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Failed consoles of yesteryear (pre-Playstation)

editor

editor

hiraethified
Crispy said:
fingers crossed. but the signs are not good, last time I read about Palm.
Click to expand...
They seem to have copied their business plan from Commodore:

1. create fantastic, ground-breaking product way ahead of the competition
2. keep fucking about with buyouts, buy-ins and pointless rebranding while competitors nick your ideas
3. Create a product so far ahead of its time no one gets it (Commodore CD32/Palm Foleo)
4. Stretch the patience of your loyal users to breaking point
 
editor said:
What else was there at the time?
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Nothing, it was the first CD console to market. It was shit though. Playstation came out 1 year later and wiped the floor.
 
editor said:
What else was there at the time?
Click to expand...

3D0 and I'm sure there was also a PC Engine console that had a CD Rom drive at around the same time with a similar spec.

I actually used to have a 3D0, it was pretty good.
 
The 3DO came out literally about a month or 2 after (October 1993). The games where 100 times better than anything on the CD32.

It was a great console, but the Playstation killed it.
 
editor said:
What else was there at the time?
Click to expand...

The Jaguar and the 3DO were out within months of it. Within a year the Playstation was out too. Hardly some ahead of it's time machine. The CD32 was a joke of a console that was a desperate attempt to stay relevant in the (at the time) looming console war. Me and my mates were all Amiga fanboys at the time and even we couldn't be convinced about it. One friend bought it and sold it within a week after playing its 'games'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_CD32

Heh thinking back to those duff consoles/machines, anyone remember the Philips CDi?:D
 
All it was, was a Amiga 1200 with a CD drive and a slightly different kickstart rom.

That was it, hardly ground breaking in the scheme of things.

CDTV was more ground breaking :D
 
Kid_Eternity said:
The Jaguar and the 3DO were out within months of it. Within a year the Playstation was out too. Hardly some ahead of it's time machine.
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But it was still ahead of everyone else.

May I suggest we start a new thread if we wish to go on about Ye Olde Consoles?
 
Dask said:
All it was, was a Amiga 1200 with a CD drive and a slightly different kickstart rom.

That was it, hardly ground breaking in the scheme of things.

CDTV was more ground breaking :D
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That was just an Amiga 500 wasn't it?
 
Crispy said:
That was just an Amiga 500 wasn't it?
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Yeah it was, s basically the precursor to the CD32, but it was essentially the same idea of taking one of their computers and trying to make a "console" out of it.

@ Editor, the only reason it came out first was that they rushed it to the market without having a decent catalogue of games or software.

It was doomed to failure from the very start, which was a shame because I used to love the my old Amiga, and that thing probably help cause commodore's demise.

Edited a little - not offtopic now! - Crispy
 
editor said:
But it was still ahead of everyone else.
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By a few months, and it wasn't all that. Back to your point comparing it to the Foleo (odd comparison to my mind) there wasn't anything to 'get'. It was just a cobbled together attempt to stay relevant in a console war they had no chance of winning (infact they'd already lost it by then).
 
Oh look! A new thread that I, err, didn't start!

Anyway, now that the thread's here, I'm not going to ague that the CD32 wasn't deeply duff and the platform ultimately a failure, but according to Wikipedia it did manage to secure over 50% of the CD-ROM market in the UK in 1993 and 1994, and outsold the MegaCD, Philips CDi and even PC CD-ROM sales.

Not bad for a flop!
 
I'm not doing that again. Forking threads is more trouble than it's worth!
 
editor said:
Oh look! A new thread that I, err, didn't start!

Anyway, now that the thread's here, I'm not going to ague that the CD32 wasn't a deeply duff and the platform ultimately a failure, but according to Wikipedia it did manage to secure over 50% of the CD-ROM market in the UK in 1993 and 1994, and outsold the MegaCD, Philips CDi and even PC CD-ROM sales.

Not bad for a flop!
Click to expand...

And where was it a year later? Or the year after that? However you measure its 'success' it still was a desperate move doomed to fail (all those poor bastards that wasted their money on it...).
 
*buries whole episode at the bottom of an old mine, fills it up with molten lead, locks the door and puts superglue in the lock*
 
This wikipedia page is pretty good

One console which I think was tragically missing from the UK market was the PC Engine.

I was lucky enough to get a PC Engine GT Handheld when I went to Hong Kong in 1993, it cost about £45. I remember seeing places selling them for £250 in the UK.

Probably the best cross section of games available on any console at the time and much better graphics than either NES or Master System, arguably better than Megadrive graphics too.
 
PC Engine = NEO GEO to the rest of us. Snes had better graphics, but the NEO GEO had that need thing where you could take your save games to the arcade on a memory card.
 
editor said:
it did manage to secure over 50% of the CD-ROM market
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50% of fuck all is still fuck all!

Seriously though,it was a funky little machine, but consoles are ALL ABOUT THE GAMES. There was a serious lack of decent AGA games out for the 1200 at the time, all of which were simply burnt on to CD and flogged as CD32 games.

Zool was never anywhere near as good as Super Mario or Sonic, whatever Amiga Power said, so playing it in 256 colours made no difference to its sales.

All the other software available was infotainment or multimedia educational software, which worked better with a keyboard and mouse anyway.
 
Crispy said:
PC Engine = NEO GEO to the rest of us. Snes had better graphics, but the NEO GEO had that need thing where you could take your save games to the arcade on a memory card.
Click to expand...

Pc Engine is not a Neo Geo! they are 2 completely separate systems.
 
Dask said:
Pc Engine is not a Neo Geo! they are 2 completely separate systems.
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Yep and trust me the SNES never had better graphics than the hyper pricey Neo Geo (£200 a game!)!
 
I've still got a CD32 wired up to my telly :eek: I keep thinking of making some sort of retro games box out of it with a big hdd and some mame action :)
 
There's also the GS64... It was the console version of the C64 but without the keyboard...
 
jæd said:
There's also the GS64... It was the console version of the C64 but without the keyboard...
Click to expand...


Yeah, one of these

250px-Commodore_64_GS.jpg


I used to have one, the games that came with it were quite good actually.

Flimbo's quest, Microprose soccer and the almighty Fiendish Freddy's Big Top O' Fun :D
 
Smoky said:
Yeah, one of these

250px-Commodore_64_GS.jpg


I used to have one, the games that came with it were quite good actually.

Flimbo's quest, Microprose soccer and the almighty Fiendish Freddy's Big Top O' Fun :D
Click to expand...

That was an easy one for commodore to do as the C64 had a cartridge port already, didn't it?
 
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