Why did the CD32 fail?

[Mikerochip]

The CD32 failed because of the same reasons all hardware fail.

It had no killer software. (And a dash of bad luck)

Let me explain, though, from an (at the time) outsiders point of view.
(I never owned any Commodore machines until recently)

Nintendo learned quite early on that software sells hardware.
Like Microsoft with Windows and IBM, the Playstation and Wipeout/Tekken, Nintendo first with Super Mario Bros then SMB3, Mario World, Pokemon, Tetris.
Sega (eventually) had Sonic.
(Hell, even Gillette does it to this day, with razor blades)

Each of those games were bundled with a system that sold the hardware with *must have* software.
(Ok, the PS1 didn't come with a game, but I seem to remember Wipeout selling very high numbers with the console)

At the time of the CD32, I'd already seen an Amiga, which I was very envious of when I had my Atari ST.
Many titles not only looked better, but sounded better too!

And that feeling continued until I got a Super Nintendo (with Street Fighter II Turbo, another must have title) followed soon after by Super Mario World, and Super Metroid and finally The Legend of Zelda.

That was my first entry into console gaming.
And it blew me away.

There simply wasn't anything like it on the market.
Where the Amiga sound chip was a massive step up from the Atari ST, the SNES blew the Amiga away.

I have heard some truly amazing music on the Atari ST. What makes the music isn't the hardware, it's the musician.
And the SNES had some world class talent composing music for games.
Don't get me wrong, I've also heard some of the best music I've ever heard on the Amiga. But, I never heard anything of the like on the CD32.

I looked at my friends with an Amiga after that a little sadly.
The were still stuck with 1 button, or 2 if some game deigned to support it.
The A600 came and went.

Then the A1200. It had some great games, but nothing I could see was a console beater. For mouse driven games, it was amazing though. Civilization is a game I still play to this day. But, while a fine game (maybe one of the finest ever created), it wasn't a system seller.

And finally the CD32 entered the market.
(I'm ignoring the desktop machines, the A2000/3000/4000 etc, since they weren't really sold or priced as games machines)

It was nothing but a glorified A1200. And to add insult to injury, it had the worst joypad I'd ever used up to that point.

All things that were forgivable, if there had been *any* software.
But, there wasn't.

I tried hard to find a single game to sell the system on.
But I failed.
Not one game could demonstrate what the CD32 could do, to me at least.
The CD32 couldn't compete on any front that I could see.
Team 17 were making some amazing stuff, but again, not good enough to justify the price of an entire system.

Nintendo had games falling out of their ears, or so it seemed.
Sega had Sonic, some amazing arcade ports, some blazing fast games where the Nintendo games tended to be slower, but look and sound nicer.

On the strength of the Nintendo franchises, I bought a Gameboy.
I already owned a Sega GameGear at that point, but even though the GB had worse sound and a mono screen that was near impossible to see in all but the best lighting, I fell in love with the system.
Why?
The games. Again, an amazing killer game to sell the system: Tetris.
Followed up with Zelda, Mario and a host of other software titles all proudly emblazoned with the Nintendo seal of quality.

Sega & Nintendo both had announced the CD addons. They both had excellent controllers. Most games used the buttons well, too.

Every game that was on other systems either didn't come out on CD32, or if they did, they were simple A1200 ports. At best, they were A1200 ports with CD audio.

I read the premier video games magazine of that time: Edge.
No where did it mention the CD32. Or if it did, it was an afterthought.
Everything that was new and shiny was on a different system.
The next big thing wasn't going to be on a Commodore.
Of that, I was certain.
Why?
Because Edge was certain.

So, I dismissed it as a platform, much like the Atari Jaguar, the PC Engine/Turbo Grafx and the 3DO.

And eventually, the N64, the Saturn and PSX were revealed.
The final nail in the CD32's coffin. And not just the CD32, of course.
The Jaguar, the 3DO, the (already dead) CD-i.

In 1997 I bought my first real PC. (I had a laptop before that)
Why? To install a Voodoo video card. My friends had seen Q2 on a Creative Voodoo II, and it changed the face of video gaming, forever!

Years later, I've returned to each of those platforms, and found some truly amazing games.

