GX4000/Plus Range : Did Amstrad Miss The Point ?

[Badstarr]

Having been working tirelessly on my GX4000 to Plus mod the thought occurred to me... Did Amstrad miss a trick with the GX4000/Plus machines? Maybe the better strategy would have been to release only the GX4000 but with a disk and keyboard add on available to convert the console into a CPC if the customer wanted to? A sort of opt-in to the classic CPC ecosystem.


I know this would have gone against the "all in one" solution Amstrad liked but it would have meant a smaller initial outlay for the customer and future upgrade sales available. Also there would have been only one product line which would have to be a lot cheaper in the long run. So the GX4000 could be a console for the kids and a serious computer for the grown ups if you see what I mean.


Do you think this would have made a difference or was the GX/Plus range always doomed?

[rexbeng]

Well, it was already late for an 8bit machine wasn't it? I mean, besides the Amiga and the ST the gaming world was spinning around the Mega Drive and the SNES, so I really don't think a new 8bit console made sense at all. Even if you would stick to the 8bit world because of the cost, you'd still go for the NES or the Master System wouldn't you? Their library was really huge at the time.


rb

[Badstarr]

I do agree with you to an extent rexbeng, 8 bit machines were a little long in the tooth, however, the way the commercial scene soldiered on for many years after the release of the Plus, and the initial release of the CPC indicates to me that the market was there, albeit a little on the small size, maybe they tried to tap that market with the wrong machine?


With a CPC/Console if the cartridge market failed (as it did) there was always the classic CPC back catalogue ready to step in and save the day. I think that the cartridge game market was only ever going to be a small part of the market for an Amstrad machine and those who bought a Plus machine at the time spent a lot of money on the machine and probably didn't care about the carts (they had spent enough already), and the GX4000 owners had no access to the tape/disc software when the cartridge supplies dried up. So to a large extent, at least for a while, Plus owners had a souped up CPC that had no software to take advantage of its extra capabilities and GX4000 owners had no software at all. Maybe if the GX4000 had been a 'stealth' CPC it would have had more success?

[steve]

What annoyed people was that the same program you could buy for under £10 was also sold as a cartridge for £24.99, once people realised this, the cartridge market was damaged, if the cartridge software had been better, the console may have lasted longer, just as software producers sabotaged the CPC with lazy speccy ports, they destroyed both the plus and the console with their pursuit of an easy profit.

However I will say that the plus was underpowered compared to the competition.

[Bryce]

The GX really was way too late. By the time it came out, anyone who wanted an 8-bit console already had one. It had certain improvements over some of the other ones, but people were already talking 16-bit. I think Amstrad released it because it was an easy/cheap way to test the console market, because the hardware was already there, they just removed some parts and added SCART. They possibly wanted to use it as a pre-cursor to a 16-bit machine later, but as we all know, it never made it that far.

Bryce.

[TotO]

GX4000 (and CPC+) may have a real place in the market in late of 80s, if it was the top of the end for a 8bit with half price of a 16bit.
It may possible, but is was note the case...

Amstrad miss some points on the CPC+ range:
- Z80@8MHz (4/8MHz software switch)
- YM2608 (AY-3-8910 + FM + ADPCM)
- 3,5" DD internal Floppy Drive
- A Video Display Processor and/or a fast double Frame Buffer for managing pixels screen modes.
- An OS in ROM with a mouse (embeded on CPC+)
- Locomotive BASIC 2.0 (alone, in a cartidge... with new CPC+ features support)

EDIT: I forget... In 1988/89, not 1990/91...

[Gryzor]

I agree with Bryce. I always found the Plus range as a strange thing to do. From a marketing point of view, it would have only made sense if it had come out a couple of years earlier both as an evolution of the CPC and a stop-gap solution till they developed the next step (which would also probably be doomed - remember that the Amiga and the ST had already been around for five years).

Of course, what we don't know is this: did Amstrad actually *lose* money in the end from these machines? Because if they broke even, by Sugar's criteria they were a success.

[Bryce]

Difficult to calculate, but I would guess they did at least break even. The development costs would have been minimal, considering that 98% of the schematic was already designed and tested, the work to create a GX from a Plus would be possible in a week. The majority of this would be SCART (possibly just took the IC vendors application schematic), the new PCB layout (80% of the work) and the housing design/mold design. All-in-all a very cheap project.

Bryce.

[MacDeath]

The main point is : yes Amstrad missed many points...


Well, the year is 1990... perhaps late 1989 in UK...

8 bit is no more relevant.


