• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

Commodore brand poised for a comeback?

S

shirkahn

Experienced Member
Joined
Oct 28, 2003
Messages
64
Location
Tulsa, OK
Found this one while catching up on Slashdot from bed this evening (damn I love my Jornada 720!)
It seems that someone has the idea to bring back the Commodore brand name for a new line of products.
Full details at:
http://news.com.com/Is+Commodore+poised+for+a+comeback/2100-1041_3-5998732.html?tag=nefd.lede
If the link goes dead, someone let me know and I'll repost my archived copy.

This somehow feels like Chryslers choice to bring back the Magnum for the Dodge line. My first car was a '79 Magnum and the only thing the new one shares with its ancestor is the ability to suck down gallons of gas in the wink of an eye. With that in mind, I can only imagine how the new brand-name owner is going to taint and besmirch the original.

Now creating a home-media PC in the style of a PET... that might be kind of spiffy.

-Kahn
 
Well, it kinda IS back:

http://www.gadgets.co.uk/buy-gadgets/item/COMD64/GAMES/Commodore-64-Direct-to-TV-(US-Version).html

For the rest, the Dutch company uses the brand for MP3 players and the like.. which they dare to name e-Vic, m-Pet and f-Pet :angry:
 
I kinda got a twinge when I read about the new names, too. I know every C-head has said "I wish they would..." but I have to say it. I'd love to see a commodore made at least similar to the original 64.

About them using the names, they have to have a money maker I guess. mp3 players are kind of a hot item right now.

I could have swore that Jeri Ellsworth and Jens Shoefield (I probably misspelled them) had something to do with the DTV64. I thought it was *their* baby.
 
Jeri is the woman who developed the C64DTV. Dunno about if Jens was involved, but there was an additional team of software developers and testers. Then Tulip (and now Yeahronimo) endorsed the product, found Mammoth Toys (in .. Hong Kong?) who were able to mass-produce the unit and distribute it around the world.

I'm also much pissed about mPET, eVIC and other stupid product names. I have written a long rant twice in other forums, one as late as yesterday reacting to the same article as mentioned here. To sum it up, here are my points:

* Commodore never was a gaming brand. The games were made despite, not thanks to Commodore's own viewpoints.
* The small amount of own software Commodore made early on consisted of barely legal coin-op clones, some which they had to withdraw. That software library would be hard to sell from even today.
* Everyone who have owned the Commodore brand since the breakdown in 1994 have spoken big words, but in the end seems to do nothing. At best, they express a combination of concern and threat to existing users.
* The few Commodore related products that may appear and be sold under the C= name and license are mainly enthusiasts' projects, rather than something revolutionary developed inhouse.

Until Yeahronimo shows that they care about the remaining fans, work towards getting revenue from loyalty rather than threat and in the end can offer some quality C= related products (hard- or software), I won't hold my breath. For example, if they figured out that people would want to hack their DTV's (which onboard has more features than it shows), they would not let Mammoth cripple it through cost reduction, but rather plan for new devices, like an IEC compatible smart card drive which would also be compatible with old C64:s and much more. Similar items already exist on the 3rd party market, but it would be more apparent if the Commodore brand itself offered such solutions.
 
from what i've heard a new third party generation of amigas is being built called amigaone, they are based off IBM's powerpc platform and are compatible with Mac's.
 
Amiga One has been in development for at least a half, if not a whole decade. In the recent years, a hardware spec has been finalized so computers can be built and the AmigaOS 4 running. Of course it is on the level of a hobbyist project, even if Amiga Inc is a company.
 
Heh. AnythingAmiga, a reseller of Eyetech AmigaOne, reported a few days ago that they would get the 933 MHz model by the summer. Only a few days later, they declined this news item as someone in the web department had accidentally (?!) put out false information. There is no such thing as a 933 MHz AmigaOne available for delivery.

OTOH, AmigaOS 4 PR-Update 4 was released yesterday. I'm not sure which kind of hardware it is supposed to run on, since all the supported hardware options seem to be out of stock. A working AmigaOne might be collectable already.. :roll:
 
NathanAllan said:
I could have swore that Jeri Ellsworth and Jens Shoefield (I probably misspelled them) had something to do with the DTV64. I thought it was *their* baby.
Click to expand...
Jens Schoenfeld had no involvement in the production of the C64 DTV 30-games-in-one joystick.

Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commdore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top