What % of the CD32's cost did the "CD" bit account for?

[BigD]

Originally Posted by CCCP alert

Well I have thought about it, we have the figures for a CD-ROM, the AKIKO chip was a $20 dollar a pop expense being invented/put in there in my opinion so I am going to say if you include the omission of a DSDD floppy drive about $15 it's interesting to consider how low the price suddenly has become. This is about $100 less to produce, which easily translates to $125-150 less on the RRP in shops of the CD32. This would put a cartridge based A1200 compatible console easily in the SNES sort of price bracket without even a massive investment of huge production runs and parts inventory, so the same as the CD32 production plan they could follow....

This is a stupid argument considering the market was transitioning to CD based consoles and the cartridge/console versions of both the C64 and Amstrad CPC 464 were both flops! They had the CD medium firmware sussed from the CDTV and they were leaders until bankruptcy in the fledgling UK CD game market! Cost wasn't the major factor in the failure, supply issues due to lack of a good credit arrangements and long component lead times, distance to market from the Philipines and most importantly the XOR patent dispute halting the North American launch were! The fact it doubled as a CD player WAS a USP in itself! The chance to buy £50 cartridges with OCS Amiga shovelware on them wouldn't have been!

Plus it needed to compete with the incoming PS1 NOT the outgoing SNES. Extra features like Fast Ram or custom 3D chips were needed not cost cutting!

Conclusion: Commodore were more of a liability than the CD32 itself by the time it launched. The product WAS good enough to save them (for a while) but they scuttled themselves with management's inane decision making!

[S0ulA55a551n]

Originally Posted by CCCP alert

But in the case of Super Monaco Grandprix, Turrican 3, Aladdin and Lion King you seem to be getting less of a game for a saving of about £15 anyway so you are losing out by option for the value option. Winning == people do pay for the right games on cartridge, my point was the XEGS, 64GS, GX4000 had pretty dismal choices and it's not the cost of the carts that stopped sales. I agree in a way, the best C64 games are single load games pretty much and some of these games load in just 5 minutes or less. There is also the slight problem that the best games on the Atari and C64 platform were probably half a decade before the 64GS went on sale. Still I'd rather they put RISK or Wizardry from the EDGE on cartridge than rubbish like Chase HQ II SCI etc.

On consoles it's all about the games, if most of the library is mediocre or worse then there is no reason to get the system, like I said it didn't stop sales of the NES/SMS vs GX4000/64GS/XEGS at the time even though the Japanese rivals had higher price for console and games. It's a false economy.

The Amiga is one of the few successful (worldwide) home computers that doesn't have a cartridge port so it makes no difference. If Commodore had sold a £200 AGA console (including savings from no CD-ROM drive, no AKIKO chip to be produced and no floppy disk either) then people either had £400 for an Amiga 1200 or £200 for the console version. People don't get to choose, most people who got a SNES in the UK didn't have the budget for a home computer at £200-300 more in 1993. People also rented cartridges from video rental chains at £5 a weekend a lot, better than having to blow £30 on a disk game or go without in order to find out you wouldn't be playing it for 1-2 months without boredom.

Winning just means the majority of the world wanted a cheap consoles, it has nothing to do with paying £10 for Turbocharge and putting up with that horrendous multiload versus £25 for the cart version (which works on all models of the C64). You would still need to spend double the 64GS budget to have the option of saving £10-15 on games you purchased over the next few years. Takes longer to build up a library of games you own when you get a console, this is just what people consider. What you are talking about is a person who owned a C64 before 1990, or had access to one regularly, would never get a 64GS. This is true, but then if you are looking at consoles then you have a lower budget than you need to get a proper home computer set up, even tape based. A commodore 64+tape deck cost more than a Megadrive in 1990 never mind a 64GS or Sega MS.

