Add MSX Games

Hello. thought i would explain a bit more about why i believe the MSX would be great to track here.the MSX was EXTREMELY popular in both Europe and japan,it used cartridges(had two cartridge slots in fact),and some of the greatest developers of all time(Konami,Square,etc) made tons of great games for it,and some of the greatest games series of all time(Metal Gear, Castlevania, Bomberman,etc)started there,not to mention that the majority of its games are valuable and worth good money these days,so it would be wonderful if it could be added :)

i would like to add that the "Games are quite rare"part isnt that correct as a general statement. they are certainly rare in the US,but not in Europe or Japan(except for a few legit rare ones ofcourse). the valuable ones are quite valuable though. for example,i have seen my CIB MSX copy of king's knight(first game square ever made)go for over a 100 dollars regularly.

also,the system was really popular in the middle east too.

also,you actually have two generations of the hardware,the MSX and the MSX2

also,if you can trck the different MSX models then great. if not then no issue. the games are what matters the most after all :)

would love to see it get added,as i have many MSX systems!

Hi, just stumbled upon this site and thought: "wow, this is exactly what I was looking for all these years, BUT...."

I am a collector of MSX games, and sadly, this very fine website does not even cover a single cartridge of one of the best 8-bit platforms ever (sorry, this was pathetic). Is there any chance, that pricecharting.com will add MSX platform in the future?

I was thinking to develope something like this for myself (by using ebay API and others), but extending your already established web service would be so much easier!

Ya, please add MSX!

Yeah, adding MSX section would be good. Of course there are a lot of rock-bottom priced games, but a lot of regular high-rollers too. For example Metal Gear series and Snatcher(s), Castlevania and many shmup-titles are regular "several hundreds" in value sellers.

If someone can provide a spreadsheet with the MSX game list I can work to add these.  Please limit the list to NTSC releases for now.  We can add Euro and Japan releases down the line.

You can email the list to sales@vgpc.com

Hi, can you give me some more details on how the list should look like? Which information do you need?

As some others already posted, the MSX platform seems not very present in the US.

So I would suggest to start with the Europe released games by Konami, which are by far the most popular and known on the MSX platform. What do you think?

the tracking should be of all games released in a territory,just like all the other lists. Not just those of a specific company.

Yep, that is how we will do it.  NTSC MSX games, PAL MSX games, Japanese MSX games.

...there were no NTSC MSX games at all to my knowledge. the System was DOA in america,and only one or two MSX system models ever arrived there. It was hugely successful pretty much everywhere else but america though.

Is the console region locked?

Can MSX games play on MSX 2 and MSX 2 games play on MSX?

If someone can send me a game list with as much info as possible like release dates and region etc.  I'll look through it and add the games.

no region lock. MSX2 had better hardware and plays both MSX2 and MSX1 games. The MSX1 only plays it's own games. I recommend starting with JP then later adding EU.

Sounds good to me.  If I can get a list of Japanese MSX games I'll work on adding them.

I couldnt find one 100% definitive list for the MSX and MSX2. i found several lists that could be helpful together though.

this one seems like the best one of the bunch. and it lists the release region and system too (btw,the MSX was also popular in the middle east. i recommend you add Middle East releases to the European section). the list also seems to have an option to download its software database.

https://romdb.vampier.net/index.php?platform=msx

other than that, the most obvious is wikipedia,which lists 592games for the various incarnations (for convenience, count the MSX2+ and the MSX Turbo R as MSX2. they were slightly enhanced models,and making 2 categories (an MSX one and an MSX2 one) is more than enough)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_MSX_games

this one is easy to use and nicely arranged,with about 1200 games total. it also includes very obscure games that the Wiki doesnt mention:

https://www.video-games-museum.com/en/sys/49-msx/3/all?systeme_affichage=liste

https://www.video-games-museum.com/en/sys/46-msx2/3/all

https://www.video-games-museum.com/en/sys/47-msx2-disk/3/all

https://www.video-games-museum.com/en/sys/72-msx-turbo-r/3/all

the following link is the most comprehensive one by far,with over 6000 entries. many are repeats though:

https://www.generation-msx.nl/software/result?ki%5B%5D=game

this link supposedly has all the MSX games that released in Spain (235 entries).

http://www.lazzeri.online/pub/Spanish_MSX_Games.xlsx

took me a good bit to find those links. hope this helps you put it ;)

Why do you want to start wiht Japanese MSX games?   The European MSX scene is very active (have a look at www.msx.org),So why not start with the PAL games first? Would make me a very happy man.

