Questions about the C-64GS

[empsolo]

I’ve found the C-64 Games System to be a curious little oddity. I know the basics, like the fact that the GS is literally just a C-64 in a console and as a consequence doesn’t have any external ports to plug in a keyboard to play a majority of the games on the System. I also know it was a Europe only release. But outside those factors, I don’t know much about the system. Like, for example, who designed it? How did the obvious design flaw get passed Commodore’s QA? And were there ever plans to release the damn thing here in the US? Like I said, I’m fascinated that the thing exists and want to know more about the context that surrounds its creation.

 

 

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[empsolo]

Nvm, the extra threads were deleted.

Edited June 5, 2018 by empsolo

[Mayhem]

It was deliberately designed to just play cartridges, nothing else, hence the BIOS is different and you get a screen showing if you turn on the power with no cartridge inserted.

[carlsson]

Despite we're in the Commodore forum, I would like to ask the opposite question: Why did Atari supply the XEGS (which predates the C64GS by a little) with a supplementary keyboard, if their intention was to make a games console to pick up the spoils where the NES and to a lesser degree the SMS harvest machines had run across the field?

 

Repacking old hardware in a new case was questionable to begin with, but provide a console version of an old home computer, in a form factor where it can be upgraded to a full computer again makes even less sense than the "design flaw" to go all in on making it appear like a direct Nintendo competitor. While I'm fully aware that Nintendo released the Family BASIC with keyboard for the Famicom in Japan many years earlier, it seems to me more a case of "because we can" than a serious attempt to make a crossover system, and as Nintendo never issued a similar keyboard with the western released NES, it was well out of the scope by the time of the C64GS.

 

Certainly Commodore could've given the C64C another push with a series of games cartridges without going through the trouble of designing a console, but I believe the market segment both them and Atari (and in Europe, also Amstrad etc) wanted to reach, were people afraid of keyboards. No, I'm not being sarcastic, still to this day I see gamers who shy the thought of having to handle a keyboard and rather want to only use hand controllers for everything. Simply put, a keyboard doesn't signal easy to pick up gaming experiences. It might be useful for complex simulators, adventures, role playing games and so on, but fans of those games already have found computers to play games on and would likewise ignore the console market because such games don't exist or are more difficult to play without proper controls.

 

I'm not sure how many countries the C64GS got launched in. Some state it had a very limited release, perhaps UK, Germany, Scandinavia while others point to at least all European markets got a chance. Given that the C64 itself was more or less dead in the USA by 1989-1990 (and supposedly also the Amiga was having a rough time, in favor for PC compatibles), it doesn't surprise me if Commodore didn't focus on that market. They probably were able to peek at how well the Atari XEGS had sold or not had sold in the years right before it.