Profile: foreign systems that America missed

by James Ransom-Wiley { Oct 26th 2006 at 7:50PM }

1UP profiles four systems that never made it to the US:

MSX (1983) - Metal Gear and Dragon Quest debuted on this platform, which had a enough support to compete with Nintendo's Famicom in Japan.
X68000 (Sharp, 1987) - its power came with a price: $4,000; it did feature some impressive ports of Castlevania, Ghosts 'n Goblins, and Strider.
PC-FX (NEC, 1994) - TurboGrafx-16's successor; easily trumped by PlayStation, degrading into "a breeding ground for crappy anime and porn games."
WonderSwan (Bandai, 1999) - Bandai had an exclusive license to port the original Final Fantasy titles ... until the games eventually landed on GBA.

Good news is Americans didn't miss much.

Tags: Bandai, MSX, NEC, Pc-fx , PC-FX , Sharp, WonderSwan, X68000

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Psaakyrn @ Oct 26th 2006 8:03PM

You know, I remember a time when Metal Gear, Dragon Quest, and Final Fantasy would spell automatic success...

Eitherway, the Wonderswan (technicolour)was definately comparable to GBA (and came out WAY before it), and had some unique games to boot. Quite sad that it went. (also, it encouraged portrait screen gaming)

Wonder if the intense rivary between MS and Sony begin at the MSX though.

Limey @ Oct 26th 2006 8:05PM

Whatever, all we really missed out on was the MSX.

Jason @ Oct 26th 2006 8:10PM

FM Towns Marty ... can't forget about that guy :-)

Jeff @ Oct 26th 2006 8:23PM

"Eitherway, the Wonderswan (technicolour)was definately comparable to GBA (and came out WAY before it)"

The Wonderswan Color did not come out "way before" the GBA - it came out in 2001, pretty much as a response to the GBA. (I'm not sure which actually hit the market first, but the GBA had at least been announced and demo'd at Space World.)

Anyway, the Wonderswan (non-color) was out in 1999 but was a lot less powerful than the GBA (as was the WSC) - it was not comparable to it. It had a 16 bit 3mhz CPU, vs. the 32 bit 16mhz ARM CPU in the GBA. It was more comparable with the Neo Geo Pocket Color than the GBA.

It was more powerful than the original GameBoy but it lacked color initially - which the GameBoy Color had. So Bandai was playing catchup pretty much the whole time.

Psaakyrn @ Oct 26th 2006 8:29PM

Ok, so I got my facts mixed up again, my bad. x.x

I would still say that the WSC is comparable to the GBA though, even if it`s the same comparison as GC to PS2 (in terms of games, not profit) (Game quality is my opinion, and should not be mistaken as average consumer opinion)

SirPaul @ Oct 26th 2006 8:57PM

I actually have an old MSX1 system I imported about a year back. I love the system and will never give it up for anything. Great all-around computer!

NightStar @ Oct 26th 2006 9:04PM

"a breeding ground for crappy anime and porn games."

As compared to what? All those systems that are breeding grounds for award-winning anime and porn games?

FuzzyPickles @ Oct 26th 2006 9:15PM

"As compared to what? All those systems that are breeding grounds for award-winning anime and porn games?"

NEC was forced to be less scrupulous in licensing its games. Sure, the porn games did reach the other systems, but it's a stain on the console-maker's record if they get there legitamately. Not too mention it was 1992 technology rushed out in 1994 to compete with the Playstation and Saturn. Which... well... is retarded to begin with.

nootau @ Oct 26th 2006 9:17PM

The PC-FX was awesome....one game, battle heat, was an amazing breath of fresh air into the fighting game arena, a FMV game that actually responded to your commands instantly.

here are two battle heat reviews:
http://www.pcenginefx.com/PC-FX/html/pc-fx_world_-_game_reviews_-_b.html
http://www.pcenginefx.com/PC-FX/html/pc-fx_world_-_game_reviews_-_b1.html

AzaMcWazza @ Oct 26th 2006 11:01PM

I had a Spectravideo as one of my first computers back in the early eighties. It was meant to be compatible with the MSX. It wasn't which was a bummer as the MSX had some good games.

Man the Spectravideo kicked arse!
256x192 colour resolution.
32 hardware sprites
32k of ram (I was uber and had 80k!)
Built in joystick!

none @ Oct 27th 2006 12:07AM

RE: PC-FX

Porn you say? hmmmm...

. @ Oct 27th 2006 1:51AM

'You know, I remember a time when Metal Gear, Dragon Quest, and Final Fantasy would spell automatic success...'
It still does in Japan (for DQ and FF)

JB @ Oct 27th 2006 5:58AM

Niiiiiice...

America didn't miss much... only 2 of the strongest game computers ever made and a fairly nice handheld that scared Nintendo into retiring a decade-old brick that wasn't very impressive when it came out.

The MSX series(mainly MSX2) and x68ks are legendary for their games, and with good reason.
The fact that they never made it out of Japan to any real degree(there WAS an international MSX presence, but it was minimal) was a serious loss for the rest of the world.

The Wonderswan had a chance, but it was never pushed quite hard enough. Still, it DID take a signifigant number of sales from the Gameboy for a time. I believe it peaked at about 8-10% of the japanese handheld market. Not very impressive, until you realize every single one of those points was against a GameBoy in full-on Pokémadness.

As far as system evolution goes...
Gameboy Color was a quick&dirty hack to give the GameBoy an edge against the newer and better game machines that were coming out(The NeoGeo Pocket hit shelves about the same time as the GBColor, and the original 'Swan hit about a year later) and hold market share while Nintendo developed a REAL next-gen handheld.

The WonderSwan Color was a quick&dirty hack to make the 'Swan competitive with the GameBoy Color. Same deal for the NeoGeo Pocket Color.

NGPC landed about the same time as the original 'Swan, with the 'Swan Color landing about a year later, and the GameBoy Advance landing a year after that.

The SwanCrystal was going to be Bandai's answer to the GBA, but by the time it came out, Bandai was getting ready to pull out of the market. The GBA had already shredded the 'Swan, so the 'Crystal was basically stillborn.

But the PCFX was crap. No question on THAT point.

Allen @ Oct 27th 2006 8:26AM

I wanna know more about this pr0n.

H�vard @ Oct 27th 2006 8:40AM

Hurray for MSX! I used to have a Sony Hit-Bit (not sure about which model it was) that I played H.E.R.O. and River Raid on. It was given to me and my brother by our older cousin.

The only problem with it, was that the "D-Pad" (the up, down, left and right keys) had stopped working, so we had to buy a joystick for it. This was not a big problem as it was much better to play with the joystick anyways :D

Methodic @ Oct 27th 2006 12:08PM

MSX was great.. I had an MSX1, later on and MSX2+. Great computer, great games.

King's Valley 2 (MSX2) ,King's Valley1 (MSX1) and King's Valley 1 Plus (MSX1) worth buy this machine just to play those games!

And also had others gems like Metal Gear 1 and 2 (both MSX2).

Konami had a strong line of games for MSX1/MSX2

grunny @ Oct 27th 2006 2:55PM

Well... in a way MSX did make it in the US. (Apart fro the Yamaha CX5M
being sold as a music computer,...) at http://www.woomb.net/ you can get your
hands on some Japanese MSX classics translated to English.

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