I would suggest to have a look at

https://www.generation-msx.nl/

This is the most complete MSX related database I know of.

It contains many MSX games with their different releases too (Japanese, Europe, South America, Middle East)

Maybe the site owner would be so nice to give us a subset of his data as an export?

because the Japanese MSX scene was FAR more successful and had FAR more games released than the European one. It is almost a PC engine/us TurboGrafx level. And the Japanese retro collectors still Revere the MSX to this day whereas most of the EU retro community focuses far more on the C64 and the Spectrum. So it makes far more sense to start with the Japanese releases.

and I already linked to that site on the post above you ;)

Sounds like MSX community is very active and passionate :)

I'll look at both of those links and see what can be added.  Eventually I'd like to have both.  We have a lot more PAL users than Japanese users and MSX isn't very popular in the USA so tie probably goes to PAL.

as you wish. just make sure to separate the MSX and the MSX 2 into separate libraries please :)

If you want to catalogue the prices of European MSX games, that shouldn't be a problem, but I'd like to request that you DON'T catalogue the prices of Japanese MSX games.

The prices on eBay are inflated and don't reflect what the games are actually worth. Advertising those prices as the "value" of the games will most definitely lead to driving the price of these games up, and we're already dealing with one of the absolute most expensive and difficult systems to collect for.

Also, Japanese MSX games sold on eBay is not a large enough sample size to derive pricing. If an aberrant price is recorded from an eBay sale, there could be 50 copies and multiple years before another copy is listed on eBay. During that time, the aberrant price could be asserting an influence on sales of the game without being updated to current information.

what you are saying makes no sense. first, FAR more MSX systems and games were sold in Japan than EU, and the EU versions are far more coveted due to US collectors too wanting it because it is the only english version. so the rarity and prices of EU MSX games are far higher than the rarity and prices for Japanese MSX games in average.

as for the "inflated online prices" stuff,i have literally seen that claim for every single console i ever collected for. it is the most common collector claim and complaint ever. didnt stop every other system here from having the prices listed though. 

as for the "large sample",take a look at some of the systems hosted. pretty certain far more MSX stuff is for sale than Game.com stuff or Odyssey 2 stuff lol. and if a game is that freaking rare that it takes years to be listed again then it should by all means be expensive.

I made a bit of a typo in my original post. I meant to say that there could be 50 copies of a game bought and sold online, in Japan, between the time that two copies are listed for sale on eBay. That means that the prices of the two copies sold on eBay are not a fair indication of the value of the game.

There is a market for these games in Japan on Yahoo Auctions. Japanese MSX games on eBay are usually bought from Japan and then resold to Western markets at higher prices. Sometimes the copies listed on eBay are even the same ones listed on Yahoo Auctions, just at higher prices, and I've even seen cases where the eBay seller doesn't even have the items, they just list them for more than the purchase price, and then buy the items if they make a sale.

The point is that if you advertise the eBay price as the "value" of the game, Japanese sellers might start looking to that price to determine what they can ask for the games. If the prices rise in Japan then the prices of people reselling them on eBay rises, and then the Pricecharting price rises again, and this repeats.

Using eBay as a basis for the value of Japanese MSX games would be like trying to use this to value NES games: Yahoo Auctions Japan Closed Item Search "NES"

Yes, the most common games are more expensive for the European version, but the more rare games don't have European versions. It has nothing to do with one being more expensive than the other though. It's a matter of not listing the price with an extra importation surcharge as the value of the item.

Also, it's a fallacy to say that an item should be expensive just because it's rare. Someone has to be willing to pay a high price for it first.

I question if there are even any serious collectors of Japanese MSX games in the US other than me, so I don't know if there's really much to be gained. Most people just want to get Metal Gear or something.