Tempest 2000 on the Jag, Banshee on the CD32, Castlevania on the PC Engine. (Well, most of those systems. The poor 3DO, I'm still trying to find any killer software on!! And the CD-i is just painful every time I approach it)

Since then, I've seen what a capable machine the CD32 is. Especially if you upgrade it. A huge library of CD32 and A1200 games and even A500 games!
It's an amazing machine. Add a mouse, HDD and external FDD to it and it's a proper machine, with one of the most diverse and amazing libraries of games I've ever seen.
Why wasn't it marketed as such at the time?
Why weren't there any killer titles?

It surprised me how badly the CD32 was advertised.
Especially when the Batman pack was one of the main reasons I continued to yearn for an Amiga, long past the point where it was sane

And I can now appreciate the CD32 for what an amazing Commodore machine it is, but, as a games console, it remains, for me at least, only a curiosity.
And certainly not something I have any intention of ever owning.

I know I've glossed over lots of things in the above, especially lots of Amgia exclusive titles, but, I didn't even know the CD32 could play anything other than the CD32 CD based games until quite recently.

And if I, a reasonably well informed gamer (at the time), didn't know, you can be sure none of the rest of the public at large knew back then either.

[Amigajay]

It failed because its parent company went bankrupt 6 months after its launch pure and simple, a system cant continue to sell hardware units with news of Commodore going bankrupt, same for software developers, the only games coming after were of course only Amiga ports, no company is going to spend more money on a platform that was nearly stillborn.

Other console wise, i was impressed with the Megadrive in 1990, but when the SNES hit over here in 1992 i was def not blown away, yes SF2 played well, but most of the games shoved a blocky mode 7 in your face just because they could, and the low res and black bars on the games didn't impress either along with £60 games, of course the machine had some great games but the Amiga and Megadrive for me were the best machines of the early 90s.

[DamienD]

Off topic but, in response to the SNES not blowing you away Amigajay...

I had both a Megadrive and a SNES; and they were both cool.

The SNES had some seriously cool games; to name a few Donkey Kong Country series, Street Fighter II series, Mortal Kombat series, Super Star Wars series, NBA Jam series, Super Metroid, Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts etc...

At the time people wanted to have arcade games / quality in their home on a console. Sorry to say, but the SNES did these better than the Megadrive.

On topic; the CD32 sucked big time (and in my opinion still does); poor game library coming literally from an A500, crap joypad, and all the reason listed in the poll etc...

There's absolutely nothing revolutionary / ground-braking about the CD32.

Ok, in the past few years there are add-ons and game compilations being created but none of this existed even say 10 years ago let alone when it was released / needed.

[mjnurney]

The cd32 outsold all other cd based systems on release , the lack of units at christmas hurt sales and thennjunk software that was dumped on to cd was an issue.

however the cd32 was over 6 months early to market and little software was ready even though dev units had been at developers for months.Commodore pushed the release forward at the instruction of Medhi Ali who was concerned at the slow sales of the 1200 , flat sales of 600 and failure of the cdtv.

it was still in demand when Commodore closed.

[Retro-Nerd]

A lot of former Amiga game developer already switched to the consoles and PC anyway in Summer 1993. Besides the small amount of sold consoles before the fincial crash, the CD32 was never a competitor. I bet Sega and Nintendo laughed hard in Japan after the European release. Well, there were harder fails back then. Anybody remember the Apple Pippin?

As i said many times before. The most attractive feature of the CD32 was the multi-button pad design. And ironically this pad (not the crappy original though) makes Amiga games much more accessible on real hardware these days. With all the CD32 controller patched classic Amiga games.

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by DamienD

Off topic but, in response to the SNES not blowing you away Amigajay...

I had both a Megadrive and a SNES; and they were both cool.

The SNES had some seriously cool games; to name a few Donkey Kong Country series, Street Fighter II series, Mortal Kombat series, Super Star Wars series, NBA Jam series, Super Metroid, Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts etc...

At the time people wanted to have arcade games / quality in their home on a console. Sorry to say, but the SNES did these better than the Megadrive.

On topic; the CD32 sucked big time (and in my opinion still does); poor game library coming literally from an A500, crap joypad, and all the reason listed in the poll etc...

There's absolutely nothing revolutionary / ground-braking about the CD32.

Ok, in the past few years there are add-ons and game compilations being created but none of this existed even say 10 years ago let alone when it was released / needed.

As i said the Snes had some good games, but it came out two years after the Megadrive, for me wasn’t a worthy upgrade to my Amiga or Megadrive.

