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mind you insist comparing MSX "powered" machines (tMSX+V9999+Moonsound etc...) with some kind of "ISA VGA Pentium IV" O_o

Maybe you should joke less and read better!
You were the one who brought up the Pentium IV in the first place. And I never compared any MSX with a ISA VGA Pentium IV.

The point I'm trying to make is that if you want to compare a MSX with another computer, you should do it as a whole. Otherwise you're just comparing seperate computer chips. (Z80 vs 80x86, V9938 vs VGA)

In one Ikeda Prints it was mentioned that Nishi was a good engineer but not a good businessman who can market his MSX well and make it a real rival.

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>>mind you insist comparing MSX "powered" machines (tMSX+V9999+Moonsound etc...) with some kind of "ISA VGA Pentium IV" O_o << Maybe you should joke less and read better! You were the one who brought up the Pentium IV in the first place. And I never compared any MSX with a ISA VGA Pentium IV.

as your wishes

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Posted: September 12 2003, 21:11 GuyveR800 msx professional Bullshit. The combination with the MSX VDP is exactly what makes it so powerful! A Pentium IV at 2 GHz will slow down to a crawl on an old ISA VGA card.

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The point I'm trying to make is that if you want to compare a MSX with another computer, you should do it as a whole. Otherwise you're just comparing seperate computer chips. (Z80 vs 80x86, V9938 vs VGA)

as whole computers : turbo MSX isn't better than a 486DX, and if were, tMSX probably has only a few houndreds of games and applications, and I finished PA several years ago.

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as whole computers : turbo MSX isn't better than a 486DX

Neither did I compare it to a 486DX... *sigh*

Listen guys... Ok... I will admit... it was me... I´VE KILLED THE MSX!!!
Soooooorryyyy... I am so regret!!!! please, forgive me... We had a fight... the things have happened so fast, and there was a knife near, and, and... that is it! I am guilty!

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>>as whole computers : turbo MSX isn't better than a 486DX<<Neither did I compare it to a 486DX... *sigh*

I know, this comparation is being made by me

look, nevermind... I'll keep joking anyway

Necron.. thanks for clearing things up

lol

Does this murder fall under the statute of limitations or do we need to contact a lawyer?

I think there are a few things that did kill the MSX. First of all MSX never was a global system, it was big in Japan, MSX 1 was available in Europe, but not huge. When the MSX-2 was introduced it didn't get big in the UK, and as most European games are made in the UK, no (or not many) Uk developers did create games for MSX-2. Probably we can say Sony & Philips did kill MSX as they did not succeed in making MSX-2 big.

The installed base in Europe was not enough to keep the system running. When Konami launched Metal Gear in europe they did not sell more than 8.000 copies (that's what i heard). Those small salefigures where also caused by piracy, so piracy did in some way kill MSX-2 in Europe TOO.

Then only the Japanese market remained. However the MSX system was not able to compete with newer systems like the Super Famicom. As Nintendo sold the Super Famicom worldwide, it made a system that was financially much more intesting for publishers and developers. So the success of other systems had impact too. So we can say Nintendo did kill MSX too.

Hmmm, so i guess there are many MSX killers that helped eachother....

Ivo

GuyveR800 wrote:

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MSX was already dead in europe 2 years before MSX2+ was even released. Definitely killed by piracy.

Wow! This means that piracy DOES kill computer systems!

Ok, I'll explain a bit...

Piracy has existed since products that could be pirated/were eligible to be pirated existed. I mean: if you can gain from pirating a product, it will happen. This means roughly anything popular is pirated, ranging from silly baseball hats to computer software.

On computer piracy in perticular:
If piracy CAN kill computer systems, there wouldn't be ANY computer system available today! Think about it: If this were true, there wouldn't have been any computers made after the first sign of piracy all those years ago.

MSX was killed by piracy.

But consider those many computer systems that were produced AFTER the 'death' of MSX. SFC, GBA, DC, PSX, PS2, N64, GC, Xbox...

Okay, at some point you notice a machine not being available in the shop. It's died. But not because of piracy! If you know anything about the computer industry, you know that 'TIME KILLS EVERYTHING!'. I mean, buy a top-of-the-bill, high end PC today, and in a few months it's worthless without another expensive upgrade.

What I mean is: As technology evolves, so do computers. And as long as consumers want the latest thing to play their games/edit their documents/download their porn/etc, computer systems will 'die'.

It's sad to think piracy kills. If that were true, why are you reading this instead of playing a boardgame like monopoly witch your family?

I hope to have made my point (and be clear), if not, don't hesitate to email me or contact me on #msx.

You can find my e-mail address somewhere, I'm positive.


