Latest Retro Gamer

[AMSDOS]

I'd have to agree with @ralferoo cause time is something I don't have either due to full-time job & sometimes that work eats into my personal space which moves everything else around, sometimes I've got no time to do outdoor stuff because the sun has gone (that's winter for you though - go to work in the dark, come back home in the dark).


I was trying to bridge the two things together (RG & the Internet), by saying RG probably has no reason to publish Programs in their magazine when people can simply post what they want on a Forum for example. I'm more cranky regarding the price, however we're dealing with old computers, so the Advertising must be non existent just about and I guess making an electronic format may lead to Illegal distributions.

[mr_lou]

Absolutely not. A fanzine, maybe, and this would only run for a few issues, far between.

Call it what you will. Fanzine would be acceptable too. As long as it's something people feel like doing (i.e. what they felt / feel RG was missing, or what just generally was missing in the world).
But since it's been a decade since the last CPC Diskmag, and there's currently many other CPC projects alive (like pushnpop.net, cpcwiki.eu, cpc-power.com etc etc) - but no CPC Diskmag - then maybe you're right.
(Although some will probably argue that pushnpop.net is exactly such a Diskmag, except it's alive and online...)

I'm still keeping my fingers crossed that something new will pop up at some time.
I'm hoping for a revival of a CPC Diskmag on the CPC + modern platforms at the same time.
I know someone (I think it was eliot?) was working on an engine. If that project ever sees daylight, then you were wrong, and I'll make you eat your hat. 

[arnoldemu]

I like Retro Gamer and I get it on subscription.

I like to read about other computers too and see homebrew on other platforms. There was an article in this months Retro Gamer about Road Blasters. I loved playing that game in the arcades, so it was good to see the arcade pictures and read about it. I am sure I put £5 into that machine and I think it was 10p a go.

I also really enjoyed the article about the "Gang Of Five". These are the guys who brought us Sorcery and Strangeloop.

I understand completely that Retro Gamer has to be for every platform and give space to other platforms and showcase future classics and retro themed stuff. It tries it's best.

Yes I've noticed there isn't a lot of new Amstrad games. But look about, there isn't a lot of new Amstrad games! We all have lives and the number of people writing Amstrad games is few. If we all had time to dedicate to the Amstrad we would be making more new games. Myself I divide my time between my family, maintenance work on our house and Amstrad.

Now the magazine may not know about all these games, or it may not be able to review all the games in as much depth as it could because it chooses to review games for other machines too. It's a balance.

When I read the articles on the games and I see their review of Amstrad conversions I remember that they're comming it at it from a different angle. They've not necessarily had an Amstrad, they're looking at it purely on a gameplay, graphics and sound criteria - the technical side is not important - the game is, and some of their comments are genuinely accurate.

We of course, love our Amstrads, and we fight for them so our opinions are different.

The other thing about Retro gamer is that it is read by people in other countries AND who owned other computers.

With Retro Gamer, although they have an interest in another computer, they may read the article because it's there in the mag, a fanzine dedicated to Amstrad may not be appealing to them.

A fanzine is a magazine for fans written by the fans and is for a different audience.
Fanzines stop when there is not much to report about, when they have exhausted the existing information and there is not much new information to report.

I can't help with a fanzine because I don't have the time. I will read it however.

[arnoldemu]

Don't forget, in Retro Gamer you can review a game and send in your review. If it's chosen it's printed.
So perhaps try this

[beaker]

Sounds like you're you on their payroll? 

I didn't bother renewing my sub a few months back because it was pretty much all Spectrum and C64 articles, repeated at that, and maybe a few pages on different systems without going into any detail. Has it changed? 

For example, I own an FM Towns Marty, PC Engine, PC-FX and Sega SG-1000 among others and I can't remember in the 3 or 4 years I subscribed to the mag reading anything substantial if at all about any of those  Just endless Ultimate Play the Game articles.

Come to think of it, I don't remember reading much about other classic British systems like the Acorn Electron, BBC Micro, Tatung Einstein and Jupiter Ace etc.

[arnoldemu]

I am sure a few of those have been mentioned in the past few months.

Some appeared in the minority report.

Don't remember einstein being mentioned.

[mr_lou]

Don't forget, in Retro Gamer you can review a game and send in your review. If it's chosen it's printed.
So perhaps try this

That is exactly what TFM suggested, and what spawned this debate. 

[arnoldemu]

That is exactly what TFM suggested, and what spawned this debate. 

Reading his post again, yes this is exactly what he said.
I believe Gryzor misread it and that started the debate.

I have also used the thread to comment on other aspects of it's editorial.

TFM is correct. If we want to see more in Retro Gamer we can write a review of an Amstrad game and submit it as a readers review.

In addition if we have made a game we can tell them about it so that they know about it and review it.

And he is also true, if we don't agree with it, stop reading it as others have done already.

TFM is completely correct in all of this.