Arcade game wise, well Mortal Kombat on the snes was laughed off the playground for having green blood the main selling point, and obviously lacked all the Sega arcade games that attracted me to the Sega consoles.

As for the CD32 sucking comment, bit immature imo, its basically saying the Amiga sucked, the Amiga was home to some awesome original games and the CD32 was a CD extension to the family, A1200 owners were clambering to get CD drives esp drives like the Zappo to get CD32 compatibility after it came out, so i guess you put that in with it as well...

Btw 52/169 games were A500 ports...But i agree the joypad was crap, but then who used a joystick Commodore bundled with anything?

Yes i agree it wasn’t revolutionary / ground-breaking, doesn’t make it a crap machine, just like the A1200 wasn't a crap machine, A600 wasn't a crap machine.

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by Amigajay

As for the CD32 sucking comment, bit immature imo, its basically saying the Amiga sucked, the Amiga was home to some awesome original games and the CD32 was a CD extension to the family, A1200 owners were clambering to get CD drives esp drives like the Zappo to get CD32 compatibility after it came out, so i guess you put that in with it as well...

How is saying the CD32 sucked immature and means that I think all "Amiga" are rubbish?

To be honest I only ever had a real A500; never an A500+, A600 or an A1200. Through emulation though, I can see the appeal of the A1200.

Anyway, we know you're the biggest CD32 fanboy on the planet and that's fine. Me, it never tickled my fancy, especially with other far better consoles IMHO available at the time (and some released previously to the CD32), so never considered purchasing one back then or even now with all the upgrades available.

As others have said software sells consoles and quite frankly, the CD32 had nothing really outstanding... most of the games I had on my A500 so what was the point?

[trydowave]

Theres a reason for my contradictory love/hate relationship with the CD32 and its to do with when a machine is released.

I love the C64 more than any other machine, even my A500. I continue to love it to this day and when i put on a game that pushes it to its limits like Sams Journey i get excited by it and show it to family and friends. They in turn think it looks like a primitive pile of crap. And in a way... they are right. Coz the machine was released in 82.

And thats how a C64 can be worse and at the same time, soooo much better than say the far more powerful CDi (god i hate that thing).

I love the CD32 because its an Amiga. An A1200 with a bolted on CDdrive... how great is that!

But... at the time of release it was a pile of crap! and this is my list to why it sucked ass...

1: Looked like a cheap megadrive rip off.
2: A library of Games that i owned years before; most with no improvements and use of the cd storage, sometimes not even a cd soundtrack!
3: A horrible (but not as bad as some make out) pad with tons of buttons that didnt have any functions (up for jump etc)
4: it was not forward looking and revolutionary in terms of hardware like the c64 and A500 were.
5: Commodore made the same mistake as the C64GS but didn't learn anything from it.
6: Megadrive could throw sprites and parallax around at a faster rate despite being an older machine.
7: a Terrible Terrible bundle. Dangerous Streets pack. That game being released on it and any other system is still a mystery to me.
8: A soundchip designed for a machine released in 1985
9: Shovelware
10: lying adverts claiming it was better that a megadrive in some way.
11: All the problems surrounding the limitations of the A1200 hardware, chipmen, sprites etc
12: Being released the same time as the A1200.
13: Akira! nuff said. Got to be one of the most disappointing Christmas's I ever had. Nice T shirt though.

im sure theres more holes i can pick but you get the general idea. if it was released a few years earlier with some killer games then it might of been a different story, but you can say the same about the A1200.

And yet... i still love the CD32 whereas i dislike the far superior Jaguar. Go figure.

[Mikerochip]

Originally Posted by Amigajay

Arcade game wise, well Mortal Kombat on the snes was laughed off the playground for having green blood the main selling point, and obviously lacked all the Sega arcade games that attracted me to the Sega consoles.

Just on that specific game, MK1, yep, the SNES version wasn't nearly as good as the Megadrive.
Big sprites, very colourful but the green blood was a bit weird
And it was a fair chink slower, and lacked fatalities.
(Well, lacked real fatalities. The ones it had were ... poor to say the least)


Nintendo learned their lesson though, and MKII was amazing on the SNES, and easily, *the* home console to have this port on.
(Unless you knew anyone with a 32X maybe. Every magazine agreed it was arcade perfect, but, also, no one was buying it.)
Same with MK3, and UMK3.

Until we saw the MK Trilogy on the consoles and PC.

