Commodore Amiga could have easily competed with SNES & MD if they didn't focus on proprietary.

[ColecoKing]

Desiv I disagree

Jaguar proved that lower price mean nothing, 3DO still outsold and Atari was dead in water after price cut. CD32 having more games and a cheap price would do better but be more outdated than Jaguar which also had Amiga ports. If they launched early they still would have saved the company but as well know that didn't happen. But I don't see AmigaCD32 doing much better than Jaguar against 3DO, slightly maybe.

[bluejay]

@ColecoKing I think you're completely not understanding the PC and video game industry. By the PC market I meant the business and education side. The video game market I mean, well the video game market. These are two different things. DOS computers managed to compete well in both categories because they were versatile. Commodore computers competed more in the gaming side of things. The Amiga was unimpressive compared to other systems of the era. Sure, the CD32 might have been meant to compete with the Genesis and SNES and not the 3DO and Playstation, but by 1993, the video game industry was approaching the 64 bit era and the CD32 had no choice but to compete with the more powerful systems such as the 3DO and Playstation, and it was simply slaughtered by them.

What I'm saying is, your point in general is not valid. You're just saying that if the CD32 was released earlier and was cheaper it could have succeeded. I mean, that's kinda like saying that the Virtual Boy would have been a huge hit if it was released in 1987 and was in color and had more games. 

[desiv]

26 minutes ago, ColecoKing said:

Jaguar proved that lower price mean nothing,

No..

Jaguar's issues were more than just lower price. 

It was a combination of things.  Just ask the developers..

 

And I'm not saying the lower price alone would have sold the CD32 against the 3DO.

What I am saying is that a lower price, combined with decent (not the same level) hardware and games (the CD32 had a prebuilt library of AGA games ready to jump start it) would have helped...

The 3DO was expensive and didn't have a large library of software at launch.

I can see where a successful CD32 (which is a huge assumption) that was out before the 3DO would have taken some sales.  At least until the Playstation hit.

 

I think the issues for the CD32 were twofold.  One, it wasn't released early enough.  The XOR lawsuit killed it before it had a chance.  Two, game library.  Yes, there were some great games for the CD32, but as has been mentioned, it needed more good console quality 3rd party games.  While that "could" have happened, I don't see it happening.

 

I think the Jaguar and CD32 were very similar in this area.  It's about the games, and neither had enough killer games. (Tho both had some very good games.)

The CD32 had a bit of a possible advantage with the addition of the European market, which would attract more developers (and the fact it was easier to develop for).

 

But in the long run, both were doomed to fail (mostly because of who was running them at the time).  (As was the 3DO for totally different reasons).

 

 

Edited September 22, 2020 by desiv

[ColecoKing]

Bluejay, uh yes it would have succeeded, Commodore only needed 500,000 units to save the company from death. Being earlier, with a capable 2D machine with some proto 3D would have likely been enough time to sell that and much more. by 1995 sales surely would have cratered I agree but you have to realize that CD32 was not only released late due to technology but also because the company was already 2 feet away from death. By time CD32 came out Commodore goal to save company didn't make sense because they waited just a bit too long and now they had to produce a number of console they no longer had the ability to produce, Everything I can find shows that CD32 did ok when it came out mostly in Europe but only could produce a limited number not 500,000.



desiv

No..

Jaguar's issues were more than just lower price. ;-)

It was a combination of things. Just ask the developers.. ;-)



And I'm not saying the lower price alone would have sold the CD32 against the 3DO.

What I am saying is that a lower price, combined with decent (not the same level) hardware and games (the CD32 had a prebuilt library of AGA games ready to jump start it) would have helped...

The 3DO was expensive and didn't have a large library of software at launch.

I can see where a successful CD32 (which is a huge assumption) that was out before the 3DO would have taken some sales. At least until the Playstation hit.



I think the issues for the CD32 were twofold. One, it wasn't released early enough. The XOR lawsuit killed it before it had a chance.

Xor only killed American launch which was solved right when they died so again, maybe more time with earlier release things may have been different, sold well in Europe.

We are talking about 1993, Jaguar faults not well known, at that time you had Jaguar with two games soon to be 4 games at a cheaper price and known name vs. $700 3DO for complete set, less just the console according to Trip Hawkins and 3DO would have only one game and one game for months, yes Crash N Burn was pretty but come on one game for months?

CD32 would have had the 2D and underpowered but good enough 3D games to show off it was capable especially when looking at Star Fox released same year for SNES which was worse than CD32 3D which was already poor and people. A bit more time and it could easily pass the 500,000 required.

