MSX's co-creator Kazuhiko Nishi has announced plans to provide support for gaming across its upcoming line of new MSX machines.
Over on Twitter, the Japanese businessman and early computer pioneer posted an image of a Sega SG-1000 emulator running Space Invaders on the MSX0 Stack and stated that the company has plans in the future to add further support to its line of machines, with the inclusion of other emulators for the Nintendo Famicom, NEC's PC Engine, the Atari 2600, and the Colecovision / Coleco Adam.
Right now, it is only possible to play MSX games on the MSX0 Stack, and the process is somewhat convoluted, as Ashley Day found out when he reviewed the portable system for us earlier this year. There's currently no easy way to load your own ROMs on the device, with the main alternative at the moment being to add disk images instead — though this has somewhat mixed results in regards to compatibility.
According to Nishi, there is still quite a bit of uncertainty over how this functionality will be delivered to MSX owners, with the main concern being the lack of permission from the copyright holders. Distribution of software without the copyright holder's permission is punishable with arrest in Japan, so Nishi states they will have to be careful with how they proceed with this.
One proposal is to let players copy their own ROMS over to a cartridge, which they could play using an in-development adapter for the machine. But it seems like nothing is quite set in stone yet.
We'll try and keep an eye out for any future updates and will be reaching out to Nishi for more information.