i consider it a VGM related instrument - absolutely - i used to have one... they're awesome - in the same league as the Yamaha FB01 unit - you could technically modify your MT32 to have a non-volatile RAM chip so that turning it off would not erase your patches - altho i have never attempted this trick
so... is it chiptune? not really... but that doesnt mean you wont get street cred for using real VGM hardware