first 32-bit CD-based home video game system, although it has a 16-bit data bus, just like the earlier Commodore CDTV and Sega CD, which both have Motorola 68000 processors that are similar internally 16/32-bit, but with a 16-bit data bus. The console came complete with a built-in CD-ROM drive and disk drive. It was based on the earlier FM Towns computer system Fujitsu had released in 1989. The Marty was backward-compatible with older FM Towns games.

In 1994 a new version of the console called the FM Towns Marty 2 (エフエムタウンズマーティー2, Efu Emu Taunzu Mātī Tsū) was released. It featured a darker gray shell and a new lower price (¥66,000 or US$670) but was otherwise identical to the first Marty. It is widely believed that the FM Towns Marty 2 would feature similar improvements to the FM Towns 2, which had a swifter CPU than the first, but this was not the case. It has also been speculated that the Marty 2 featured an Intel 486 CPU, but this was also discovered to be false.

There is also the FM Towns Car Marty (エフエムタウンズカーマーティー, Efu Emu Taunzu Kā Mātī) for installation in automobiles. It included a built in navigation system with audio and video guidance, and could also be detached from the car and played at home. An optional IC Card for the FM Towns Car Marty allowed it to use VICS, and was subsequently sold with a video monitor.