Lol, it's not like companies employ professional oracles, who can predict the future! I think Panasonic was hoping for long and successful life at the time of initial hardware design (1989-1990). But "Life Sucks!"tm) Mel Brooks. Hehe, don't forget some really botched-up efforts such as TurboGrafx/TurboDuo and/or Nintendo VirtualBoy.

The turboR was by no means a flop! They would've never developed the GT if it had been. We must therefor assume that the ST sold above expectation, and certainly beyond break-even. Had it not, I would seriously doubt they would've developed the GT.

Lets also not forget that Panasonic already had quite decent market information with the MSX2+ they were selling. The decision to produce the turboR ST, to produce the GT and to develop yet not put-to-market the infamous turboR with VDP3 (V9990-predecessor) were certainly not based on thin air. On the other hand, the decision to stop with MSX from Sony and Sanyo at the same time were not made for nothing either. All in all, I don't think the turboR sold as bad as some people here believe, although I'll be the first to admit that my first estimation was overly optimistic as well.

The best indirect proof of the big success of Turbo-R in Japan is the feedback that the blueMSX team has received from this country when Turbo-R support was added in version 2.0.

At this moment, we have understood that Turbo-R was like a god in Japan and that the blueMSX team had realised a very powerful dream for the Japanese community

Imagine what it would have done for the commercial life of msx if they had waited for the next gen VDP to be included.

Indeed, Ascii and Panasonic have missed something ... GFX9000 + MoonSound !!!

mars2000you: so, you got about 100000 reactions? Or how many?

manuel : not every Japanese MSX fan has given a personal reaction, but if you add the reactions by mail, on the blueMSX forum, on other MSX forums, an article on Gigamix first page and some contacts with redactors of Japanese software magazines, it was really a great feedback

Ok, 13 years ago my parents bought me a clone of ZX Spectrum 48. No disk subsystem , no 128K and no AY. Guess what I did when first decent emu appeared? I started running all the games for ZX Spectrum 128K, that use extended ram, AY and even disk subsystem (betadisk and +3dos).

Overwelming reaction means there are a lot of japanese fans who owned MSX1, MSX2 or even MSX2+, and always wanted to check out what all the hype around TurboR is all about, but couldn't for one or another reason (mostly money I guess).

For sure there are ex and current TurboR owners as well, but I doubt they form the bulk of the fan base.

If you have a real thing, why emulate?

I have the real thing, maybe 3ft from here. The last time I turned it on was when an MSX-friend ( ^_^ "Hiiiiiiiii taaaaaaaaaaaaaails!" ) visited spring this year. Many people emulate, for many different reasons. Having or not having hardware has little to do with it.

Quote:

If you have a real thing, why emulate?

- I've more .DSK's than disks
- savestates
- changing .dsk's is faster than browsing my disks
- old disks wear out, .dsk's stay as they are
- easy way to cross .rom's for certain konami games
- using my PC keyboard/mouse and TFT-screen rather than my old blurry/shakey msx-monitor
- my msx monitor has a very hi-freq sound filling the room here, my TFT is perfectly silent
- easy screendumping
- emulate more hardware/specs than you really have

etc. etc. etc.

Quote:

If you have a real thing, why emulate?

Quote:

( ^_^ "Hiiiiiiiii taaaaaaaaaaaaaails!" )

Some people are too lazy to buy a DIN8 connector for making an RGB cable for the real thing. So they are forced to emulate

d_(^_^)_b "Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii t0000000000000000000b~"