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Philips’ first entry in the computer scene was the Philips Odyssey² (also known as the Magnavox) game console in 1978. This was followed in 1980 by their first home computer, the Philips P2000T. In France in 1984 they launched the Philips VG-5000 which was manufactured at the same facility as the first Philips MSX computers which came out the same year.

Philips was probably the most important reason that MSX gained a larger traction in the Netherlands than surrounding countries. As a big backer of the MSX standard, they released a lot of MSX1 and MSX2 computers and a lot of different hardware and expansions like monitors, printers and mice. They also brought the MSX-AUDIO standard to the MSX with the NMS 1205 Music Module and supported advanced video editing with the NMS 8280.

The first Philips MSX model released was the VG-8000 in 1984, and the final model was the MSX2 NMS 8280 in 1987. However, Philips Italy did have a little revival in 1989 with the release of the (not quite) "compatible" MSX1 machines (NMS 800 and NMS 801) which were manufactured by the Italian division of Celint, a UK company. They also developed a MSX add-on adapter for the IBM PC, the MSX PC which ended up being sold in 1990 by the Philips Homecomputer Club in the Netherlands as Philips had abandoned the MSX market.

The first Philips MSX1 systems were produced by La Radiotechnique, while MSX2 systems were initially made by NEC and Kyocera, and later models by Sanyo.

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