Amiga CD32
Commodore had garnered a cult following in the 1980’s with their brilliant line of home computers and games. In the 1990’s however, PC compatibles started
making there way into homes, and began pushing out the Commodore / Amiga line of computers.
Game consoles also started taking over the game player's dollar. Commodore hustled to make a set-top, CDROM-based home entertainment device to compete with this growing market. In 1991, Commodore released CDTV ( basically an Amiga 500 computer with a CDROM drive built in). Needless to say it suffered the similar fates of other similar devices (Bandai Pippin for example).
In 1993, Commodore released their last attempt to get back in the market. The Amiga CD32 was revealed to the public in July of that year. It was the very first 32-Bit video game console ever released on the market. It boasted a dual-speed CDROM drive, AGA chipset, lots of expansion options & even a few surprises. It could run Photo CDs (if you load up a photo CD reader first), Video CDs (if you have the FMV cartridge plugged in) CD32 software, CDTV software, music CDs, Karaoke CDs, and CD+Gs
The Amiga CD32 was released in September of 1993 and sold very well in Europe, but eventual hype of the Saturn and Playstation crushed Commodore’s efforts of a world wide release. Sales of CD32 were not enough to keep the plunging Commodore stock out of the water.
Commodore entered bankruptcy on April 29th 1994. The unshipped Amiga CD32 units were seized by the Philippine government as payment for the use of their factory.
 FACT: The CD32 was
essentially an A1200 computer in videogame console clothing.
|