I am not saying CD32 would last several years but maybe until 1996 with price cuts and then Commodore puts out a more powerful machine since the CD32 was gaming console for TV to save company it would mean it saving the company would make Commodore no longer a computer only focused company and they would place a new machine to replace CD32, likely lazy and call it CD64, and then maybe they have new computer on the side but likely not with PC domination.

I think maybe Q1 oe Q2 1993 would have been enough time to reach that company saving number assuming Commodore don't do anything else to mess things up which they were prone to do which would have beat SNES star fox with better 3D games though worse than Jaguar and 3DO and beat the launches of both.

What you and bluejay doing is thinking I'm saying that CD32 success is being competitive in sales overall, no, that is not possible with Jaguar and 3DO with 3Do later having more software and price cuts, SNES mega drive super low price for those who want something cheap, and later playstation and saturn which did well at first, is is now possible. However reaching that 500,000 and maybe selling 1 million may have been possible with earlier release date and with its game library and would have given Commodore money needed.

Again I must stress that Commodore released CD32 very late, after first 3DO shipments and near same time as Jaguar, and when they already didn't have enough money to support the console, Xor lawsuit just made things worse but wouldn't have mattered if everything wasn't done at least second right next to grim reaper timeline.

I say over and over Commodore ran by morons, Atari also run by morons. Nothing new here.

[ColecoKing]

I did more digging

Lou Eggebrecht, Commodore VP of Engineering comments,

"I'm proud to be associated with a product which will set new standards for fans of electronic games"

This in July 1993 product was finished before then, console was revealed but should have been revealed in May as it was already done so they sat on it for two months than reveal it in july. Could have released then as well in June the units were already made for Euro launch the other stock was help up for US launch by Xor injunction. Ok, so Commodore just sit on it from July to September 2 months for no reason? You can argue holiday because they released early Sept which was two months from holidays.

They could have started sales in June or July the whole time. Amazing Commodore amazing. Edited September 22, 2020 by ColecoKing

[Shawn]

Q: Commodore Amiga could have easily competed with SNES & MD if they didn't focus on proprietary?

 

A: Not a chance in hell. Revisionist history doesn't work.

[bluejay]

If the CD32 had been released before 1990, the mostly bad game library(especially compared to the Nintendo and Sega systems') would have killed it. If it had a great game library it would have seen some market share until the Playstation hit the market. If it had been released before 1990 and had a great game library there might have been a slight chance it may have at least been as successful as the Turbografx. But the fact is, none of this happened, the CD32 was released in '93 where the main competition was the Jaguar and 3DO and later the Playstation, and it didn't stand a chance.

[Steven Pendleton]

11 hours ago, ColecoKing said:

But playstaion didn't release in 1994 in relevant countries only in japan only in 1995 was it released in relevant countries and playstation didn't blow down gates immediately.

Japan, one of the largest video game markets in the world, isn't relevant? lol no. You're clearly quite biased in favour of something weird. Don't quote me because I won't bother replying, as there is clearly no need for me to do so.

[carlsson]

2 hours ago, bluejay said:

If the CD32 had been released before 1990

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only CD based games console before 1990 was the PC Engine CD (possibly TG-16 CD). As you know, Commodore spent a lot of money and resources on the CDTV, which was launched at the infamous $999, same as the Philips CD-i. Sure, if the CDTV was slashed in price by at least 1/3 and packaged in a form factor that didn't resemble a VHS player, it would be a different system. However the CD32 also contains the AGA chipset and Chunky2Planar, of which neither existed in 1990. It is true that Commodore already in the late 80's were working on an upgraded graphics set for the Amiga, see the Ranger, but that was intended for higher end workstations, not next generation gaming systems. As mentioned many times before, Commodore was not a gaming company, they were just "unfortunate" enough to make a computer that people liked to play games on. And yes, the original Lorraine design was visioned as a gaming console but that was just a 1983/84 vision before Commodore bought it.

[bluejay]

9 hours ago, carlsson said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only CD based games console before 1990 was the PC Engine CD (possibly TG-16 CD). As you know, Commodore spent a lot of money and resources on the CDTV, which was launched at the infamous $999, same as the Philips CD-i. Sure, if the CDTV was slashed in price by at least 1/3 and packaged in a form factor that didn't resemble a VHS player, it would be a different system. However the CD32 also contains the AGA chipset and Chunky2Planar, of which neither existed in 1990. It is true that Commodore already in the late 80's were working on an upgraded graphics set for the Amiga, see the Ranger, but that was intended for higher end workstations, not next generation gaming systems. As mentioned many times before, Commodore was not a gaming company, they were just "unfortunate" enough to make a computer that people liked to play games on. And yes, the original Lorraine design was visioned as a gaming console but that was just a 1983/84 vision before Commodore bought it.

