Video games may have been invented in the United States, but it didn't take long for their technological charm to spread throughout the world. Japan became particularly enamored with the playful art form in the late 1970s, and so the Land of the Rising Sun played host to its own native game consoles—many of which never made it over to the US.

To explore this fascinating and sometimes slightly odd world of "unreleased" Japanese consoles (I can't say "Japanese-exclusive consoles" because some were released in other regions, such as Australia, but not the U.S.), I fired up my computer and jumped on the Internet. Exciting, I know. But the best part is that I asked Wikipedia's premier console photographer, Evan Amos, for permission to use his wonderful console photos to illustrate our jaunt through video game history.

Amos said yes, of course, and so now we have beautifully detailed photos of these odd and interesting non-American consoles to pore over during our tour. When you're done reading, I'd love to hear from anyone out there who is a fan of these obscure machines. Have you ever imported one of these yourself? Let us know in the comments.


1. Nintendo Color TV-Game 6 (1977)



(Photo: The late 1970s saw Nintendo taking baby steps into the video game market with its own versions of already popular products. For example, Nintendo's first-ever home video game console, called Color TV-Game 6, played six variations of a game that strongly resembled Atari's Pong. With dozens of Pong clones on the market in America by 1977, it is no surprise that Nintendo's unoriginal first console didn't make it to the states. But that brilliant orange color makes me want one anyway.(Photo: Evan Amos

2. Sega SG-1000 (1983)



(Photo: Sega's first video game console, the SG-1000, hit the market on the same day as the Nintendo Famicom in Japan. While Famicom went on to worldwide success—spawning the NES in America—the SG-1000 fared modestly in the market and never made it to the states. Sega kept trying however, and its third console, the Sega Master System, did make it over in 1986.(Photo: Evan Amos

3. Fujitsu FM Towns Marty (1993)



(Photo: If you boil down the FM Towns Marty to its core elements, you find a 386SX-based IBM PC clone with a custom graphics chip and no keyboard. That's because this rare x86 console traced its roots to the earlier FM Towns PC (also Japanese-only) released in 1989. Like its PC big brother, Marty played host to a smattering of respectable American and Japanese IBM PC game ports, but it never took off in the face of much less expensive competition.(Photo: Evan Amos

4. Bandai Playdia (1994)



(Photo: The Playdia was a colorful console with a single wireless infrared controller, a CD-ROM drive, and a limited software palette of games created solely by its manufacturer, Bandai. Aimed squarely at Japanese kids, this console's library soon filled with edutainment titles and barely interactive full-motion video (FMV) games. As a machine that catered to a very region-specific gaming niche, the Playdia never left its native Japan.(Photo: Evan Amos

5. NEC PC-FX (1994)



(Photo: For a time, starting with the release of the PC Engine in 1994, NEC gave the stalwart Nintendo Famicom a run for its money in Japan, outselling that console within a year of its release. While the PC Engine did make the Pacific jump to the U.S. (as the TurboGrafx-16 in 1989), its powered-up sequel, the PC-FX did not. Upon its release in 1994, the PC-FX had already been totally outclassed hardware-wise by the Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation, dooming this interesting vertical console to life as a niche market player.(Photo: Evan Amos

6. Casio Loopy (1995)



(Photo: In a similar niche-market approach to the Bandai Playdia, the Casio Loopy came to life as a novelty game system aimed mostly at Japanese girls. Its stand-out feature was its ability to print colorful stickers from within the console itself (thanks to an integrated thermal printer). Casio released a mere 11 titles for this system—a number which reflects its intended toy-like novelty status.(Photo: Evan Amos

7. Bandai WonderSwan (1999)



(Photo: After leaving Nintendo in 1996, Game Boy designer Gunpei Yokoi founded Koto Co., Ltd., which designed a brand new monochrome handheld game console and sold it to Bandai. The result was the WonderSwan, a tiny, non-backlit machine that impressively ran off a single AA battery. In general, the machine fared poorly against the Game Boy in Japan, which is probably why it never came to the U.S. It did receive some impressive ports of Final Fantasy games, however, and a color-screen update that kept the platform afloat for a few years before being completely blown away by Nintendo's Game Boy Advance in 2001.(Photo: Evan Amos

Further Reading

Gaming System Reviews