Atari, Commodore, even some MSX... all tried some console version of their 8bit computers and it was a failure...

Amstrad did it too, and as for the Atari STE : too little, too late.
Computer are not as good as especially designed consoles for "Arcade games", which were the kind of game the casual/non computer hardcore gamer would prefer...


Despite 8 bit consoles being good sellers (Sega Measter System, Mintendo NES/Failicom) it is mostly because those were here for quite a few years so a big existing parc already, cheap consoles and many games, and also because 16bit system were jsut starting to be released and quite more expensive too.


Even though Aùstrad Aimed at SMS and NES market, it was actually 2 years too late too.





Hell just compare with MSX2+ and TurboR...
Even those awesome machines were considered commercial failure (but are nowretro-maniacs delights....)

All those late machines with upgraded specs are good today as they were often betterly done and they saw almost no use, and are also the msot recent Hardware we can find for such "classic version compatible" machines, yet with some PLUS stuff.



Were Amstrad missed the point even more was that instead of doing a 464PLUS version, it should at least had :

==Release the GX4000 with a Keyboard plug (just re-use some spare PCW or PC1512 keyboards perhaps), a Tape/audio-CD  Drive plug... and one extension port.

As everybody at the time used to have some CD driver or Tape driver at home, the a mini combo HIFI from Amstrad that would be expliciteley compatible with the console and perhaps even often sold with it... would really be kool.

==a manufacturer special connectic for Tapes AND CD... Why not, compatible with some normal HiFi products Amstrad was already producing.
Would be the CD-ROM option, with saves on tape, and super meega bass boosters and  powerfull Speakers...
This should be on both console and computer version.

==Get cartridges in 256K ROMs minimum.... really.

==boost up the RAM up to 128K instead of 64K on every models...

==Also as in STE : get some additionnal slots for Extra RAM so the computer version can easily be upgraded into a 256 or even 512K RAM computer.



But the most faulty part was that too few thing were actually improved from the original CPC.

=Still many 64K configs...
=Z80 would have loved to be overclocked into a 6mhz or even 8mhz... but all the other stuff would then perhaps need other kind of componenets...

=Get it a proper "OS PLUS"... I mean one with PLUS features Enabled and usable.

while the range was poorly done (64K versions, Tape version... but no tape for the 6128PLUS... damn britons)

The most faulty part was to try to get only one ASIC in the mainboard...

This ASIC must do too much thing so it do them badly (not well enough IMO)

With 2 ASIC you could then :

==Get one for Mostly Video, perhaps some bits of sounds enhancements too

==The other for mostly Memory managements, compatibility modes stuffs, more DMAs, perhaps even Math co-proc functions (multiply, divide... oh sweet 3D) or even Blitter stuffs...



many things can be dreamt of... with 2x ASICs

=the PLUS should/could have been designed to be also classic PCW and Spectrum compatible... just need to plug the proper ROM cartridge...

=Manage betterly the Video RAM access so instead of Wait states for the CPU, it would simply don't have access to the used RAM/ROM, but it wouldn't be a problem as there would be not 64K only version...

=Getanother additionnal 16 Hardsprites with RAM/ROM pointers, a bit like on Amigas' ones perhaps, with "fixed" value in X resolution but infinite Y resolution... in addition to the existing 16 Hardsprites that are more overlay tiles than decent sprites.

="overclocked" video modes...
160x200x256/320x200x16/640x200x4.... Awesome... yet a bit heavier... hence the "more RAM and Faster stuffs" needed...
As the vido ASIC would be more specialised, free room for 256 values in the Palette department...





With even only a few of those extra stuff, such machine could even be almost as "powerfull" as an Atari ST... Well sort of.

[Bryce]

Yes, a great setup, but with all that (especially the 2 ASICs) it would have cost at least 4 times more than it did. And that wasn't Alans business model.

Bryce.

[MacDeath]

That's the main problem... a man called Sugar...

What annoyed people was that the same program you could buy for under £10 was also sold as a cartridge for £24.99, once people realised this, the cartridge market was damaged,

Yeah, those straight Disk to cartridge ports were a big damage for the reputation...

There Amstrad was weak against the editors...

Hell, Barbarian 2, Klax and Batman per exemple could have been great if only they had improved Graphics (PLUS palette and minor tiles editings... even a few Hardsprites here and there...) and a few gameplay enhancements (to use the 2 buttons in Barbarian 2 could really improuve the gameplay...)

But the problem was that as ever Amstrad was "cheap" on memory for its CPC range...