Well, either way, the point is, the CD32 was doomed to fail.

@ColecoKing, you are being rude to people because they are making a valid point while you are arguing with easily refutable reasons. I hope you can keep this discussion civil and not a series of arguments and attacking.

[Keatah]

Try not to worry about it. Certain kinds come out when the Moon is right. There's a few other weird ones circling too.

[desiv]

53 minutes ago, bluejay said:

Well, either way, the point is, the CD32 was doomed to fail.

Yeah, I agree with that.

The original premise that CD32 could have succeeded based on hardware I think has some theoretical merits.

It wasn't cutting edge, but I think it had enough be make it, if it had the right software and management.

Unfortunately it had two things going against it.

 

Software and management. 

 

My gut tells me that even if Commodore released it earlier and there was some software that was interesting enough to generate some more sales, Commodore would have handled it badly and it would have died.  And in the best hypothetical, I still think it had maybe a year of decent sales and then would be hitting its EOL tech wise.

 

But I still don't think any console that was basically a computer repackaged would be successful.

I know, people might say the XBOX is kind of that, but I think that there is a difference between being based on, and being just repackaged.

Edited September 23, 2020 by desiv

[Leeroy ST]

 

23 minutes ago, desiv said:

But I still don't think any console that was basically a computer repackaged would be successful.

Although these days consoles are basically PC's now. Xbox One even ran windows, PS4 Unix based. I think it was inevitable, just all the other attempts were too early, just like the multi-media machines, that's basically all we have now lol. 

Edited September 23, 2020 by Leeroy ST

[Lost Dragon]

Martyn Brown of Team 17, described his reaction to being shown the CD32 by Commodore UK, as so so. 

 

It didn't feel like enough of a move from the A500/1200 and he couldn't see it competing with other consoles coming out at the time. 

 

He also said he thought it was essentially a little late in the Amiga"s life, little more than an A1200 with a CD Drive and audio possibilities, the Akiko chip didn't seem to impress him. 

 

He went onto say Team 17 were already working on different formats, didn't believe they could do any stand alone titles for it, so repackaged existing titles, adding CD32 /1200 features, then checking how the CD32 was selling at retail. 

[desiv]

22 minutes ago, Lost Dragon said:

... the Akiko chip didn't seem to impress him. 

Yeah, that's a good point.

I was interested when I heard that Akiko had a C2P (Chunky to Planer) function.

I was thinking this would really open up the system to some of the types of games that the PC was seeing and killing the Amiga (Doom, etc).

But in reality, the C2P that Akiko provided seemed to be only a little better than some of the software implementations.

I think part of the problem was that the CD32 didn't come with any Fast RAM.  The system really needed some Fast RAM to compete.

Although I still don't think that was enough.  In searching around, I found someone who did some testing and said that his CD32 with FastRAM ran Gloom Deluxe about as fast as he thought it would on an A1200 with an 030 with Fast RAM.  That's OK.  I have an 030/28Mhz on my 1200 and Gloom is fun to watch/play a bit.  But personally that level of performance wouldn't have impressed me on a new console; and that required Fast RAM on the CD32, which it didn't come with.

Edited September 23, 2020 by desiv

[Keatah]

Commodore and many publications of the day like AmigaWorld never tried to position the Amiga as a games or entertainment platform. There was always a big push to make the Amiga look like and compete against the IBM PC. Many editorials were written on word processors, spreadsheets, still image editing, creation, capture, and of course video animation packages. But few ads for games. And fewer articles and reviews about those games.

 

Creativity

Productivity

Multi-tasking

Video Production

Speed

Sound

Graphics

..and new ways of doing business. That was the theme of the day.

 

Hardware advertisements weren't of joysticks, but of expansion cards like the IBM PC had. Or in the case of limited expansion models like the 500/1000, plug-in peripherals.

 

Everything about the Amiga was too niche, too new, too different, and definitively too computery to compete against real consoles. And by the time a need for a change in direction became clear it was too late. The hardware was 4 or 5 years old already, and just buffing up the ram or processor speed would never be enough to make a nice games machine.

 

 

 

[Leeroy ST]

I used ST's and Amigas for awhile, although not too long, so I don't have the rose tinted glasses for Amigas gaming library as others do, but the library always seemed lackluster outside a handful of games. Weird controls, stiff gameplay, very flash game like. The ST seemed to have games with more functionality which includes games using more than one or to buttons, sometimes.