Don't forget Konami games, on both platforms.
Castlevania, Parodious, Contra, Sparkster, Gradious, Rocket Knight, Mystical Ninja, Sunset Riders, Zombies, Cybernator, Tiny Toons/Buster busts loose, Lethal Enforcers. The consoles had a lot of great Japanese developers that the home computers just didn't, and Konami was just one. (Possibly the most prolific, but still)
(And when I say home computers, I don't mean the X68000, because no one knew they existed in the west, for the most part anyway)


And some things did get home computer ports, but they weren't nearly as good. eg Turtles Arcade


I was also annoyed when my friend bought the Asterix (Operation Getafix) game, and it wasn't anything like the arcade Asterix game.


Of course, this is all personal preference.


Everyone has a fav. system, the SNES happens to be mine.

Originally Posted by trydowave

And yet... i still love the CD32 whereas i dislike the far superior Jaguar. Go figure.

Hardware wise, maybe. But it's all about the games!! And apart from Tempest, the Jag had nothing. Except a controller that was too big. And the promise of an Aliens Vs. Predator game that was ... ok, I suppose.

Also, the CD32 pad was awful, but not as bad as the 3DO pad I once held.

[trydowave]

Originally Posted by Mikerochip

Hardware wise, maybe. But it's all about the games!! And apart from Tempest, the Jag had nothing. Except a controller that was too big. And the promise of an Aliens Vs. Predator game that was ... ok, I suppose.

Also, the CD32 pad was awful, but not as bad as the 3DO pad I once held.

I think if you were into Doom then the Jag was best way to play that game on a console bar the PC. i was never into Doom so i didnt really care about that. I just remember how bland and unfinished Jag games looked, sounded and played. Cybermorph, Checkered Flag, Crescent something (some shootem up) paled in comparison to the Snes games i was playing prior to the Jags release.
The pad was awful.

I did like the 3DO. it had some interesting Japanese games and the closest port of SF2 you could find on a home system. Unfortunately that terrible pad made the game unplayable and the cost of it was crazy.

I owned a Neo Geo at this time so this dead period of gaming history when all these cd console flops were coming out was not even on my radar.

[Glen M]

I say the following with the knowledge that the CD32 is my favorite Amiga and probably offers the best Amiga gaming experience...

The CD32 didn't fail, Commodore did. The writing was on the wall when the console launched and it was to little to late to save a multinational money pit. The console released in September of 93 and commodore went tits up April 94 so the CD32 had a lifespan of 7 months.

Developers KNEW this was coming so why would they put money into writing an AGA cd-rom game from the ground up when the same bloody machine would run their existing stock of A500 games with a bootloader on CD.

The few games that are true CD32 titles are for the most part better than the Mega-CD offerings which and lets be honest is the CD32s competition. The Mega CD also released in 1993 in Europe which was the place of release for the CD32.

Now.... If commodore had of survived I think the CD32 would of stood a decent chance in the UK anyway and until the PS1 arrives in 1995 at which point it would of died horribly but a 2 year shelf life for a console in the mid 90s was not to be sniffed at. There is no point in comparing to the 3DO because that died of price. The CD32 was less than half the price of that machine.

[d4rk3lf]

Do you think that CD32 was capable of the similar game, like this:
[ Show youtube player ]

Now, before you say: No way Pedro! , let me elaborate a little.
I am talking about some compromises (much less res, no sky effects, and some other adjustments). Let's say it is developed by very experienced Amiga developer team,, with the help of Commodore stuff.
Now, let me show you A500 game:
[ Show youtube player ]

So, whatever CD32 could do to fill the gap between first and second game (and I think it can do a lot).

Now imagine 3-4 games like that to be presented at CD32 release (maybe even given free with the console), and I think that the CD32 would become, maybe even better selling then Amiga 500... or three times better...

P.S. I know very little about Amiga hardware possibilities, so take my comment, as an average user comment.

[eXeler0]

Over the years, I've heard a lot of talks by Dave Haynie, RJ Mical, Carl Sassenrath, Dave Pleasance and a few others but one thing I never heard anyone talk about the..(and please send link to such a talk if you know about it) strategic decision prior to and during the development of the CD32. What was the unofficial word among the marketing vs the lead engineers..