256K ROM cartridges and 128K RAM machines as minimum specs could really have helped a lot the game developpers to do better stuffs...
As we can see nowadays, a properly used CPC6128 (even with no ROM based game) can use some extra RAM tricks to be faster and better... and 2-button joysticks is also quite better for gameplay and would really help a lot with a game such as Barbarian 2.



To be fair, the french played a bit betterly concerning those straight disk-Cart ports...


Well not all...


=Fire and forget ad Crazy Car2 were good looking, but the games weren't that good after all... jsut decent ones on CPC, no more.

Titus released a lot of cartridges but those were bad games most of time... Titus went on to produce really good games later... with Blues brother, Prehistorik2, Titus the fox... good platformers... but halas it wasn't on Amstrad but on 16bits...

=Dick Tracy, Wild Street... utter Shytes.

=Mystical wasn't imrpoved at all : shame on you Infograme/now Atari... BTW still one of the rare Vertical shooters.

=Tintin on the moon was utter shyte.

=Klax could have benifit form being upgraded into 160x200 instead of the speccy 128x192... and perhaps a few DMA samples and slight colour changes wouldn't hurt, the rest being already quite decent...

=No Exit : actually good looking, but the sprite (soft or hard ? both I guess) is simply faulty, the game was released un-debugged I guess...
=just like Copter271... rushed into the release.

=Op.Thunderbolt was also far a too straight port.
Well ok they managed to alter the colours (not always good.... white road ?) but they missed a great opportunity tu use Hardsprites for the target/pointer sprite and explosions...
And the game was messy anyway...



to me, a good unexploited concept was the one for Switchblade.

Good old school games with small sprites and mode1... heavily improuved by Rasters and Hardsprites...
Such production could have been easy to produce, and smmoth and fast animated...

I mean, imagine games like Lala the prologue or sir Abadol, with PLUS sprites and a few extra rasters.... perhaps slightly different gameplay too (as done in Assembly) like some scrollings here and there, and shooting gameplay...
Really.


For the rest, it is quite good after all...

2 great tennis game, a cool pinball, plotting is almost Arcade perfect, Pang is going well, NavySeals and Robocop2 are good platformers (erf, a little too harder too) and so on.
Panza, I haven't tried it on cartridge, but it looks great....


Anywway, what would have realistically helped :

==No shitty 464PLUS !
==Minimum 256K ROM cartridges.
==A GX4000 with 128K RAM and Keyboard plug+extension port+Tape/CD plug (= an actual GX4128...)
==Give the 6128PLUS (computer version) the tape/CD plug too and a proper mouse+Decent specific OS.
==and internal builtin additionnal RAM Slots... that's the kind of detail coders and germans love !
==no B&W monitors !!!

that's all.

The console+monitor+keyboard should then cost no more than what the 464PLUS would cost,
with the console alone being quite cheap as fuck... (like 700Fr max instead of 1000Fr at launch...)


This would have been a more clever strategy, beside getting a better hardware on overall...

[TotO]

The ASIC was a problem. Slow, buggy and ill-conceived.
It's the weak point of the CPC+ ... Putting two and you get two weaks points.

[fano]

The ASIC was a problem. Slow, buggy and ill-conceived.
It's the weak point of the CPC+ ... Putting two and you get two weaks points.

The machine itself is the weakpoint 

[MacDeath]

Never the machine's fault, only the human who code it...

[TotO]

The human fault... Making the ASIC.

[fano]

The human fault... Making the ASIC.

Making , maybe not , designing it so crappy , for sure !
I like a lot this little improved CPC but i am realistic , it just sucks (i will not expand unnecessary about this because it is obvious)

[Zetr0]

A very interesting thread, with some very interesting and provocative statements =)

The GX4000 was not as successfull as most other consoles simply because it brought a knife to a gun fight - there was no way it could compete in Europe with the 16bit jugganaught that was the Megadrive and absolutely no way it would compete withe NES or the slightly later released SNES in the US (and eventually europe)

Costly Media, and as far as I am away no exclusives for the system, lead to a very slow adoption, to the point it almost faded to obscurity - Which is a true shame, as the more I read about these machines the more I take a shine to them =)

In the end I dont really think its about how many bits it processes in, or small number of titles at launch, in my most humble opinion I believe people are attracted to both low-price and the sizzle of the sausage


Whom here remembers the Sega Megadrive advertising campaign on TV with Mortal Kombat ? surely I wasn't the only one excited LOL!

Anyway, in my opinion, I dont think there was enough marketing, promoting, demonstrating this machine, infact of what I have seen, I would suggest it was an after thought due to their being so little.