This £10 tape/£30 disk game problem is a personal take on the situation of a home computer person. A mostly console only person [for financial reasons] who made up the massive majority of the home gaming market in the 80s and 90s didn't have this sort of attitude. The quality of games you could play on a 64GS is the issue more than the price of the carts. Who wouldn't pay £50 for Lionheart on an A600 based cartridge only console costing £175-200 in 1991 if they didn't have £400 for an A600? Ditto for £200 AGA console in 1993 vs £400 A1200. They are completely different consumers with different budgets and it's all about the games, that is why the XEGS, 64GS, GX4000 failed. Burning Rubber is not exactly up to NES Rad Racer or SMS Chase HQ standard for 8bit gaming, so the GX flopped. It's really that simple.

There were 1 or 2 decent games on GX400 , Robocop, Plotting, Switchblade, Pang

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by CCCP alert

Who wouldn't pay £50 for Lionheart on an A600 based cartridge only console costing £175-200 in 1991 if they didn't have £400 for an A600? Ditto for £200 AGA console in 1993 vs £400 A1200. They are completely different consumers with different budgets and it's all about the games, that is why the XEGS, 64GS, GX4000 failed. Burning Rubber is not exactly up to NES Rad Racer or SMS Chase HQ standard for 8bit gaming, so the GX flopped. It's really that simple.

You bought a C64 or Amiga or Amstrad CPC because they gave you access to a vast quantity of pirated games. This justified the higher price. That's why the console versions of the C64 and CPC failed. Everybody knew what the manufacturers were doing - trying to make us pay for games!

The CD32 was different. Sure it put a damper on piracy, but it gave you something worthwhile to make up for it. CD's only cost a few dollars to make so games could be cheaper on CD-ROM than on disks, which was a big deal when they were now needing upwards of 15 disks. Furthermore the CD32 could be converted to the equivalent of an A1200 with addons you bought when you could afford them.

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

games could be cheaper

And cheap-looking it was.

I think the cartridge idea is intriguing, because just as the CD32 was too weak to ever come close to rivalling the likes of the Saturn and PSX, it also struggled to keep up with much cheaper and older consoles like the Megadrive and SNES.

It couldn't do 3D games, and it couldn't do console-class 2D games. It certainly couldn't do anything like what the consumer expected of "32-bit" games. So it could be a better CDi, or play a better FMV game than the MegaCD, but as it turned out, consumers weren't that interested in FMV games, and the CD32 hardly got any anyway.

[Megalomaniac]

This feels harsh on the CD32. The PS1 and Saturn were 2 years away from the UK market when it launched, the intention was always to have the AAA technology (if not Hombre) ready by then. The CD32 was intended to take on the MegaCD, 32X, 3DO and Jaguar, and while active it did at least as well as any of those in Europe - if oyu didn't alerady have an Amiga, its catalogue was probably better than any of those. A lot of new-generation games that were in development got cancelled when Commodore folded, you can't say with any real confidence that it couldn't do those games to a standard to match the systems I've listed. As for 2D games, I'd say Super Stardust, Pinball Illusions and Banshee are well beyond similar SNES and Megadrive games, before you consdier other A1200 games it didn't get. A500 shovelware made it look less powerful than it was. It did look cheap and the bundled controller was terrible though.

[lionagony]

Originally Posted by idrougge

It couldn't do 3D games, and it couldn't do console-class 2D games.

That's completely untrue. I think Super Stardust and Banshee outclass anything on the SNES in those categories. Then you have high quality titles like Alien Breed Tower Assault, Brian the Lion, Marvin's Marvelous Adventure, Guardian, Roadkill, Nick Faldo, Shadow Fighter, Fightin Spirit, Flink, Zool 2 etc. Then there were talkie adventure games like Beneath a Steek Sky, Dark Seed, Simon the Sorcerer. Also, Microcosm though many didn't like the gameplay definitely looked like a 32 bit type game.

Edit: @Megalomaniac Ha, great minds think alike, I didn't see your response until after I submitted mine.

[CCCP alert]

The PS1 dev kits went out before the CD32 went on sale AFAIK. PS1 wiped the floor with everything, the only reason Nintendo survived that raping was due to the massive popularity of those putrid Pokemon gameboy games, and that's a fact you can check. The N64 was as much of a failure as Saturn in sales/financial year....they just kept the N64 on sale.

