I'd never heard of the MSX until I started going online and learning about retrogaming and computing. It just wasn't a factor in the U.S. as far as I know, though Bill's suggestion that it was marketed in music stores is quite interesting.
Again, it's because the only MSX computer actually sold here was the Yamaha CX5M, which had built in MIDI before the Atari ST came out, which also featured it. Yamaha released quite a few cartridges to work with it as a MIDI computer (though to be more accurate, the base model of the CX5M did not support MIDI without an upgrade - Yamaha sold a small synthesizer add-on to work with the system without the MIDI upgrade). It may have been available mail order and in a few select other stores, but I suspect it was primarily available in music shops. I believe all that was ever "natively" released in this country (though it's still 100% MSX compatible) was the music software.
Matt Barton wrote:
It's a shame, because I sometimes get criticized in my various writings for not paying due homage to the platform, which I think is rather unfair since it was so obscure here.
Other than the original proper version of Metal Gear - which we mention in our book, Vintage Games - there is not much specific to the MSX platform that's worth mentioning in my opinion, though it had many, many great games. For the most part, all of the software for it - and there's an extensive collection - has been ported to or from other systems, and as Mark said, it really only was a force in Japan. To me, the most interesting thing about the MSX and then later MSX 2 specification is that it fulfilled the promise shown by the ColecoVision and the Coleco Adam, since they were so closely spec'd.
I'd never heard of the MSX until I started going online and learning about retrogaming and computing. It just wasn't a factor in the U.S. as far as I know, though Bill's suggestion that it was marketed in music stores is quite interesting.
Again, it's because the only MSX computer actually sold here was the Yamaha CX5M, which had built in MIDI before the Atari ST came out, which also featured it. Yamaha released quite a few cartridges to work with it as a MIDI computer (though to be more accurate, the base model of the CX5M did not support MIDI without an upgrade - Yamaha sold a small synthesizer add-on to work with the system without the MIDI upgrade). It may have been available mail order and in a few select other stores, but I suspect it was primarily available in music shops. I believe all that was ever "natively" released in this country (though it's still 100% MSX compatible) was the music software.
It's a shame, because I sometimes get criticized in my various writings for not paying due homage to the platform, which I think is rather unfair since it was so obscure here.
Other than the original proper version of Metal Gear - which we mention in our book, Vintage Games - there is not much specific to the MSX platform that's worth mentioning in my opinion, though it had many, many great games. For the most part, all of the software for it - and there's an extensive collection - has been ported to or from other systems, and as Mark said, it really only was a force in Japan. To me, the most interesting thing about the MSX and then later MSX 2 specification is that it fulfilled the promise shown by the ColecoVision and the Coleco Adam, since they were so closely spec'd.
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Bill Loguidice, Managing Director | Armchair Arcade, Inc.
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Bill Loguidice, Managing Director
Armchair Arcade, Inc.