NEC Corp. to open marketing subsidiary in bid to go head-to-head with Nintendo.

Look out, Bart Simpson. Ditto Ninja Turtles.

The Hollywood-owned characters that have been licensed to video-game makers like industry leader Nintendo may get chased a little better this year by competitor NEC Corp. The giant Japanese computer-hardware manufacturer plans to open a development and marketing company April 1 in Los Angeles to be close to the entertainment industry.

Knowing that catchy characters are as important as technical innovation, NEC and software publisher Hudson Soft Co. Ltd (also of Japan) said their TurboGrafx-16 video system, which rivals Nintendo, must hatch its next-generation game here.

"Most of the best-selling software comes from licensing and Los Angeles is the center of licensing," said James G. Gregg. He is vice president of sales and marketing for the new NEC-Hudson joint venture, called Turbo Technologies Inc.

Software programmers and sales-and-marketing staff will move into space in Mid-Wilshire that is still in lease negotiations, said a company source last week.

The new compact disc-controlled game, scheduled for a December 1992 release, will be capable of throwing 512 different colors on the screen -- double the competition today -- and offer a 16-bit data-transmission rate for sharper, more complex graphics than 8-bit machines in many homes.

Gregg and Turbo Chief Executive Yukio Osato have set a sales goal of 500,000 units in 1992 for all TurboGrafx-16 video games, which number some 85 titles. Top-seller Bonk's Adventure, featuring a club-happy kid cave man, has sold 350,000 copies, the company said.

"NEC has always been ahead of its competitors in terms of technological advances . . ." said Osato. Nearly three years ago, NEC introduced into the United States its CD game format, which displays more life-like animation and clearer stereo sound.

This year's advertising and promo is budgeted at $12 million for the full game line. Turbo will become the 14th U.S. company established by NEC. Last year NEC posted $28 billion in revenues, mostly from electronic products, ranging from mainframe computers to kitchen appliances.