As for the comments about CD32 vs a £150-170 AGA cart based console being a failure due to the piss poor sales of GX4000 and 64GS I have already explained if there were more games like Enforcer:Full Metal Blaster and Times of Lore on 64GS cartridge and the included controllers weren't pathetic wobbly dildo failures of a joystick it may have had a chance. There are many instances where the C64 absolutely pwns the Famicom tech inside the NES, like Law of the West for a start. And there is the slight issue of NES sound is closer to VIC-20 than SID audio.

If you want to carry on believing a £300 console that had inferior 3-4mb games compared to Sega/Nintendo 16bit offerings and stuffed on a CD with some horrible 'wedding band' quality synth equipments produced 'CD quality music' then you keep dreaming, 99% of the world took one look at the pathetic games on CD32/Jaguar and kept/bought a MD/SNES/imported PC Engine and that's a fact. £300 is luxury console price, we are talking just £100 less than Neo Geo CD console for a start let alone PS1 price. If it cost Commodore that much to make a CD32 even if they hadn't gone bankrupt and they dropped £50 off the retail price what idiot would rather play Body Blows than Tekken in 1995 lol

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by idrougge

And cheap-looking it was.

???

I think the cartridge idea is intriguing, because just as the CD32 was too weak to ever come close to rivalling the likes of the Saturn and PSX, it also struggled to keep up with much cheaper and older consoles like the Megadrive and SNES.

You don't understand. The goal was to transition to CD-ROM on all Amigas. Carts were expensive and on the way out - CD-ROM was the way forward.

It couldn't do 3D games, and it couldn't do console-class 2D games. It certainly couldn't do anything like what the consumer expected of "32-bit" games.

The A1200 did 32 bit games. The CD32 was an A1200 without the unnecessary bits.

So it could be a better CDi, or play a better FMV game than the MegaCD, but as it turned out, consumers weren't that interested in FMV games, and the CD32 hardly got any anyway.

The FMV module worked well but was ahead its time - and not what you bought a CD32 for. If I was Commodore I have put the effort into developing a 3D addon instead. This could have the power to do some FMV too (maybe not full movies, but enough to satisfy the demand for video intros and cut scenes etc.).

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by CCCP alert

I have already explained if there were more games like Enforcer:Full Metal Blaster and Times of Lore on 64GS cartridge

The 64GS was just a regular C64 motherboard shoved in a case with no keyboard. The only good thing about it was they could pull the motherboards out of the 60,000 that didn't sell (out of 80,000 produced) to make C64s.

There are many instances where the C64 absolutely pwns the Famicom tech inside the NES, like Law of the West for a start. And there is the slight issue of NES sound is closer to VIC-20 than SID audio.

That may be true, but wouldn't it be better to have an actual C64 to run them on? Then you could play all the other C64 cartridge (and disk and tape) games that the 64GS couldn't!

If it cost Commodore that much to make a CD32 even if they hadn't gone bankrupt...

At the time the CD32 was cheaper than a CD-ROM drive for the A1200, and could expanded into the equivalent of an A1200. So it was the cheapest way to get an AGA Amiga with CD-ROM.

Unlike other consoles, the CD32 was a gateway to computing rather than a dead end. You can argue that was a dead end too because the Amiga as a whole was a dead end, but that's a different conversation.

[AestheticDebris]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

The A1200 did 32 bit games. The CD32 was an A1200 without the unnecessary bits.

I mean it could play games and they were technically 32-bit but, by and large, didn't really transcend what the existing 16-bit consoles could do. Nobody actually cared what "32-bit" meant technically, they just expected to see a giant leap over last generation systems and AGA just wasn't up to it.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

The FMV module worked well but was ahead its time - and not what you bought a CD32 for. If I was Commodore I have put the effort into developing a 3D addon instead. This could have the power to do some FMV too (maybe not full movies, but enough to satisfy the demand for video intros and cut scenes etc.).

But that shows how fuzzy the thinking around the whole project was. If they believed FMV games were the future (and a lot of people did) then shipping a brand new, 32-bit games console with a CD drive meant you absolutely had to be able to play back FMV out of the box.

