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

[CCCP alert]

It's not an expensive tray loading system like CDTV, a few years have passed and prices for CD-ROM options for OEMs must have dropped significantly too.

I am just wondering how much an AGA cartridge based system would have cost vs CD32. How much did it actually cost Commodore to manufacture a boxed CD32 rolling off the production line to be sold to distributors. I think the C64 was about $20 to produce at the end but no idea what it cost Commodore to make the 1200 or CD32.

(not saying they should have gone this way, it's just that without knowing the cost difference it's impossible to even begin thinking about the feasibility of such a machine anyway)

[BigD]

Commodore used a cheap audio grade CD-Player for the CD player for the CD32 and only added the Aikiko to otherwise 100% A1200 tech no 3D support etc or NVRAM of a suitable size! It was as cost reduced as it possibly could be!

[Amigajay]

According to documents it was $57 for the cd drive the single most expensive part of the CD32, it certainly wasn’t the cheapest model at the time, and they could have went single speed like the Mega CD or Marty, at least they choose wisely in that regard!

Edit: in answer to the topic post, the total cost of the CD32 was $235, so the CD drive was 24% of the total cost.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Amigajay

According to documents it was $57 for the cd drive the single most expensive part of the CD32

Where can we find these documents?

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Where can we find these documents?

They are all on archive, pretty sure it was from this lot (i just saved some images of pages a while ago)

Edit- found it here -https://archive.org/details/commodor...n40/mode/thumb

[BigD]

Originally Posted by Amigajay

According to documents it was $57 for the cd drive the single most expensive part of the CD32, it certainly wasn’t the cheapest model at the time, and they could have went single speed like the Mega CD or Marty, at least they choose wisely in that regard!

Edit: in answer to the topic post, the total cost of the CD32 was $235, so the CD drive was 24% of the total cost.

Well it was the cheapest 2x speed drive that they could source with which they designed a custom controller so that it would work for data! I used it as my first CD player so it paid off for me!

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by BigD

Well it was the cheapest 2x speed drive that they could source with which they designed a custom controller so that it would work for data! I used it as my first CD player so it paid off for me!

Of course it was (fairly) cheap, have you seen prices of internal PC 2x drives in 1993? £200-£500 depending on spec, so unless you wanted a console with twice the price it was good tech in a £300 console.

[AestheticDebris]

Originally Posted by Amigajay

Edit: in answer to the topic post, the total cost of the CD32 was $235, so the CD drive was 24% of the total cost.

Without CD they wouldn't have needed Akiko though, so the overall saving had they gone with a cartridge system would probably have been lower still.

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by AestheticDebris

Without CD they wouldn't have needed Akiko though, so the overall saving had they gone with a cartridge system would probably have been lower still.

Why would you want a cartridge based Amiga system though? It was proved with the C64/GX4000 that consumers didn’t want to pay £20-£25 per game that cost £10 on cassette, an Amiga cartridge game would be priced around Mega Drive priced games (£40-£45) and then have stuff removed to keep the rom size down, meaning less intros and less samples in Amiga music.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by AestheticDebris

Without CD they wouldn't have needed Akiko though, so the overall saving had they gone with a cartridge system would probably have been lower still.

But then they would have to make the cartridges. Pretty sure that pressing a CD is significantly less expensive than assembling a cartridge. Like Amigajay pointed out that would mean more expensive games. You get a cheaper console with more expensive games.

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by AestheticDebris

Without CD they wouldn't have needed Akiko though, so the overall saving had they gone with a cartridge system would probably have been lower still.

CDs were the future back then, and for a good while it was true.
You can also consider the Jaguar - vi was cartridge based, more powerful than a CD32, and cheaper. It still failed miserably and yet they also thought it should have been CD based so they released the Toilet shaped CD reader for it ;-) In that case it didnt make a god damn difference anyway but hey..

[supaduper]

The irony is that you could pick up a CD32 for £30 10 years back now it`s x10 that lol, but then again I do love the Cd32 so I am biased

[CCCP alert]

Ah, I forgot about the AKIKO chip, the cost of this would have to include all R+D costs to design it not just the cost to produce it. This would add significantly to the budget.

$235 sounds high for manufacturing costs, perhaps they were buying very small quantities of the parts needed to build them and getting stung on prices too. Console production runs are measured in millions.

A game on 2 disks, which is about the average for the machine, would be able to crunch this down easily to about 1 or 1.5mb from 1.7mb of two disks. This would give you an average size of 12mbits in cartridge ROM speak. Again, unless you are manufacturing cartridges in quantities of hundreds of thousands not thousands at a time as Commodore would have done then yes it is expensive.

