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

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by AestheticDebris

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.

That doesn't make much sense. An Amiga 500 wasn't a cheap alternative to a games console, it was much more expensive! There had to be something about it that justified the higher price.

The Sega Mega Drive was released in the UK in September 1990, yet Amiga sales were still strong 2 years later. I think people buying computers rather than consoles did so because they wanted something more versatile and interesting. Looking at the top Amiga magazines of the day we see that they were chock full of articles talking about things other than games, and the adverts were chock full of stuff other than games too. I reckon Amiga users were into a wider range of activities on their computers than PC users were.

[Megalomaniac]

Even if you were only buying it for games, when compared to a Megadrive or SNES an Amiga had cheaper games (even if you ignore piracy, which was clearly part of the appeal) - by the time you'd bought 10 games for each system, the combined cost of console and games was similar to that of the Amiga and games, especially if some were budget), the availability of PD and coverdisks to further close the gap (some of which were just as good as some commercial games, though usually shorter-lasting), and a greater variety of game styles. Was a console where most games were in a few narrow styles really a better buy? Even if you ignore 'heavy' game styles that didn't transfer to consoles, most of the really original and innovative games of that generation (Lemmings, Populous, Speedball, Prince of Persia, Mega Lo Mania, Cannon Fodder) were released for computers first and consoles later. And, of course, just because you only wanted action games (or indeed games in general) as a 10 year old in 1990 doesn't mean you'd still only want them 4 years later.

[AestheticDebris]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

That doesn't make much sense. An Amiga 500 wasn't a cheap alternative to a games console, it was much more expensive! There had to be something about it that justified the higher price.

Which is why I said home computers, since the budget equivalent of games consoles was often the C64 or Spectrum. It was literally the argument behind the C64GS and GX4000 - people are buying cheap computers and using them mostly as games machines, let's sell them as games machines and get a cut of games sold.

16-bit home computers were mostly justified on the old "it'll help with the homework" argument. Or bought by people for whom games playing was, at most, a secondary reason.

[AestheticDebris]

I'm not sure the argument that everyone is growing out of action games and into more cerebral titles holds up either. If it were the case, they'd be topping the charts by now. And Sim City was a launch title for the SNES and not a bad port either, yet never sold as well as F-Zero.

It's not that there isn't a market for such games, it's just never been that large.

[Megalomaniac]

Originally Posted by AestheticDebris

I'm not sure the argument that everyone is growing out of action games and into more cerebral titles holds up either. If it were the case, they'd be topping the charts by now. And Sim City was a launch title for the SNES and not a bad port either, yet never sold as well as F-Zero.

It's not that there isn't a market for such games, it's just never been that large.

I didn't say that everyone does, only that some people do, and that with a computer the option is there much more. For every 10 year old action game fan who maybe grow into a 14 year old strategy / adventure game fan, a 6 year old who's not really old enough for games has just grown up into a 10 year old who is. And anyway, if you look at Amiga charts from outside Christmas, the serious games sold a lot more than you might assume (probably because their fans bought them rather than copying them, by and large). And of course, SNES Sim City was a game many people had been able to play on a previous system, whereas F-Zero was a completely new type of game which couldn't easily have been done that way without Mode 7.

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by TCD

I'd even argue that some of the best Amiga games came out in 1993 (even 1994).

Definitely agree there. The Amiga really came into its own only when no longer held back by ST compatibility concerns.

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

???

The CD32 looked cheap, its joypad looked cheap and its games looked cheap.

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.

What makes you think I don't understand?

Carts are expensive, but not ridiculously expensive if they are the size of a CD32 game – some three to five percent of a CD-ROM's full capacity. They also bring the price of the console itself down, and consumers might prefer to buy a cheap console with pricier games rather than an expensive console with cheap games.

Iff the CD32 had had games that actually needed the CD-ROM medium, the notion of using cartridges would have been ridiculous, but given that the vast majority of CD32 titles were floppy games, it's not so ridiculous.

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

Note that I wrote "32-bit" with quotation marks. Bits had a certain (silly, non-technical) connotation in the console world after the big leap from 8-bitters like the NES and Master System to the SNES and Megadrive. The 32 bits of the CD32 didn't at all look like an improvement on the scale going from the NES to the SNES — in fact, it more often than not would look worse than the cartridge offerings of the 16-bitters.

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.).

I wasn't even referring to the FMV module, but to CDXL, which was one area where the CD32 actually outperformed the horrible output of the (disappointing) MegaCD. But how many CDXL games were there ever?

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by lionagony

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.

Apart from the platformers (which didn't compare favourably to the SNES with the possible exception of Flink) the games you mention are really nice, many of them the best the Amiga had to offer (though I personally find Stardust a bit superficial, it certainly looks the part).