AFAIK the CD32 was conceived about the time the CDi was released in Europe and the SEGA Mega CD was released in North America which is roughly the same time the A1200 was released. (Also, Wolfenstein 3d on DOS was a thing already so maybe that's what made them add the C2P thing into the AKIKO chip)
Commodore thought, "hmm... we could do that CD-thing pretty easily.." The CDTV failed because of price, strange marketing and timing, but at least they now had experience to build a CD based system integrated with Amiga hardware..- but instead of basing it off a A500 they's use the new A1200 design. (And here I dont agree that its the same mistake as with the 64GS because that one used 8 year old obsolete tech whereas the CD32 was based on a 1-year old design + it brought something new to the table) - I can't blame them for thinking like that.. Sort of makes sense, doesn't it? They also felt they could easily sell it for less money than the CDi or the MegaCD. Now.. at this point Commodores financials werent too great.. (In fact they were really bad already) So I'm guessing R&D had a shoestring budget for this thing.. So hardware was not going to be anything exciting beyond reusing the A1200 mobo with a CD.

BUT.. The CD format doesnt magically materialize great games. So why would people buy it when it came out? During the development peroid, Commodore could watch the CDi and Mega CD sales from the sidelines. What did they do to make sure they'd bring something interesting to the table? Aparently, they didn't reveal too much to the devs about the system like you see these days, preparing the devs to create quality launch titels. Back then maybe the paranoia got the upper hand. Anyway, the devs hardly put much effort into this vaguely hyped system from a company that was in the news for the wrong reasons at that time (Chapter 11 rumours etc).

So the development time for the cd32 was somethhing like a year, from start to release? (my guesstimate) and in September 1993 it was time for release. Just a month or so before the 3do - here's for example something I'd like to hear: How much did Commodore keep track of the 3do development? (Lets leave the Jag out of this, it was released a couple months later but only in North America and it didnt have a CD).

I get the feeling Commodore were pretty much *only* concerned about the Mega CD. Maybe they felt CDi and 3do would juist be new CDTVs and didn't worry too much about it and they didnt have the R&D resources to do anything beyond an A1200 +CD anyway.
(Yes I've in othe threads suggested they could have doubled the speed of the CPU to 28.36MHz and swapped 500kB of the slow mem for fast mem but they probably didnt want fragmentation between the CD32 and the A1200 which had a planned CD addon. (the infamous CD1200 which Dave Pleasence has passionate feelings for ;-)

So on one hand I can't blame them for some of the decisions they made given the circumstances at the time, their own finaces being one of the limiting factors - but on the other hand, the sloppy attitude towards software development and failure to be paranoid about the rapid advances in trends and technologies at the time (Wolfenstein being popular, one knew more games like that would come, and come on, even SNES from 1990 had a pretty neat Mode7 feature) and seemingly only focusing on SEGA as the competitor (Im guessing here, I'd love to hear from an insider about this part).

Timing wasn't their friend either, unfortunately. In some othe topic we could list all the other CD-based consoles that also failed at the dawn of 3d gaming.

[saimon69]

Personally i think main failure of the CD32 was lack of killer titles at launch; there was Microcosm, yes, good display of capabilities but little came afterwards.

I got the idea that the potential customers did want quality games at the level of a SNES and a Mega CD as minimum to appreciate better the console.

C= would have had the upper hand with devs because at the time copying CDs was still a task out of hand for the basic user so less piracy and more sales; however devs did not want to invest - big names like Konami were still not interested in europe, and the bedroom coder model, that started to show its cracks in the begin of 16 bit era, proved uncapable to deliver that level of quality. And by the way, this level of expectation from many less tech savvy users still is alive now, with people expecting homebrews to be at Cinemaware or Factor 5 level, while the most realistic comparison for modern homebrew scene would be the PD scene of the 90s.

[Glen M]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

Do you think that CD32 was capable of the similar game, like this:
[ Show youtube player ]

Now, before you say: No way Pedro! , let me elaborate a little.
I am talking about some compromises (much less res, no sky effects, and some other adjustments). Let's say it is developed by very experienced Amiga developer team,, with the help of Commodore stuff.
Now, let me show you A500 game:
[ Show youtube player ]

So, whatever CD32 could do to fill the gap between first and second game (and I think it can do a lot).

Now imagine 3-4 games like that to be presented at CD32 release (maybe even given free with the console), and I think that the CD32 would become, maybe even better selling then Amiga 500... or three times better...

