Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Consoles M.I.A.

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the remember-these-faces-remember-these-names dept.

1up is running a piece looking at four game consoles missing in America. These pieces of consumer technology historia just never made it to the states, for one reason or another. Usually, good reasons. From the article: "The Xbox was not Microsoft's first console venture. Nor was Dreamcast's WinCe operating system. No, Mr. Gates' first foray into the console arena happened more than 20 years ago, hand-in-hand with current nemesis Sony. Sounds like madness? It's not. The MSX wasn't precisely a console, either...it was more like a computer that could play cartridge-based games ... So why didn't MSX make it to the U.S.? Though the standard was conceived by a Microsoft executive, it was a Japanese initiative. In America, the company supported the IBM PC standard." Reminds me of our TI computer. Hunt the Wumpus indeed; the MSX got Castlevania (Vampire Killer).

7 of 62 comments (clear)

  1. Castlevania? pfft! by PygmySurfer · · Score: 2, Informative

    Reminds me of our TI computer

    Yeah, but we (I had a TI 99/4A) got great games like Parsec, Munch Man, and Tombstone City!

  2. Re:Say what about the Dreamcast?! by juuri · · Score: 3, Informative

    The Dreamcast had a port of CE specialized to allow PC game makers to easily host and throw up content on Sega's box.

    The bulk of Dreamcast games did not run the CE varient.

    --
    --- I do not moderate.
  3. Very few Dreamcast discs used WinCE by green+pizza · · Score: 2, Informative

    Very few games, such as Saga Rally 2, actually used WinCE + DirectX 6. Most games used Sega's own OS and graphics libraries, which ran much faster.

    1. Re:Very few Dreamcast discs used WinCE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      >Very few games, such as Saga Rally 2, actually used WinCE + DirectX 6.

      DirectX 5, actually.

      >Most games used Sega's own OS and graphics libraries,...

      True.

      >...which ran much faster.

      False. That was spread by certain parties within Sega who had a vested interest in boosting their own SDK. There was some overhead in running an OS versus writing to the bare metal, as Sega's SDK did, but even then, the WinCE SDK came out ahead in certain respects.

  4. MSX by amavida · · Score: 3, Informative

    I'm old enough to remember the MSX machines.
    They promised to standardise games & software, giving a capable microcomputer kinda like an IBM PC but much cheaper.

    At that time IBM PC's were hideously expensive, the average joe could only afford a Commodore 64/128, Ti etc but they had no interoperability of software at all.

    Here in OZ importers/wholesalers advertised them a fair bit in computer magazines but not the main stream press.
    Retailers did'nt pick up the ball.
    Consumers could'nt find the games or software for them.
    They fizzled out. The end.

  5. Re:The four consoles by Yvan256 · · Score: 2, Informative
    PC-FX - Manufacturer: NEC - Date: 1994 - Region: JP
        - 'Sequel' to the TurboGraphx-16

    Actually the name is TurboGrafx-16, not "TurboGraphx-16", "TurboGrafix-16", "TurboGraphix-16" or even "TurboGraphics-16"...

    That console has to be the one with the name being written incorrectly most of the time...
  6. Re:Say what about the Dreamcast?! by IntergalacticWalrus · · Score: 2, Informative

    Windows CE was not used much on the Dreamcast. Basically, game developers could choose between the official Sega stack or Windows CE. Only a handful of them picked Windows CE.