I am a serious MSX collector and i have many MSX systems in the US lol,so you sure as heck arent the only one XD

yes,the more rare games dont have EU versions. so is the case for the saturn too. and we have a JP saturn section. what is different in what you said between the saturn and the MSX? heck,the MSX was far more successful in EU than the Saturn was lol,yet we have a JP Saturn section with no issue.

the example you gave doesnt fit. "MSX" is the same everywhere but "NES" is different from "Famicom". you cant plug an NES game into a famicom. so a famicom collector is most likely not an NES collector and vice versa. thus, NES collectors in japan are a small niche that is willing to pay high prices for NES games there,which isnt the case with MSX collectors who can buy a copy from anywhere and it would work and thus wouldnt be willing to get ripped off.

Eitherway, resellers in a country ALWAYS ask for higher prices when they are selling it as an export. that happens with every single game system lol. it also applies to EU games,which are far more expensive than JP games. everything you are talking about happens with every system that ever got categorized and priced.

I know i as a serious collector would like to see my (Mostly Japanese)MSX Collection categorized neatly and added to my collection here. the MSX is pretty much the only major system I have that isnt added to here lol. about time too,as it has been more than 2 years since i first requested it XD

A couple of years ago, I saw a copy of Aliens (the Square game) pop up on eBay, which was selling for around $40-$50 USD in Japan. I watched the listing blow past what I expected it to go for until it ended somewhere around $250 USD. Obviously that person didn't know what the game was worth because it is common for an MSX game and if they would have waited a week or two they could have bought another copy for $50. But, because they bid that auction to such a ridiculous price, people in Japan were trying to get $200 or more for that game for like a year. It finally settled back down, but it settled to double of what it used to be, and now it's running $80-$100.

I don't really care what you want to do with Saturn or other game consoles. No, I don't think it's a good idea to chart the value of any Japanese games from eBay, but I just don't care. I collect other game consoles, but MSX is what I really enjoy collecting. I'm just asking, PLEASE don't bring Japanese MSX into this. Any games that aren't the most common will likely have years between eBay listings. It's tough enough to find this stuff already, I don't see any benefit to influencing price and inviting scalpers.

If you're an MSX lover then there's more to lose here than there is to gain. Please think about the bigger picture. All you stand to gain is adding MSX games to your collection list. This could only make it harder for people to enjoy collecting these games in the future, yourself included.

There seems to be a bit of contention on what to add.  And the lists themselves are all over the place in terms of the number of games.  I'll let users decide what to add for now.

I've added "JP MSX" and "PAL MSX" to the site as console options, but there are no games yet.  Anyone with contributor privileges can add games they want to the site:

https://www.pricecharting.com/add-product

I've processed all the backend so we will recognize MSX sales once games are added.

...there are 21 likes on this request,which means there are 21 people who agree that they should be added and only 1 that disagrees. pretty sure that is an acceptable percentage to add something. i am sure a few people disagreed when adding anything else before. no one can satisfy everyone,but satisfying the absolute majority instead of nobody is certainly the best option.

as for the games number,you can simply add the easiest,and ,relatively comprehensive, list to add (it even has a full database option)

https://romdb.vampier.net/index.php?platform=msx

and,if someone has an extra game not listed then they can add it using the contributor option

the MSX community is small. if you dont add any games then it would be as if the systems werent added in the first place. very few people will go through the effort required to add them.and it would be meaningless. so please,atleast add one of the lists so that we have a good amount of games,without needing to manually enter over a 1000 games.

I fully agree with Fayez!

Hi, how can I get contributor privileges? I really want to support you at this point.

Let me know your user email address on the site and I can look into and grant you contributor privileges.

Another option is to take that info from this page:

https://romdb.vampier.net/index.php?platform=msx

And copy and paste it into a Google spreadsheet and share that with me, then I can use some bulk upload tools to add all of those games in bulk.  

Hi, sorry, I don't want to post my mail adress here. Can you look it up in my account info?

I managed to export the content of the RomDB:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1O4EcpwbwV7_d94ZywFGQWpjGMQuew3431eHdVvQaX0c/edit?usp=sharing

Some comments / suggestions for the import of the data:

- The exported list contains ROM images for the MSX, many of them represent "real", commercial games of the 80ies and 90ies. But it also contains entries for "fan-made" games, tools, demos or even ports from other platforms (coleco). I think they should be filtered out, but its a bit difficult for me to figure them out.

- The list contains country information: How would you fit these in the suggested EUR / JP scheme? For example the Arabic / Kuwaiti or the Brazilian releases?

i think anything that isn't Japanese should be added to the EU section. The middle East is certainly closer to Europe than Japan lol.

as for fan made stuff, it isn't that many at all, so I think the best option is to add the whole list now and then, if we notice a Homebrew, we can make a note of it here. What matters are all the commercial games after all.