Off Topic: The 64GS, XEGS and GX4000 failed because almost all of the games they chose to put on the cartridge were garbage compared to the best of the best on tape for the machine. Cartridges did win, NES/Famicom, SNES/SFC, Genesis/MD and PC Engine in Japan exclusively all sold like hot cakes, they dwarf even the combined sales of the C64 and C128 from 82-93 of about 23 million. The reason the N64 failed is not really just about cartridge vs CD either, PS1 was CD32 price and a real tough act to follow technically, the N64 is not more powerful than the PS1, it just does some things better/worse than the PS1. World Championship Racing, think that's what it's called, is a hint at what the N64 can do when pushed to the limit, it's not that different visually to Ridge Racer Type/4 on PS1 though on your average TV in a kids bedroom. Either way the cartridge slot was not the problem for Amstrad/Atari/Commodore consolised computer systems.

[Galahad/FLT]

I'm wondering that had Commodore gone the cartridge route, would they have been able to manufacture them themselves using MOS to do it?

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

I'm wondering that had Commodore gone the cartridge route, would they have been able to manufacture them themselves using MOS to do it?

Who produced the cartridges for the C64/GS/GX4000? I don’t think technically it would been a problem, but this was post C64 Commodore we are talking about!

@cccp alert - its not about cartridges ‘winning’, it’s about game/computer systems that start life with cheaper media for games cannot then be sold as cartridge based system with much higher priced games consumers see right through it regardless of the quality of the games.

[TEG]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

I'm wondering that had Commodore gone the cartridge route, would they have been able to manufacture them themselves using MOS to do it?

Good question. There's the technical plan but the bandwidth capacity of the factory too. At a moment it become hard to push the walls. And it's a question which arise when you do mass production.

And then the question of the cost per unit of course.

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by AestheticDebris

Without CD they wouldn't have needed Akiko though, so the overall saving had they gone with a cartridge system would probably have been lower still.

Akiko itself it an other cost-saving measurement:
it is not only the CD-drive controller, but also includes the c2p transformation registers and of course an functionality of Garry. It reduces the chip-count to the CD32 significantly.

To provide cartridge support they would have also needed a chip with most of these functions and saved nothing at this particular point.

[CCCP alert]

Originally Posted by Amigajay

Who produced the cartridges for the C64/GS/GX4000? I don’t think technically it would been a problem, but this was post C64 Commodore we are talking about!

@cccp alert - its not about cartridges ‘winning’, it’s about game/computer systems that start life with cheaper media for games cannot then be sold as cartridge based system with much higher priced games consumers see right through it regardless of the quality of the games.

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.

[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.

People paid £50 for Mortal Kombat on the 16bit consoles, they would pay £50 for a 128 colour AGA version too if the console cost them no more than a SNES. You have to buy a much more expensive home computer to consider the problem of £30 on disk/£50 on cartridge anyway, such a machine is not for people like us who paid £400 for an Amiga, these people had £250 less to spend on their home gaming system.

Very interesting. I haven't even considered the $15 you would lose to make a FDD based console like the Konix and making an A300 into a 1mb console and selling single disk games on it. Lotus game only needs 1 disk, Battle Squadron is a single disk game, if you just made a driving/flying game of Batman that would fit on 1 disk too I bet.

There were loads of games from a disk based Amiga dumped onto CD on the CDTV and the CD32 had it even worse. Without 30mb top end PC hard disk only early 1990s 6-8 FDD install disks in the box sized quality game developments and nothing like Novastorm, which IIRC was cancelled for CD32, then you don't need a CD drive. If all you are saving is £100 vs A1200 then it becomes a really strange choice to pin all your hopes on for saving Commodore. The CD32 at £300 was at the luxury end of the market for consoles, the A1200 is at the bottom end of the market for home computers, this is never going to work unless you can get down to the same price point as Sega/Nintendo.

Looks like it was possible though financially.

[Megalomaniac]

Would it be worthwhile for developers to make games for a cartridge-based version of a computer though? You may think there are mitigating circumstances for the C64GS and GX4000 underperforming, but a lot of Amiga publishers were involved, and were stung by it - convincing them that this would be different would be a big job.

Disk games were cheaper to produce (something like 40p per disk compared to £7 per cartridge, so even Beneath a Steel Sky would be cheaper than any cartridge game) and you had much more flexibility in how many copies you produced with disks, plus you'd have to remove existing keyboard controls, plus Commodore would presumably take a cut, and put limits on what could be released.

CDs were the future at the time, and going to CDs gave the CD32 much greater potential - games were cancelled due to Commodore folding before being able to launch the system in the US, not because there was anything inherently wrong with the system (other than that the Playstation would have ultimately defeated it, whatever input medium it used). Every console between SNES and PS1 flopped, whether cartridge or CD.

Even for the end user, the £100 (tops) extra cost of the console due to the CD drive would be erased by buying 4-5 games at £20 extra each, and that's before you consider the magazine coverdisks which the CD format allowed for. Plus the potential to add a disk drive, keyboard and mouse later to basically turn the CD32 into an A1200 - that would need preserving with a cartridge version.

And as for a system which could only cope with one-disk games having any chance of succeeding in 1992, I think that's strange. Almost every Amiga game which found its way onto the consoles was on multiple disks.