During the current
MSX Fair Bussum 2004 some very spectacular news was revealed. The MSX Revival is going global!
As you probably all know, retro computing is very popular in Japan. The Japanese company
D4 Enterprise has developed an online platform called
Project EGG on which retrogaming freaks can order MSX, PC-88, PC-98, Sega Master System and X68000 games. This project is one of the first results of the ongoing MSX Revival in Japan which started some years ago.
In the
MRC Forums there have been many discussions about this so-called MSX Revival. It was often heard the MSX Revival seemed Japanese only. Both the
MSX Association, which maintains the copyrights and trademarks regarding MSX, and
D4 Enterprise aim for the Japanese market only. Almost all web pages containing information concerning MSX copyrights and licenses are in Japanese. Furthermore, the MSX Magazines only appear in Japan and even the MSX Game Reader has only been released overseas.
It appears the calling for a global MSX Revival has finally been heard! A young Dutch company called
Bazix will follow in the footsteps of the Japanese
Project EGG. As of this fall, Bazix will start on-line sales of retrogames. At first, they will aim on MSX games only, both localised Japanese as well as European games. Several hundreds of games, which were made for our popular home computer system, will be released by Bazix through the online platform
WOOMB. At a relative low subscription fee, you will be able to buy and download officially licensed (legal) MSX software. This software will first be released for the Windows platform only, but in the future also Linux, Mac OS-X and even mobile platforms will be supported.
Bazix will maintain close contacts with
D4 Enterprise, which means Bazix will not only sell localised Japanese games in Europe, but they also act as an intermediate for European MSX software developers who want their software to be sold on the Japanese market. Moreover, Bazix is the official European representative for the
MSX Association. This means you can contact them for all your questions regarding the sales of MSX systems, the usage of the MSX logo and the distribution of MSX software.
It seems like a great step has been taken to closer collaborative activities between Japan and the rest of the world. Hopefully, with the presence of Bazix, the MSX Revival will become a true global revival in which we can all participate. In the near future, Bazix' activities will be the MSX software sales, hopefully that will soon be expanded to other MSX related products, such as the MSX Magazines, the MSX Game Reader and especially the one-chip MSX.
Relevant link:
Bazix
Relevant link:
Woomb
