The X68000 was first released in 1987 by Sharp Corporation, a Japanese electronics company. The system was designed to be a high-performance computer for the Japanese market, with a focus on gaming, graphics, and multimedia applications. The X68000 was known for its impressive hardware specifications, including a 16-bit Motorola 68000 processor, 1MB of RAM, and a range of peripherals such as a high-density floppy disk drive, a hard disk drive, and a CD-ROM drive.