Guardian does look nice, but not a contender to Starwing as far as I can tell. Shadow Fighter, meanwhile, looks decidedly amateurish next to SNES SF2, and, to add insult to injury, was released as late as 1995. Fightin' Spirit, on the other hand, looks great but was released as late as 1996/1997, sadly too late to be noticed even by the surviving Amiga owners of the day.

So if we grant that at least some of these were console-class, they were either too late to play a part in the CD32's fate or reputation, or just looked like second-rate console games. Not bad games, and they do their part in restoring the CD32's reputation, but too late or just not good enough.

[lionagony]

Originally Posted by idrougge

Apart from the platformers (which didn't compare favourably to the SNES with the possible exception of Flink)

I think Brian the Lion is very underrated, it doesn't even have a full longplay on Youtube for some reason. Maybe it's because the first level isn't that impressive but the mountain background level, the shooting level, the snow level etc. are all top notch on the CD32 and even the OCS/ECS version does the Mode 7 bonus levels. Also, Marvin's Marvelous Adventure is a good game, it's very long and varied. Again the first levels aren't the best it has to offer, later ones, especially the night time levels are great. I just finished Donkey Kong Country 3 for the SNES for the first time and it's a shame we never got a platformer that looked that good on the CD32 but I have to say I enjoyed playing Marvin more than DK3 as many parts of it were very frustrating.

Originally Posted by idrougge

Shadow Fighter, meanwhile, looks decidedly amateurish next to SNES SF2, and, to add insult to injury, was released as late as 1995.

Well again if we're just talking looks I think Elfmania on OCS/ECS looks better than even SF2 on the SNES. If Elfmania 2 would have come out for AGA/CD32 I think you'd be looking at close to PS1 2D quality. So if OCS/ECS Elfmania, Agony, Lionheart, Shadow of the Beast etc. can match the best of what the SNES can do then the CD32 could by default beat it in the right hands. Sadly with less than 8 months on the shelf with an owner it's full potential was never realized. Obviously AGA/CD32 could have been better, I fantasize about what the original Los Gatos team would have come up with if they stayed on. However, for the short time the CD32 existed it did get some great new games plus a lot of older ones that had already been ported to/from the consoles so obviously it was "console class". I'd rather games be "Amiga class" since in my opinion it has the best 2D action library of any system ever.

[CCCP alert]

People buying consoles are not interested in dither-tastic slightly choppy ports of Mortal Kombat even if it's £20 less than the Amiga version vs the fantastic SNES version. £250 buys probably a years worth of games for most console owners, who also had the option to rent games too for a weekend/day which Amigans didn't in order to avoid utter garbage developments. There was also no multi-button standard set by Commodore for Amiga in 1990, most games that did support it used the Megadrive controller as a requirement for their code.

Doesn't really matter what I say, the facts speak for themselves. The combined sales of C64 and C128 (99% which may as well have defaulted to the GO 64? command instantly on boot up for what little time they spent in C128 40 column mode compatible with domestic TV) are very close to the equally long lasting Atari VCS console. The Amiga vs even Japan only PC Engine can only be considered a sales failure by Commodore, some 75% less than sales of C64+128.

Sales of the A500 worldwide are a mere pimple of the enormous ass of combined worldwide sales of NES/SNES/MD, even the Japan only PC Engine sales are phenomenal from day 1 in 1987. The simple fact is Amiga games were not worth £50 and being sold for £25-30, the reality is most Amiga hyped releases are not even worth £10. THIS is why piracy existed, people got fed up with bullshit like Afterburner/Turbo Out Run.

The Amiga was sold to people in the market for a computer, it's not something you would buy instead of a PCE/SNES/Megadrive. The only computer ever to come close to that situation is the Commodore 64 vs first generation 8bit consoles like VCS, Intellivision and Coleco. Games like Beach Head may have been 66% cheaper than Coleco titles but they were also massively superior to the MSX-tastic Coleco games.

Amiga had it the other way round, son of bitch to write games as good as the best looking/moving arcade quality games, cost 250% more than a console, less colours on screen, less sound channels (usually with rubbish PD Soundtracker instrument disks used for commercial game soundtracks for the super cheesy Amiga gaming experience we all remember), less quality control at the software houses pushing out turd like 'arcade' games running at 15-18fps half the time with 16 colour ST graphics more often than not in it's library. Yeah that sounds like a recipe for Amiga conquering the consoles....which clearly never happened unlike how a C64+tape deck sent the console world packing and even stopped NES sales in the EU becoming anything other than chump change to the US sales.

If 512kb AAA quality C64 games were stuck on John Twiddy's C64GS cartridge hardware for £25 year it could have worked, would have boosted sales of C64 computers at £199, a bit like how Nintendo produced the PPU chip for their aging Famicom 1983 tech inside NES. But it would also require a pair of modified CP5000/Zipsticks to ram home the advantage of not having joypads for some game styles like shmups...or a decent gamepad to help ease the culture shock for 'new' home gaming consumers eyeing up the competition along with some talent in the cost reducing area to make it as cheap as the more advanced less shitty looking Sega Master System (except for sound of SID which is the king of 8bit computer sound chips of course).