[Sykobee (Briggsy)]

I can understand some of the niche machines not getting a lot of coverage.  It's great when they do an article on those bits of hardware of course, although sadly they're lacking on the technical side of things (I have my Advanced Computer Course for the sexy 80's iFixIt teardowns luckily).


Mistakes are also going to happen on the budget that the magazine has.  I appreciate that the people doing the work are doing it also out of love of the old hardware.  Also some of the articles are going to revisit old ground, things they did years ago.



But the CPC sold millions.  And their love is more Speccy/C64 oriented, and the CPC coverage does not reflect the market share.


However, the PCW article is a good thing. Those games looked great, hi-res batman, etc. Well worth covering.  I also note that the PCW sold even more than the CPC, although admittedly it's not Retro-Word-Processor Magazine :p

[beaker]

For sure, it's a commercial venture so I guess they have to sell x number of mags so they play it safe.

I found it a shame that with 100+ pages to fill they can't find 5 or 6 of them to spend on another machine each month and the minority report was normally utter pap. One of the last machines they did cover before I stopped reading it was the 3DO. The images filled up most of the page and too much of the article was given over to the competition around at the time, which fair enough was a reason for its downfall but they managed to focus on that and pad it out for 3 or 4 pages. That and the complacency generating samey articles just left me feeling contempt for the magazine in the end. The other thing that annoyed me was using members posts in the forum for their views on certain news stories. Who gives a shit...

As Arnoldemu suggests, I found they didn't have the balance of the mag right to hold my interest and came to the conclusion I'd rather spend the £70 sub a year on a decent retro machine that would give me more enjoyment and so stopped reading it.

[Carnivius]

For example, I own an FM Towns Marty, PC Engine, PC-FX and Sega SG-1000 among others and I can't remember in the 3 or 4 years I subscribed to the mag reading anything substantial if at all about any of those  Just endless Ultimate Play the Game articles.

I seem to recall a PC Engine feature but can't recall if it was in that or when.  I just remember taking notice of it cos of Parasol Stars I used to play on my uncle's PC Engine before I bought the Amiga version.  And also the PC Engine CD games getting a mention such as Gates of Thunder, Lords of Thunder and Rondo of Blood.

[beaker]

Ah yes, possibly issue 111 (The Lode Runner one). 8 pages (well 7 I guess as one page is just a picture) of large pictures and a little bit of information on the revisions? I should probably read that again as I have the PC Engine and bought a Turbo Duo R a month or 2 back but I didn't realise that first I'd need the arcade card to get the most out of it, and then I found the memory backup in the console is tiny so had to buy a couple of Tennokoe Banks which backs up the saves on the machine to a "chest" on the card allowing you to wipe the one on the machine so it can be reused. Basically a slightly rubbish memory card 

[chinnyhill10]

But the CPC sold millions.  And their love is more Speccy/C64 oriented, and the CPC coverage does not reflect the market share.

Even as a die hard CPC user I know the stats speak for themselves. The CPC was never more than 3rd place in the UK market so its only fair the Spectrum and C64 get more coverage.


A few years ago I pulled up the games sales market share stats for May 1992. Can't remember the source but it looked like this (I had to lift this from a forum I used to post to):


May 1992:


C64 26.1%[
Amiga 19.8%
Spectrum 14.1%
Amstrad CPC 7%
Atari ST 7%
Sega Megadrive 6.4%
Nintendo 3.8%
Sega Gamegear 3.2%
Nintendo Gameboy 2.8%
PC comaptible 1.3%
Atari Lynx 0.7%


The thing to note there is the Spectrum is in free fall from it's longstanding first place and the CPC is about half of what it was at it's peak. Also note I have no idea why the Master System is missing. Possibly a transcription error from wherever I nicked the stats from (sorry can't remember where).

[McKlain]

Still, if you want to live up to your name (Retro Gamer) you can't just talk about the same things over and over again for years, while there is so much stuff out there you haven't even mentioned.

[ivarf]

Even as a die hard CPC user I know the stats speak for themselves. The CPC was never more than 3rd place in the UK market so its only fair the Spectrum and C64 get more coverage.


A few years ago I pulled up the games sales market share stats for May 1992. Can't remember the source but it looked like this (I had to lift this from a forum I used to post to):


May 1992:


C64 26.1%[
Amiga 19.8%
Spectrum 14.1%
Amstrad CPC 7%
Atari ST 7%
Sega Megadrive 6.4%
Nintendo 3.8%
Sega Gamegear 3.2%
Nintendo Gameboy 2.8%
PC comaptible 1.3%
Atari Lynx 0.7%


The thing to note there is the Spectrum is in free fall from it's longstanding first place and the CPC is about half of what it was at it's peak. Also note I have no idea why the Master System is missing. Possibly a transcription error from wherever I nicked the stats from (sorry can't remember where).