While the ASIC may have some bugs, it was was this incorperation of all the custom chips that lead to a much cheaper price per unit, this was passed on to the consumer - also in a lot of other ways the ASIC idea is good business sense and interestingly the fact it exists could lead to a CPC+ in a joystick some day (like the DTV64)


Whistful thought-Maybe (as with the DTV64) with a 2MB of RAM, PS2 Mouse & Keyboard, Second Joyport and a few PORTS to play with =)... ohhh the hackery.....

Now here is a little snippet of fact, in the 8bit wars, which machine would you think sold the most units in the UK?


What if I told you it was the PCW range of PC's ?


It even beat (nearly twice as much) the humble C64 (with its many many shades of brown )

To be fair though they were selling the PCW series right into 1998!!  and still running on a 4MHz Zilog!!!

being honest, while I appreciate the 6502, I am a bit of a Z80 fanboi =D

[TFM]

A very interesting thread, with some very interesting and provocative statements =)

The GX4000 was not as successfull as most other consoles simply because it brought a knife to a gun fight - there was no way it could compete in Europe with the 16bit jugganaught that was the Megadrive and absolutely no way it would compete withe NES or the slightly later released SNES in the US (and eventually europe)

Well, if it would have had:
- more games
- better games
- cheaper pricing
- really, really, cheeeeeaper pricing (leave ACID out of cartridge and it will be cheaper!)

But.... well, you're right in all other points (btw. did you get my pm?)

[AMSDOS]

I don't know cause they never ever released those particular machines here in Australia! I doubt that's the problem.

If you look at how the Earlier CPCs were marketed earlier then that maybe a clue why the Plus didn't have the same bite to it. Early CPCs were designed so a whole pile of games could be produced in a short space of time (the Firmware is the secret behind that). Though the Pluses might have missed the boat through their 1990 release date, would have looked better for them if they came out in early 1989 or 1988, might have been a whole different ball game, the price of them might of had some negative impact if they came out them perhaps, though their competitor were 16bit machines like Atari STs and Amiga's. A lot of the games which came out on Cartridge were older CPC games which perhaps a couple of enhancements that the Pluses had.

Another personal view I had about those machines is Amstrad might have done better if they had a 16bit PC component to them. Amstrad clearly at the time were making IBM compatibles, perhaps they should of stuck a CPC Plus instead of Sega Megadrive in their 386 & 486 computers?? Then you could have one machine in the long run doing all the stuff you need and even allowing Internet (which is certainly possible with a 386 or 486). It's all wishful thinking on my part though! 

[dragon]

The ASIC was a problem. Slow, buggy and ill-conceived.
It's the weak point of the CPC+ ... Putting two and you get two weaks points.

I think,the cause is buggy,is a cause of alan sugar.

This paragraph  form arnol v specification issue for me says it all.

"
2.13 Floppy disc data separator Because of timescale pressures, the data separator design in the ASIC will not be improved. Instead all models with disk drives will use an external SED9420 data seperator."

For me this means,Alan sugar ordered the designing of cpc plus,when he saw the sell of 464 and 6128 drops.But,he need go out the new computer console very soon to gain market and compete with the new consoles.

So he put a very constraint time scale project.The paragraph demostrate,That the asic go out to the market.Not is the asic,the enginers want to designing.They no have time to implement the data separator,and maybe they no have time to test the asic 100%.How if they release a beta version(it works,but its  not full tested and finalize,so maybe can be bugs).

Maybe they want add others features,but they go out of time project.

I think alan sugar should have started before the project.Not wait until sales go down.

[ralferoo]

The GX really was way too late ... but people were already talking 16-bit.

I must confess, I'd never even heard of the GX4000 or the CPC plus range until this year. By the time they came out, I'd sold up and bought an Amiga over 12 months earlier, so I'd definitely say they were on the late side.

[MacDeath]

Fact is, instead of doing the "cost down CPC" (but actually margin' UP CPC), Amstrad should have release the PLUS.

[SyX]

I think alan sugar should have started before the project.Not wait until sales go down.

In theory, that was the Arnold Two, but Mr. Sugar stroke again!!! 

In the interview in the wiki a Richard Clayton, he says:

It was a shame not to build the "Ant" -- which was going to be the games machine that shared a lot of hardware design with the PCW ("Joyce"). But we just didn't have the time and effort to do it justice so perhaps it was best that it was cancelled.

[dragon]

About the bugs.Is true you can destroy the asic with software?.

[Bryce]

Such rumours are absolute bullshit. There is definitely no way to destroy an ASIC with software.

Bryce.