Of course if they instead believed FMV was unlikely to be that big a deal and actually what people were going to want was impressive 3D graphics then there should have been dedicated 3D hardware.

And if the belief was actually none of that would be mainstream for years and all anyone was going to want was sprite based 2D gameplay, but with better graphics, well then it needed to be a sprite powerhouse like the NeoGEO.

What it was instead was hardware that cost a fortune compared to 16-bit models and gave a good impression of being almost as good as them.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Unlike other consoles, the CD32 was a gateway to computing rather than a dead end. You can argue that was a dead end too because the Amiga as a whole was a dead end, but that's a different conversation.

Nobody was buying games consoles as a gateway to computing.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by CCCP alert

The PS1 dev kits went out before the CD32 went on sale AFAIK.

Making of: PlayStation

“That was an incredible demonstration of support and confidence, given that we hadn’t even announced the formation of the company, just Sony Computer Entertainment in November 1993. And then throughout early ’94 we hadn’t announced the business model...

But Sony wasn’t entirely without capacity, having acquired Psygnosis in May 1993. It was a loose relationship – Psygnosis retained its publishing business, which released games for other platforms, but it played a vital role in creating PlayStation development tools that ran on PCs rather than the early kits, which were large, repurposed Sony NEWS workstations. “Psygnosis came to a large meeting at the Alexis Park Hotel in Las Vegas during CES [January] 1994 – 11 months before the launch of the machine in Japan – with an early prototype of a working development environment that was far in advance of anything that had come out of Japan,”

The CD32 was released in September 1993.

[blackcornflake]

Originally Posted by CCCP alert

If you want to carry on believing a £300 console that had inferior 3-4mb games compared to Sega/Nintendo 16bit offerings and stuffed on a CD with some horrible 'wedding band' quality synth equipments produced 'CD quality music' then you keep dreaming, 99% of the world took one look at the pathetic games on CD32/Jaguar and kept/bought a MD/SNES/imported PC Engine and that's a fact. £300 is luxury console price, we are talking just £100 less than Neo Geo CD console for a start let alone PS1 price. If it cost Commodore that much to make a CD32 even if they hadn't gone bankrupt and they dropped £50 off the retail price what idiot would rather play Body Blows than Tekken in 1995 lol

Strident, but true to an extent. Speaking from experience, as an Amiga fan who bought an A500, then an A1200, then a CD32 in 93, and who kept using the CD32 and buying software for it throughout the demise of C= and the commercial death of the Amiga, it was obvious from day one that the system was lacking something. What, exactly, became crystal clear as soon as the PS1 came out. And it was indeed cheap-looking (and feeling).

Still, it definitely had a certain something; an underdog charm, and a neatness, as an Amiga console. Much more luggable to a friend's house than the A500! And it did have some very cool games that shouldn't be dismissed. But the system itself always felt like it was half-baked, not as good as it could have been, and in the mid-90s mania for 3D it couldn't possibly compete.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by AestheticDebris

But that shows how fuzzy the thinking around the whole project was. If they believed FMV games were the future (and a lot of people did) then shipping a brand new, 32-bit games console with a CD drive meant you absolutely had to be able to play back FMV out of the box.

FMV was an option that could be provided if there was demand. That was better than building it in at great expense.

What it was instead was hardware that cost a fortune compared to 16-bit models and gave a good impression of being almost as good as them.

If Commodore couldn't make something that blew all other consoles out of the water then why bother? This is why there was only ever one console model on sale at any time, because all the other manufacturers threw in the towel as soon as they realized theirs wasn't the best.

You see, what Commodore should have done was cash in their chips in 1991 while the going was still good. Gould would have retired with a fortune and the investors would be happy, while we wouldn't get the A1200, A4000 or CD32.

Well I for one am glad they didn't think that way.

Nobody was buying games consoles as a gateway to computing.

So that was an opportunity for Commodore to do something different, and perhaps capture a market that other console makers were ignoring.

[AestheticDebris]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

FMV was an option that could be provided if there was demand. That was better than building it in at great expense.

That's thinking like a computer manufacturer, not a console manufacturer. The whole model was built around putting the expensive hardware in the base spec, making sure there were games that took advantage of it and marketing it as an experience you couldn't get on other consoles.