I think I at some point found that article in a magazine and posted it somewhere.
I found it quite impressive that the Amstrad CPC in 1992! sold more games than the

Atari ST 7%
Sega Megadrive 6.4%
Nintendo 3.8%
Sega Gamegear 3.2%
Nintendo Gameboy 2.8%
PC comaptible 1.3%
Atari Lynx 0.7%

[beaker]

Yeah, it's weird, it was around that time that the major publishers were pulling out/had pulled out of the CPC market wasn't it?
But this suggests it was still dominated by the 8-bit machines.
I suppose even with a smaller share, the profit margin on the consoles must have justified the move... 

[remax]

Yeah, it's weird, it was around that time that the major publishers were pulling out/had pulled out of the CPC market wasn't it?
But this suggests it was still dominated by the 8-bit machines.
I suppose even with a smaller share, the profit margin on the consoles must have justified the move... 

Remember the price of a console game (around 70€, without taking care of inflation) and the fact that i couldn't be hacked (well, in the firsts times)...

Yes i think they made way more money, event with all the extra costs on a cartdridge game

[arnoldemu]

I suppose even with a smaller share, the profit margin on the consoles must have justified the move... 

These are my ideas why they moved to console and away from 8-bits etc:
1. Pirating console games was hard - copying ROMs for example. So less money was lost to that.
2. The consoles were more global - they existed in more countries. So more potential money if it was sold in every territory.
3. Consoles had more power.

So there is a larger share for consoles if you consider other territories, although the share per unit may not have been as big as for 8-bits/16-bits.
But with less pirating they were "guaranteed" more money back.

[Sykobee (Briggsy)]

I found it quite impressive that the Amstrad CPC in 1992! sold more games than the

Atari ST 7%
Sega Megadrive 6.4%
...

Admittedly budget CPC games were easily available on tapes from even newsagents at the time, and cost £1.99 to £3.99 usually. I remember buying these frequently, but when I got an Amiga my game buying rate dropped massively (and game piracy rate increased...).  ST games were £20, Amiga £25 - that's a lot of pocket money.


Of course, the Speccy game buyers had to wait for the TV to become free... :p

[chinnyhill10]

Remember the price of a console game (around 70€, without taking care of inflation) and the fact that i couldn't be hacked (well, in the firsts times)...

Yes i think they made way more money, event with all the extra costs on a cartdridge game

Market share means nothing. To paraphrase Alan Sugar I could have all the market share of thimble holders but it wouldn't make me any money".


Profit margins on the 16 bit games were higher, the consoles even more so. Remember when WH Smiths ditched all home computer games in favour of console games? Rumoured to have happened as not were the margins far far higher, but returns were negligible and smaller stock space was needed. What it all added up to was less sales for the home computers.


When the vast majority of sales for 8 bit software was budget you can soon work out that the market share figures were completely pointless.


However from OUR point of view they give a snapshot in time of what percentage of games players were on which format. That is the interesting statistic.

[ivarf]

However from OUR point of view they give a snapshot in time of what percentage of games players were on which format. That is the interesting statistic.

For me its pretty amazing, that an 8-bit computer that was not produced anymore, still had a so loyal following. I thought I was very late, when I bought my next computer in 1990, a 286-16 MHz with 40 MB harddrive and VGA. That was a lowspec PC at the time, still I paid £1000 for it and thought I had got it cheap.


I have always assumed that most of us stopped buying new games after having owned the machine for a few years. There were a few good fullprice titles released in 1992, but they didn't sell well.


7% is a high number. Did the piracy among CPC-users stop in its evening years? Could that explain the late but huge marketshare?

[Carnivius]

7% is a high number. Did the piracy among CPC-users stop in its evening years? Could that explain the late but huge marketshare?

I didn't even know what piracy was then.  Most of my tapes were originals.  I think only had Roland Ahoy and Roland Goes Digging as a copied tape I got off a friend.  Same tape with each game on either side.   

[beaker]

Did the piracy among CPC-users stop in its evening years? Could that explain the late but huge marketshare?

I think so, By that time my friends had moved onto other machines and I had most of their software collection 
I was still using  my CPC until about 1994/5 when I switched to a 486 and then a PS2 a year or 2 later. The last full priced games I had were Terminator 2 and Lemmings around that time but I was mostly buying budget games like Stryker and the Crypts of Trojan, Steg the Slug and Ocean re-releases like Addams Family. Later on the last place I could get them in the end were in market stalls and using the Duplicator machine in Menzies that used to be downstairs in the Dolphin Center in Poole. That was a great machine, you had a massive CPC library from memory and so weren't restricted to whatever other shops like W H Smiths decided to stock.

[sigh]

Well - here is a new site whose sole purpose is to cover all the 8 bit machines:


un8bg


It's really nice to see some MSX stuff in there too. The new Uridium remake looks fantastic!

[McKlain]

I was still using  my CPC until about 1994/5 when I switched to a 486 and then a PS2 a year or 2 later.

Do you mean an IBM PS/2?