@PAC: You are so right 
I just can't explain to my nephew why I like the graphics of MSX games, or why I can't get enough of soundtracks like the scc and fmpac games, or even psg music like TIme Trax.
@cklayman: You are right too I am wondering that myself too. To ask 2400 euros for a game is one thing, but to actually sell it for that price is another. And how many new collectors that didn't grow up (or are even interested) in the 8bit era, are there nowdays? When someone new enters this site, most of the time it is someone who used to own a MSX and was searching the net to see if MSX is still around.
It really is the difference between asking and selling -- I sincerely doubt any of the people who ask prices like that ever actually get them. I mean, hell, there's that one copy of Yuurei-kun -- a legitimately rare game that's legitimately worth several hundred dollars American -- that's been listed and relisted on eBay like, 20 times since I started collecting MSX games three years ago. I think the price has been dropped into the high $400s range at least once, but even at that price (which isn't entirely outrageous for that title), not one single bid has ever been placed on it this whole time. Never mind all those games that are being offered for over $1,000! There's no way in hell anyone will ever actually buy any of those items.
If you can ignore items like that, then eBay really isn't that bad a place to find some good deals on MSX games. I managed to score a copy of SD Snatcher on eBay for just a little over $60 a couple years ago -- it was just the three disks and the Sound Cartridge, and the label was a little loose on the cartridge, but even so, $60 is an absolute steal for that! And that's just one of the many treasures I've managed to procure from eBay these last few years. 
Regarding collectors getting into the MSX, I actually did NOT grow up with it -- in fact, virtually no one in the United States did, since the system barely saw any attempts at release here. The reason I got into it, personally, is because I did grow up with the NES, and I started to kind of miss those types of games these last few years, as I find most modern titles to be far less interesting and fun than the games of old (partially owed, I suppose, to the fact that I work in modern video games for a living, so the last thing I want to do when I come home from work is play something similar to what I've been working on all day!).
Problem is, I played a *lot* of NES games growing up, so I wanted something new -- something authentic to the 8-bit era that I'd never played before. Famicom games from Japan were filling that niche to an extent, but it wasn't quite enough.
Then I played some modern indie titles like La-Mulana, UnEpic, and Hydra Castle Labyrinth, all of which were inspired by Maze of Galious... and between loving those games, and watching YouTube videos like Banjo Guy Ollie's MSX Mansion series, I decided I really needed to give the MSX a closer look!
And ever since then, I've never looked back.
-Tom
The European gaming scene has always fascinated me, because it was so different than gaming in the U.S.! With how spectacularly popular the NES was here, it's hard to believe it barely made any impact at all in Europe, yet the Sega Master System (which barely made any impact here) was a big hit. And then all the microcomputer gaming in Europe is just a whole other thing that there's simply no basis of comparison for here -- Commodore 64 and Amiga had some degree of popularity back in the day, but not nearly like they did in Europe, and no other microcomputers came anywhere close.
To this day, it baffles me that anyone ever played the ZX Spectrum by choice. Especially with so many better alternatives available (like MSX!).
-Tom
I recall the NES still being pretty popular in the Netherlands, but the Master System as well.
I was a bit of a graphics fanboy at the time and thought some NES games looked a bit ugly compared to MSX2! ....it's the reason why I never got interested in Zelda (King Kong 2 is much prettier anyway).
I didn't really see much of the C64 until much later (emulation). My nephew had an Atari ST at some point which we thought looked pretty awesome (and we tried to run the games on our MSX, which of course did not work).
At the time PC's were only known to us as those business computers with few colours and bad sound.
I was 11 years old when Philips created the vg 8020 MSX 1. I got it for my birthday (after a lot of begging ) The funny thing was that everyone in my surrounding owned a MSX. I knew nobody with a C64. And games weren't that cheap. A konami or hal title cost about 80 gulden (40 euros), but that was 1984. A lot of guys where making simple basic programs and the illegal game cassettes roamed everywhere. My uncle was cool since he had a double cassette deck and could copy a lot of games within a hour. But with the arrival of MSX 2 and diskdrives, it really god wild haha. In the prime days I gained 40 disks a month. There was even a guy called "alien soft" who lived in wolvega that send printed order listst around the whole netherlands and sold copied disks for 2 gulden each. Apperently he wasn't afraid of getting caught. I wonder what has become of him. Maybe he is active on this site, who knows
I also remember my nephen receive an amiga 500. At the time a was jellous at what that beast could do. The graphics, effects and formost the sound was something MSX 2 couldn't match (without extensions atleast). It could even play sound during loading. I was so much a MSX fanboy, I captured pictures from amiga games and made Mega Demo 1-2-3 to "prove" MSX 2 could match the graphics... (yes, I know, pathetic).