Hi, I would suggest to filter out all releases after 1994 in that list. If you sort the list by year, you can see that there is a gap between 1994 (the end of "official" releases and 2002 (the begin of european fan releases). 

Great work. I've saved that locally and I'll work on putting it in the format needed for mass import.  It will be imported as 4 lists.  PAL MSX, PAL MSX2, JP MSX, and JP MSX2

I'd prefer to remove all fan, tools, demos, etc from the lists ahead of time if possible.  That way we don't confuse people about what is commercially available.

I'll see if there are enough titles in US/BR to add NTSC list as well.  BR is technically NTSC like the USA (at least for other consoles).  Doesn't sound like NTSC was very popular though for MSX so it won't be as much of a priority.

and the middle East releases will be in the EU list, right? There is a nice amount of them, as the system was popular in the middle East.

Yes, I'll include middle eastern games in EU/PAL list.  

any update?

I have the list downloaded and hope to work on them later this week.  Working on another, larger site priority before tackling this one.

Hi, thats fantastic news. Thank you for your efforts so far.

Some improvements for the future:

1) There were MSX2 PAL (Eurpoean) versions of some games, sadly, the list we used did not listed them seperately. For example, Konami released many of their titles in Japan and in Europe (these were MSX1 and later MSX2 titles). From a collectors point of view, one or the other version may be more valuable.

The differences between these version are mostly in printed language on the cartridges, manuals and boxes, sometimes more obvious (Different game title: "Gradius" series was called "Nemesis" in Europe).

If you like I can provide an update on the Konami titles that lists both versions (if exist).

2) There are releases of Konami titles by other companies, same Title, only published by Sony or Casio (for example).

I also can check the current list for these special releases.

3) Some well-known MSX titles are missing on first sight: the Ys series, Xak series, Space Manbow, Columns, SD Snatcher....

I've added those games you listed as specifically missing.  They'll show up in search results within 24 hours or less.  

If there are other titles missing or variants, please use the add games tool on the site to add them.

https://www.pricecharting.com/add-product

I'm going to hold off on adding the more games in bulk at this time until we see how popular this console category is with collectors.  I need to focus on some other development priorities.

Hi, I wonder when the first price records will show up? I would have expect some entries, because many MSX related ebay auctions were finished in the last few days...

I looked through a bunch of the sales records and quite a few aren't being added because the names are slightly different.  Shalom vs Sharom for example or Dragon Slayer II: Xanadu vs Xanadu.  

I did find a bug with one method we use to find these prices and I've fixed that now.  I've manually added some sales I found during my debugging.

Just for my understanding: Do you scan auctions from every Ebay Country Site or only certain markets (like US, JP)?

We can US, UK, Germany, France, and Australia for completed sales and then infer from the title what the item is and which console it is for.  We also look for completed listings by keywords in some of those countries as well.  eBay Japan doesn't really have much activity so we don't scan it.

well, i can confirm that not a single one of the games i added got any price yet. heck, even the CIB price you personally added to King's Knight magically disappeared from its entry 0_o. taking a look at the EU MSX list, only 2 games on that entire list got loose prices and not a single one got CIB prices. and the Japanese MSX list is in a similar situation.

can you please take a second look on why after two weeks no games got any prices for past sales? also, can you please add the MSX console to the console category in pal or japanese MSX and MSX2 lists? even a generic console entry is better than none.

also, you mentioned that you want to see how popular the category is, yet there is no way to access it from the main site menu and you didnt announce that you added it. collectors wont use if they cant reach it/dont know it is even there :/.

We are gathering sales data and prices are populating through our normal processes.  King's Valley has a recent CIB sale that happened just yesterday.  You can see it here:

https://www.pricecharting.com/game/jp-msx/king%27s-valley-2#completed-auctions-cib

The price isn't calculated yet because that happens on a schedule and it doesn't make sense to recalculate the prices after every new sale.  The price will be calculated for the conditions we do have sales data for (CIB in this instance).  Then next time we calculate prices again, we will use that price as a starting point for other conditions we don't have sales data for yet.  

