In the Middle East, a company developed a game console that you could only buy there. The star of the console was a penguin.
In the 1980s, the Kuwaiti Sakhr Software Company, with its CEO Mohammed Al-Sharekh, decided to cause a stir with a console based on MSX. MSX is an open 8-bit home computer standard used primarily by Japanese and South Korean companies from the 1980s. The operating system was based on Microsoft BASIC.
Cooperation with Konami brings Penguins to Arabic consoles
How did the penguin get to the Middle East? In order to actively sell its new console, Sakhr Software Company entered into various collaborations, especially with East Asian countries. Because especially here a lot of software was developed for MSX.
They finally teamed up with Konami, a Japanese manufacturer and publisher, so that Konami brought their games back then to the Sakhr model.
One of these games was Penguin Adventure from 1986. You slip into the role of the penguin Penta, who has to rescue the penguin princess with a golden apple. The game was developed by a team led by Hideo Kojima, who was 18 at the time. Today, most people should know him for games like Metal Gear Solid or Death Stranding.
Penguin Adventure is now recognized as one of the best action games ever released for Microsoft’s MSX. In fact, compared to today’s games, Penguin Adventure looks quite modern as it offers many modern features:
Company stopped developing the console, but the company still exists today
What happened next? In the next few years, more models of the console were released and they were constantly adapted to new developments. Even the 2nd version (MSX 2) was adopted by the company. However, Microsoft stopped developing MSX in the 1990s, ending the console era in the Middle East.
What is the Arab company doing today? In 1992, it released its last console in the Arabian market and then went back to focusing on software development. By the way, the Sakhr Software Company still exists today.
This isn’t the only weird console that’s hit the market, by the way. The giant Apple also tried its hand at a games console, but it wasn’t very successful:
Did you know that Apple once released a console?