Consoles M.I.A.

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).

Comments

Re:More like "thank god we didn't get them"

[cgenman]

The MSX was a legendary system. We would have been well served by having that on the market. It would have beaten the pants off of a lot of what was on the market at the time. The Wonderswan would have been nice competition to the Game Boy, especially once they both went color.

On the other hand, I'm surprised there wasn't any mention of the SuperGrafx. Powerful little system from NEC, now super rare, with some of the best arcade ports of the time.

Also, the GP2X would be nice to hear about, as it isn't too late to bring that one to the US.