BodyHammeR


ps. I wrote this to add to this discussion and to express my view. Don't like my opinion? Bad luck. I may not like yours either

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But consider those many computer systems that were produced AFTER the 'death' of MSX. SFC, GBA, DC, PSX, PS2, N64, GC, Xbox...

Everything you name are game console systems. None of them are 'open' like MSX is. It can't be compared.

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>>But consider those many computer systems that were produced AFTER the 'death' of MSX. SFC, GBA, DC, PSX, PS2, N64, GC, Xbox...<< Everything you name are game console systems. None of them are 'open' like MSX is. It can't be compared.

It can be compared in the light of "there is a lot of piracy going on", which he did. The platform itself may not be comparible, some circumstances that have been pointed out as being a/the reason for the demise of MSX as a commercially available and exploited system can be compared.

By the way, I do subscribe to the point of view that piracy was a factor, not the only one, not THE reason MSX was 'killed' but it helped.

keep in mind the 'game software market' was a lot smaller by then. Still, costs to distribute a game (imagine the amount of people working on a game, the costs of publishing the game and getting the product in as many shops as possible. As for the last point, there need to be several copies of your product in all relevant shops in the region where you want to sell a game if you want to have a chance at success. Imagine Metal Gear Solid only being available in Amsterdam. It would not be very succesful in the Netherlands...)... bottomline: you need to sell an absolute minimum of games to even the costs you made. In a software market where you can sell thousands of games that already is a problem, in a market where you can sell a few hundreds every single person who copies your game is a severe risk to the future of your company.

So, even if piracy has increased the last years (looking at percentages, and I'm not even quite convinced that it actually did increase), it was a lot harder in 'those days' to reach a break-even point.

I got very busy adding another string (and a long one) of thoughts to this topic, but it turned out to more of a column.

So I refrained from posting it and will make the entire file available someday on my site.

But I will add this:

I only mentioned console because most people know about them

GuyveR800:
Is MSX an 'open' system? What does 'open' mean? please explain.
If you mean: poeple are (to some extend) allowed to make their own software for it then consider this:

ATARI Jaguar - Full allowance from the owners, check the decent Jag sites.

SEGA Dreamcast - SEGA tolerate(s)(d) the homebrew community, something which I think SONY should have done with their PlayStation a long time ago. Remember that fiasco that was 'Yaroze'?

If you mean: nobody cares about it so we are free to do what we bloody well like, then:

I think Microsoft still cares about their ownership of MSX-BASIC. I beleive you don't want to be facing them if the MSX system were to come into the big picture again and you were still producing/selling software/hardware for MSX.

snout:
So the 'game software market' grew since then. It's now 'easier' to market software. There's still piracy and people are still complaining about losing money from piracy.

And boy, did we copy! Did we fuck! Did every MSX user play his first game of Snatcher using a original version? No. Only a handful of us did. Somewhere halfway through the 1990's, there were only 3 original Snatchers in the whole of Europe (check DISK diskmagazine, some early PD issue). This means, only 3 people should be able to tell how to play the game. I won't go too far into this, because I'm getting tired, and have plans for tomorrow, but I will end with:

Q 'If you think piracy is bad, what are you using an emulator for?'
A 'Because of my fond memories of the games I used to play when I was a kid'

Q 'Why not buy the game now? You're older and must have a decent job now?'
A '...'

Q 'And you didn't answer my question: please try a bit harder'
A 'Because it's easy'

Q 'No it isn't! You need a beefy computer to run an emulator and you have all that configuration to go through. And you need pirated software to run it'
A 'I am not into piracy! I emulate!'

Q 'So you don't have disk- or ROM-images worth millions of dollars on your harddisk?'
A 'Dunno what you're on about, but I do have almost all the games for my ***-emulator'.

Q 'Almost all?'
A 'Yes, do you happen to know how I can get *** to run properly?'

Q '...'
A 'I have been to this fair, see, and someone told me I should play it'

Q 'Don't bother, you're better off with the *** version'
A 'Really? Don't have an emulator for that...'

Q 'Because I'm lying, you sod! One last chance: WHY?'
A 'Nostalgia! Retro! Free! And therefore: COOL!'

Q 'I hate those words, this interview is over!'
A 'But... Please tell me how I can make the pigs fly in ***'

...and so on



Have fun with your life,

BodyHammeR

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>>But consider those many computer systems that were produced AFTER the 'death' of MSX. SFC, GBA, DC, PSX, PS2, N64, GC, Xbox...<< Everything you name are game console systems. None of them are 'open' like MSX is. It can't be compared.

That even more proves the point that piracy didn't kill msx.