Slashdot Mirror
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).
Good thing there isn't a link, I almost read the article!
A slashdot first, I'm sure.
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!
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.
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.
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.
The ______ Agenda
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.
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...
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.