If they didn't think the market for FMV games was there, they shouldn't have made the FMV part at all. Announcing from the get go that you not only had to pay more for the CD32, but it wouldn't even play those FMV games everyone was excited about unless you also went out and bought add-ons was monumentally stupid.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

If Commodore couldn't make something that blew all other consoles out of the water then why bother? This is why there was only ever one console model on sale at any time, because all the other manufacturers threw in the towel as soon as they realized theirs wasn't the best.

There has to be a reason for people to buy it. It can be better. It can be cheaper. Commodore's reason, as it often was, seemed to be "because we've made it" and unsurprisingly that failed to convince anyone outside of a handful of die hard Amiga fans.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

So that was an opportunity for Commodore to do something different, and perhaps capture a market that other console makers were ignoring.

Except that market wasn't there. And it was abundantly obvious that the market wasn't there. Just because you can make a fridge that's also a waffle iron and a shower, doesn't mean it makes any sense to do so.

Heck, if anything, people had been buying home computers as a cheap alternative to a dedicated games console. The people who were spending money on a dedicated device wanted it to be entirely focused on games, not also be useful for spreadsheets.

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by CCCP alert

If you want to carry on believing a £300 console that had inferior 3-4mb games compared to Sega/Nintendo 16bit offerings and stuffed on a CD with some horrible 'wedding band' quality synth equipments produced 'CD quality music' then you keep dreaming, 99% of the world took one look at the pathetic games on CD32/Jaguar and kept/bought a MD/SNES/imported PC Engine and that's a fact. £300 is luxury console price, we are talking just £100 less than Neo Geo CD console for a start let alone PS1 price. If it cost Commodore that much to make a CD32 even if they hadn't gone bankrupt and they dropped £50 off the retail price what idiot would rather play Body Blows than Tekken in 1995 lol

Seems people forget what a great time it was to own an Amiga in the nineties, all this blah blah about power in hindsight is utter tosh imo! The Megadrive and SNES were more powerful than the Amiga in some regards, i swapped my Megadrive for an A500 because the games were more original and imo more fun on the Amiga, the CD32 continued this range of games for me (and unluckily, no fault of the machine the potential CD games was brought to a premature halt).

I bought a PS1 in 1995, i STILL in hindsight would have bought my CD32 in 1993 as it gave me Amiga games on surprise CD! Just what i bought it for, NO-ONE expected a 3D power-house from the CD32 when they bought it, and in the UK easily outsold the Jaguar, NGCD and 3DO in the same time-frame, and even outsold the Saturn for first 6 months sales, so power means nothing to the most important people, those who bought the machine and its games.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Amigajay

Seems people forget what a great time it was to own an Amiga in the nineties, all this blah blah about power in hindsight is utter tosh imo!

I owned an Amiga in the nineties and by 1993 if you didn't just read Amiga only magazines there were quite a few games that you only got for PC. In my household we owned both SNES and MegaDrive, but the Amiga still got a good amount of gaming time. By the end of 1993 there were just too many 'cool' titles out there for the PC that my brother and I wanted to play. So the 'power' argument was very much real for me in the nineties.

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by TCD

I owned an Amiga in the nineties and by 1993 if you didn't just read Amiga only magazines there were quite a few games that you only got for PC. In my household we owned both SNES and MegaDrive, but the Amiga still got a good amount of gaming time. By the end of 1993 there were just too many 'cool' titles out there for the PC that my brother and I wanted to play. So the 'power' argument was very much real for me in the nineties.

It was more a statement about consoles, the PC had plenty more powerful and better looking games from 1990 onwards, it didn’t stop the Amiga having its best year in 1991 and a decent 1992 despite C: interfering with consumers choices!

The Master System and NES still outsold their 16-bit brothers for 1-2 years in some countries after they came out, and the MD and SNES market was still bigger than the PS1 market was for some 18 months after its arrival, again i think people seem to think oh there is the PS1 its the only choice now, plenty of people were enjoying 16-bit machines well into the 32-it era.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Amigajay

It was more a statement about consoles, the PC had plenty more powerful and better looking games from 1990 onwards, it didn’t stop the Amiga having its best year in 1991 and a decent 1992 despite C: interfering with consumers choices!