The biggest problems with MSX getting price data are three fold:

1. Not a ton of sales volume.  In my searches on eBay there have been about 100 sold MSX Japan games in the last two months.

2. Titles not matching in ebay listing vs our database.  For example, this ebay listing the seller used Nobunga's Ambition as the game title, but our database has it as "Nobunaga no Yabou: Zenkokuhan" so there is no match.  (I've added it manually now)

3. MSX vs MSX2.  Most titles on ebay will say "MSX MSX2" for every game. We assume this is an MSX2 game based on the title.  But the game is in our system as an MSX game only.  So there is no match.  Here is an example of this on eBay with Twinbee.  We assumed the listing was for an MSX2 game but there is no MSX2 Twinbee in our database.

How does backward compatability work on MSX?  Can all MSX games play on MSX2?

Regarding the consoles not being on the site, please add them.

Regarding the consoles not being listed in the menu, we don't usually add consoles to the menu until we have more price data.  We will add them to the menu when we feel they are ready for all users to see.  Users can search for any of those titles and find them though and use "MSX" or "MSX2" in any search to see them.

...what is king's valley? i was talking about king's knight not king's valley (not to mention that i cant see any CIB sale in your link).

well, you did say when you added it "We will automatically look for past sales for these games over the next few day. Then we will look for completed listings for them as well." so i presumed that it will only take a few days and found it weird that 2 weeks later almost nothing was added. heck, some were even removed, like the CIB sale you added to King's Knight and then disappeared.

If it says "MSX MSX2" then it 100% is an MSX1 game. all MSX1 games work on all MSX2 systems, so sellers post that so that people with MSX2 systems buy the game too. so you can confidantely enter those into your data searches as MSX1 games.

the title he used was the english translation of that japanese title. it is admittedly a problem, although one that applies to all Japanese games not just MSX ones

the sales volume is admittedly low, but dont you look for stuff that was sold a year or two ago too? and no matter how low sales get they are definitely more than "2 games in the entire EU msx have a price" low.

I've changed the logic for "MSX MSX2" to be inferred as MSX console.  Thanks for that input.

We can't grab sales going back 2 years.  eBay only has sales data going back 30 days in most instances.  

The sales that disappeared were removed while admin looked to see if they should be admitted as sales.  We do that on quite a few listings for new games to make sure the first sales are legitimate and not fakes.

Thanks! when will you make them selectable from the main site menu btw?

i think you should add the games in this list to the PAL MSX list too. those are all original MSX games released in spain back in the day (many are MSX exclusive even), and i noticed that a LOT of them arent in the PAL section, and they are already in a spreadsheet for your convenience :)

http://www.lazzeri.online/pub/Spanish_MSX_Games.xlsx

also, a few missing chess games:

The Chess Master 2000 (EU, MSX)

https://www.generation-msx.nl/software/the-software-toolworks/the-chessmaster-2000/release/3216/

Ultra Chess (EU and JP, MSX)

https://www.generation-msx.nl/software/aackosoft/ultra-chess/release/2408/

The Chess game 2 (EU and JP, MSX2):

https://www.generation-msx.nl/software/the-bytebusters/the-chess-game-2/release/2443/

also, there is an interesting case from my collection that isnt written anywhere online: I have a Middle East release that includes both Ultra Chess and Chess 2, has pictures of both on the back of the box, and plays either based on the system you insert it in,which is very interesting as this is the only MSX cartridge i know of that does that. so i would appreciate if you could include it too as a double release of the two games on the MSX EU Category. I can provide you with pictures if you want :)

also,i had entered King's Knight (first game square ever made, quite collectable) on the database when you first announced it:

https://www.pricecharting.com/game/jp-msx/king%27s-knight

can you please check if it was entered correctly/add a few sales to its records? because it has been awhile since i entered it and nothing was recorded,so i am afraid i may have entered it wrong :(

thanks again! glad to finally have the MSX here :)

Edit: Wow. we posted at the same time! XD

Edit 2: Just noticed that you havent added the MSX systems themselves. please add them, even if just in one generic "MSX system" entry.

I've added all of the chess games you mentioned as missing.  I've added one completed sale that I could find for King's Knight.

Please add any other missing games or consoles to the site as you find them.  I need to focus on some other development priorities right now so I can't add more of these in bulk until we see how popular this console category is with users.

https://www.pricecharting.com/add-product