P.S. I know very little about Amiga hardware possibilities, so take my comment, as an average user comment.

No way Pedro. Even with an accelerator it's not getting to the level of an N64 game. The A500 video you referenced is obviously run on WinUAE and is a lot faster than the humble 500 could do itself.

The CD32 could have flourished if it had the software support. One area it would of kicked ass in was fmv games. Yeah we all screw our noses up at them now but at the time they were the selling point of the mega cd and cdi. We had microcosm which is an fmv game just incase you didn't know. The quality of cdxl is way above what the mega cd could do with road avenger as a prime example.

These threads though all boil down to could of, should of arguments and I'm honestly getting to the point where I don't care anymore. Enjoy your Amigas for what they are, what they can do and what we love them for.

[saimon69]

Originally Posted by Glen M

These threads though all boil down to could of, should of arguments and I'm honestly getting to the point where I don't care anymore. Enjoy your Amigas for what they are, what they can do and what we love them for.

Have the feeling somebody is treating those threads as todo lists in case time travel will be discovered

[roondar]

Originally Posted by Glen M

The A500 video you referenced is obviously run on WinUAE and is a lot faster than the humble 500 could do itself.

Err, no.
That game is definitely that fast on a real A500.

One way you can tell is that the video is by Zeus, from the Zeusdaz Unemulated Retro Games Channel. He never uses emulation or acceleration. Doesn't take away from your point that F-ZERO X can't be done on a CD32, though.

[d4rk3lf]

Originally Posted by Glen M

The A500 video you referenced is obviously run on WinUAE and is a lot faster than the humble 500 could do itself.

Actually it runs that fast on A500.
I have A500, and tested it few months a go, and was stunned how fast it was.

Originally Posted by Glen M

These threads though all boil down to could of, should of arguments and I'm honestly getting to the point where I don't care anymore. Enjoy your Amigas for what they are, what they can do and what we love them for.

But of course.
I actually pretty much dislike almost every 3D game from 1994-1998 era. Even then, it didn't had impact on me, and I wasn't very impressed like many other.
But I like to talk about hypothetical stuff on Commodore.

Originally Posted by roondar

Doesn't take away from your point that F-ZERO X can't be done on a CD32, though.

If you look carefully my post, I never said that CD32 could replicate 1:1 F-Zero X, but maybe it could have racer with similar speed feel.
If CD32 is 4 time faster then A500, then some version of the No Second Price with 3x more details could be a perfect selling game.
2-3 more games like that... and they would have a huge success, imho.

[Glen M]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

Actually it runs that fast on A500.
I have A500, and tested it few months a go, and was stunned how fast it was.

I withdraw my previous statement and humbly take my hat off to the A500 as that frame rate is impressive.

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

If you look carefully my post, I never said that CD32 could replicate 1:1 F-Zero X, but maybe it could have racer with similar speed feel.
If CD32 is 4 time faster then A500, then some version of the No Second Price with 3x more details could be a perfect selling game.
2-3 more games like that... and they would have a huge success, imho.

I did carefully read your post and I almost expected your reply. I was going to edit my post for more detail originally but meh, I couldn't be arsed

Anyway...

A good amiga game for comparison is XTreme racing. I admit I've never run it on a stock CD32 but with the TF328 and 8mb of fast ram it runs ok at nearly full screen. Running it on the TF330 its fantastic, full screen 1x1 pixel mode looks great and you really need to try it. I imagine the stock CD32 would struggle a bit though with that coming in roughly half the speed of the console with the TF328. I'll test it later using a stock A1200 but I expect to have to use a smallish screen and 2x2 pixel mode. I'm not using blitter which will be fast but its like playing the game looking through a colander.

but and I mean BUT.... XTreme racing is more akin to the SNES version of Mario Kart. Maybe ever so slightly better but not to the level of anything the 5th gen of consoles could do.

Speaking of which I hate the way the poor CD32 gets lumped into the 5th generation and is seen as the poor boy from the bunch when it very clearly is a late entry in the 4th generation (is based on that generation hardware) as that was its competition point and from that perspective it is a great contender. It gets this comparison because 5th gen is 1993 on but in the UK and Europe (the main ground of the CD32) we didn't get the 5th gen until 1995!

[Glen M]

Originally Posted by saimon69

Have the feeling somebody is treating those threads as todo lists in case time travel will be discovered

I get the feeling time travel has been discovered but Apple beat us to it...