[Megalomaniac]

Ignoring the CD32's potential for non-arcade games (and multimedia usage, and for being turned into a computer with add-ons) which making it a cartridge system would have severely impacted, none of this resolves the issue of how you would convince developers that the failure of the C64GS and Amstrad GX4000 wouldn't happen again with an Amiga cartridge-based console. What were Commodore supposed to do, tell developers "they failed because your games were rubbish. So, will you write games for us?"

The C64 could take cartridges from day one, and there was still no demand for a cut down version using old technology - Ocean aside, very few companies released anything for it, and not that many actually announced or planned games for them - the GX4000 (which at least was enhanced from the original 1984 CPC) fared marginally better on this count. By contrast. the CD32 got releases from most major Amiga developers of late 1993 onwards - EA, Psygnosis, Team 17, Gremlin, Virgin, Core, Ocean, Mindscape, MicroProse, Millennium et al all supported it, mostly at least some with exclusive content which wouldnt't have been feasible from cartridges. Whether they'd've done the same for a cartridge version, who knows?

Would Amiga hardware magically stop being "son of bitch to write games as good as the best looking/moving arcade quality games", or would developers suddenly not be "less quality control" releasing "bullshit" as you put it (much as I think this is an unfair portrayal of most major releases that weren't ST ports, so most major releases by 1991 or so), simply because they were making games for cartridges rather than disks or CDs? Would Japanese developers suddenly be attracted to develop for a cartridge-based equivalent of the CD32, when they weren't for the CD version, despite Sega and Sony going for CDs over carts for new machines at that time?

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by CCCP alert

There was also no multi-button standard set by Commodore for Amiga in 1990,

Commodore specified a 2-button standard from the very start, and a 3-button standard for mice which could also be used for joysticks. It was included in the developer documentation in and before 1990.

most games that did support it used the Megadrive controller as a requirement for their code.

Which games? The only one I know of from back then is Flashback, and that's only the French version - support seems to be missing in the English version.

[petran]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

That doesn't make much sense. An Amiga 500 wasn't a cheap alternative to a games console, it was much more expensive! There had to be something about it that justified the higher price.

The Sega Mega Drive was released in the UK in September 1990, yet Amiga sales were still strong 2 years later. I think people buying computers rather than consoles did so because they wanted something more versatile and interesting. Looking at the top Amiga magazines of the day we see that they were chock full of articles talking about things other than games, and the adverts were chock full of stuff other than games too. I reckon Amiga users were into a wider range of activities on their computers than PC users were.

Even later, the 3D graphics card of Playstation 1 alone would have cost at least 400 USD if it was released on PC with the same specs.

[AmigaHope]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

Commodore specified a 2-button standard from the very start, and a 3-button standard for mice which could also be used for joysticks. It was included in the developer documentation in and before 1990.


Which games? The only one I know of from back then is Flashback, and that's only the French version - support seems to be missing in the English version.

The main problem was it's not really a standard unless a controller of that type ships with every system, or the controller port is made incompatible with previous ones and all purchaseable ones at the beginning implement this standard.

The Amiga had a paddle standard from day 1 too but racing games didn't use it. (But it DID come with a mouse, so lots of racing/breakout-type games supported the mouse).

[Daedalus]

Yep, that's part of it, though developers had their part to play as well. Commodore didn't ship a 1-button joystick with each system either. Support for multiple buttons was there and documented from the beginning. The main issue was that most developers simply ignored the documentation and didn't even include an option for multiple buttons, and without that, 3rd party hardware manufacturers had no reason to make multi-button controllers. A few developers did add support though (both for multiple buttons and for analogue controls), and that support did sell controllers.

[TCD]

I'd say it was also more economical to produce joysticks that would work on 'all' home computer systems than to produce one only for Amiga. It's a bit of a chicken and egg situation: Wasn't there joysticks because there were no games or the other way around.

[Megalomaniac]

Plus, if games were being developed for Spec/Ams/C64/ST as well, was it worth the effort of giving the Amiga version fundamentally different controls to the others? What about the time needed to rebalance the gameplay to prevent (say) having separate fire and jump buttons making it easier? Would it kill the appeal of games that were designed to squeeze as many options onto a single-button system (Kick Off 2 being the obvious example)?

Still, could you say that even our joysticks were lame ST (and C64/VCS/Amstrad) ports?

[TCD]

Here are two ads for the CD32:
UK version:

German version:

Neither shows any games. Just noticed that today when I found the German one.

Edit: In another edition of 'You can't make this up' the next issue of the German magazine the CD32 ad was in has a job offer from Commodore Germany.

Searching for a young marketing person for market analysis. In a magazine published in March 1994. Two months before Commodore went into voluntary liquidation.