 

I only played a CD32 once, an old friend had one, and one of the games had the jump button mapped to down which is absolutely nuts. Many other games he owned had jump mapped to up, which wouldn't be too bad but the games didn't use any of the four face buttons, ones that did used only one button, or all four buttons but they all did the same thing. Some of the games looked like cheap shareware games made by some guy who used a random sprite generator and plastered stuff all over the screen. 

 

I don't know about other games on the system but just from that impression it seemed like Amiga or Commodore didn't care about vetting developers or having standards for their console. They just said hey guys just dump your shit on the CD32 don't even bother configuring your game so there's a reason it came with a controller.

 

How can a console have over 100 games available in such short time and have no impression on the market? This is how. 

 

 

[desiv]

5 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

How can a console have over 100 games available in such short time and have no impression on the market? This is how. 

To be fair and to answer this question.

CD32 release date: September 16, 1993 (never officially released in the US)

Commodore announces bankruptcy: April 29, 1994

And that is when they announced.  They were already doomed and flailing before that.

They only ever sold 100,000 units in Europe (and Canada I think).

No way to make an impression on the US market.

And I don't believe Commodore had any control over games for the CD32.  There was no system lock.  Anyone could make a game, burn/press it, and release it.  They didn't go thru Commodore.  I don't think there was a "Commodore Seal of Approval." 

Which also means Commodore had to make their money on the systems, not the games.  Back to the razors/blades analogy mentioned before.

 

The single button thing was a problem for both the Amiga and ST.  Developers preferred to do that as most people only had single button joysticks.  Lazy.

There actually were multiple button games made for both systems.

Up for jump on CD32?  Lazy and greedy publishers.  Push out an already lazy one button game quickly for the CD32.  (To be fair, the only way to try to make money was to do it quickly, as everyone knew the system was dying.)

I think the game depth was really similar to the ST.  A lot of the same games for both systems.  

Not sure about the cheap shareware games.  Possible they were.  There was a lot of shareware/PD activity for those systems back then.

 

And also, it did have an impression on the market.  Just the European market.

They are still popular there.  3rd party addons were made.

 

[desiv]

41 minutes ago, Keatah said:

Commodore and many publications of the day like AmigaWorld never tried to position the Amiga as a games or entertainment platform. There was always a big push to make the Amiga look like and compete against the IBM PC.

Yeah, it's off topic, but I think Commodore really blew it by not REALLY going after the education market.

Apple initially had that market with the Apple II line...

Then the C64 started to get popular in schools; I'd bet because price.

But Commodore didn't do everything they could to get Amiga's in the schools.  With their video and sound, it would have been a good fit.  And that might have been a big change in their market.  If most schools had Amigas, then some of the people who went to those schools would get Amigas.

But Commodore was too cheap to do what they needed to get Amigas into schools.

Would that have been enough to hold off the PC clone world?  Probably not.  

But could Commodore have found a market that would keep them going for quite a bit longer?  Maybe...

 

Probably not tho.  This is Commodore..

[Zoyous]

As long as we're indulging in pure speculation, I always thought the Genesis/Mega Drive could have beaten the Amiga as a personal computer if it had a keyboard and disk drive and an 80-column text mode (it did eventually have a mouse). Also, if it came out in 1986 and if Nintendo hadn't used illegal strongarm tactics to lock up 3rd party developers until the early 90s. And if the European demo scene had gotten involved in development for it by 1987. ?

[high voltage]

Commocore CDTV was a SNES and MD killer

[empsolo]

19 minutes ago, high voltage said:

Commocore CDTV was a SNES and MD killer

Alongside the 3DO, CD-i, and the Jaguar and not in the dustbin of history.

[carlsson]

54 minutes ago, Zoyous said:

the Genesis/Mega Drive could have beaten the Amiga as a personal computer

Yeah. If Sega instead of releasing the SG-1000 and SC-3000 had entered the MSX family already in 1983, and then a few years later  had been a driving force together with Sony, Panasonic, Philips etc that the MSX2 needed a 68000 paired with the V9939 in combination with the SMS enhancements, that could've been an interesting home computer. Not as powerful as the $3000 Sharp X68000 of course but at a lower price point. It might have caused Atari more harm though, pretty much making the ST series irrelevant. Either Atari would've turned even more into video games already by 1988-89 or ceased to exist long before either the Panther or Jaguar even were on the drawing board.

[Leeroy ST]

Didn't Sega have some deal with Amstrad for a Sega computer?

 

 

[desiv]

1 hour ago, Zoyous said:

As long as we're indulging in pure speculation, I always thought the Genesis/Mega Drive could have beaten the Amiga as a personal computer if it had a keyboard and disk drive and an 80-column text mode (it did eventually have a mouse).

Possible...

At the very least, it would have had a infinitely better version of Outrun, so I'd be in...