Demise
Signs of trouble in the progress to the release of the console did not take long to arrive. By May the release date had slipped from August to October. By October, a first quarter 1990 release was envisaged. The December edition of The Games Machine magazine revealed the scale of the problem. According to company sources, Konix had been on the brink of calling in receivers. Cheques had bounced, employees hadn't been paid and software development had been brought to a halt in mid-October as developers had reached the stage where they could continue no further without a finished machine.
In March 1990 it was revealed that Konix had sold the rights to sell their joystick range in the UK to Spectravision who also manufactured the rival QuickShot joystick range. They had effectively sold off the family silver in order to keep the MultiSystem project alive. Autumn 1990 was to be the new release time.
Eventually, beset by delays and in spite of all of the media coverage and apparent demand for the machine, the project ultimately went under when Konix ran out of cash without a completed system ever being released. Some people, including Holloway, contend that this was due to major international competitors leaning on Konix's suppliers and financiers to prevent the project reaching the market.
Read more about this topic: Konix Multisystem