I'd even argue that some of the best Amiga games came out in 1993 (even 1994). Since I'm just going through the German PowerPlay magazine (multi platform including consoles) here are two lists with games on offer:

October 1990:


November 1993:


In 1990 it was a no-brainer which system to get.

I still used my Amiga after I got my PC. Just less. Same with the SNES after getting the PlayStation (the MegaDrive only got the occasional Streets of Rage time). Luckily I never had to choose between systems, but I knew quite a few people who sold their Amigas to get PCs and that wasn't because they wanted to use better spreadsheet programs

[Megalomaniac]

Originally Posted by CCCP alert

The PS1 dev kits went out before the CD32 went on sale AFAIK. PS1 wiped the floor with everything, the only reason Nintendo survived that raping was due to the massive popularity of those putrid Pokemon gameboy games, and that's a fact you can check. The N64 was as much of a failure as Saturn in sales/financial year....they just kept the N64 on sale.

As for the comments about CD32 vs a £150-170 AGA cart based console being a failure due to the piss poor sales of GX4000 and 64GS I have already explained if there were more games like Enforcer:Full Metal Blaster and Times of Lore on 64GS cartridge and the included controllers weren't pathetic wobbly dildo failures of a joystick it may have had a chance. There are many instances where the C64 absolutely pwns the Famicom tech inside the NES, like Law of the West for a start. And there is the slight issue of NES sound is closer to VIC-20 than SID audio.

If you want to carry on believing a £300 console that had inferior 3-4mb games compared to Sega/Nintendo 16bit offerings and stuffed on a CD with some horrible 'wedding band' quality synth equipments produced 'CD quality music' then you keep dreaming, 99% of the world took one look at the pathetic games on CD32/Jaguar and kept/bought a MD/SNES/imported PC Engine and that's a fact. £300 is luxury console price, we are talking just £100 less than Neo Geo CD console for a start let alone PS1 price. If it cost Commodore that much to make a CD32 even if they hadn't gone bankrupt and they dropped £50 off the retail price what idiot would rather play Body Blows than Tekken in 1995 lol

Judging by Wikipedia links, the Saturn sold less than 10m worldwide, the N64 sold over 20m in the USA alone, with a similar total lifespan, despite launching 18 months deeper into the era of alleged total Playstation dominance. The Genesis / Mega Drive 'only' sold 30 million worldwide, not that much more than the N64.

Can't you see the double standards when comparing C64GS to CD32 here? You say the C64GS only flopped because of not having the best 64 games, but that the CD32 was rubbish in its released form because it got 'pathetic games' that didn't exploit it (and I'd say lionagony listed a fair few non-pathetic games there)? How would you have convinced developers who'd made C64GS games that the same failure wouldn't happen again? Even if the GS had every classic C64 game and some new exclusive beyond-what-the-C64-could-do-from-tape-or-disk games, how long do you think it would have stayed viable?

The CD32 wasn't intended to compete with the Playstation (launched 2 years afterwards in Europe) any more than the C64GS was intended to compete with the SNES (launched 18 months afterwards in Europe). Compare it to the 3D0 / Jaguar / Mega CD / 32X and it fares pretty well, despite being cut off in its prime (it was the top-selling console in Europe when Commodore folded). Had Commodore not died, a AAA or Hombre based console would have potentially been ready long before the N64, and who knows what might have happened? Body Blows (and it's splitting hairs, but it was actually Ultimate Body Blows, with twice as many characters) vs Tekken in 1995 wasn't the choice, Shadow Fighter vs Kasumi Ninja or Supreme Fighter was the choice.

True about the CD32 / GS / GX4000 all having inferior controllers (both for look and useability) than most Japanese consoles though.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

Compare it to the 3D0 / Jaguar / Mega CD / 32X and it fares pretty well, despite being cut off in its prime (it was the top-selling console in Europe when Commodore folded).

To be fair those 3 (4-ish) consoles didn't do well either