Third VideoGame Generation Recap - Amstrad GX 4000 - Adam Koralik
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 พ.ย. 2016
- www.patreon.com/AdamKoralik?ty=h
www.figureitoutproductions.com
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This is a discussion topic video about the third generation of videogame consoles. This will be part five of my five part mini-series. This will be a video about the European exclusive, Amstrad GX-4000.
Hope you like it! - เกม
Fun story: When my brother and I were kids we ask our parents to buy a play station, but they didn't want to. What they did was they went to a garage sell and fund the Amstrad GX 4000, bought it with a few games. When they came back we were so happy to finally have a console. We actually played the Amstrad play station for a few years, until we realized what a play station actually looked like..
Anyone else binge watching adams console generation recaps?
I'm ALWAYS binge-watching Adam's console generation recaps!
Me always
Great to watch at work. Started taking over reddit thread narrations.
Only after binge watching the obscure varients video
US Gold was called that despite not being American because it's original purpose was to publish American games in Europe.
Terrible ports of American games 🎮
You know you're in for some good stuff when Adam decides to crack open a whole other console generation. Can't wait to see this along with the rest of the third gen videos :D
Thanks, but this is just being inserted into the pre-existing generation videos.
I was a kid really into games in the 80s and 90s in the UK and I never heard of this console until there was a massive pyramid of them heavily discounted in a garden centre my parents dragged me to. I remember it was this because of the distinctive shape but I then forgot about it again for many years.
You had me at “A bearded American discusses an obscure European console” 🤣
Very interesting to see you talk about this Adam, as an Amstrad CPC owner in the 80's it is nice to see this across the pond, nice vid, and keep up the good work.
Thanks for watching!
I liked the look of the AMstrad CPC back then.
If you ever want to know more about British gaming culture then watch Kim Justice or Nostalgia Nerd, they have a tonne of documentaries.
Hey Adam I love the fan service thanks for doing the generation videos for us.
Thanks for watching!
AdamKoralik Hey, I know this isn't relevant to the video, but will you do a video on the Dreamcast DreamPi product ?
lol most people here in England hadn't heard of it either!
Very few places stocked it and there was almost no advertising for it at all.
I owned an Amstrad CPC 464 and games were still being made for it well after the Gx4000 and the cart format was a forgotten memory. A few games trickled out in 1993.
I own one now and it's interesting to play these plus games (some are pretty good) but it just wasn't worth it at the time. Even for Amstrad people.
I had the 464plus which could take these carts but never ever saw one.
Man! This guy in the video has a bad case of verbal dioreaha.
Has it ever occurred to you that people don't watch 30 minute videos on TH-cam of a guy talking.....and NOTHING ELSE?
What you said could have been said in a quarter of the time and 100% more interesting.
For what it's worth, The guy who ran Amstrad was a Cockney barrow boy type who somehow got rich knocking out tat.
We're all aware of him in the U.K and if you don't know Alan Sugar's persona then imagine a really, really grumpy Donald Trump.....With a beard.
@@robertmcmillan3638 then watch something else. Adam does a very good job in my opinion.
@@ronpowell9461 Oh don't worry, I've been watching many, many interesting videos over the last 5 months since my last comment here.
Still doesn't change the fact that this video is sub par.
So is the console.
You were right. US Gold were a UK publisher who specialised in porting American games to British home computers. Amstrad on the other hand were founded by Alan Sugar. AMS being his initials and TRAD being short for trading. He also appeared in the UK version of The Apprentice.
The Amiga and Atari ST were already out as 'games machines' way before 16 bit consoles. Amstrad were just trying to update their own line of machines with the GX4000. The console was one of three machines they released in 1990. But It is basically 1984 Amstrad cpc technology with an additional asic chip to add sprites, scrolling and colours. The older Amstrad cpc hardware relied competely on the CPU to do sprites and scrolling. If you ever try out Batman, thats actually an older Amstrad cpc game with only a new title screen. Still pretty good though.
just guessing, the mute button on the back might be to mute the sound signal to the TV if you are choosing to run sound through the stereo jack in the front. that way you don't have two noise sources. I dunno, never heard of this thing. you may press mute and it mutes the front stereo jack which, like you said, is very weird. most tvs have a way to mute themselves.
I was just going to say the same thing.
I had a friend with one, the mute switch only muted the audio on the scart connector (and I assume the RF too), so when you had it plugged into an amp (via the jack on the front) audio did not come out the TV as well. It was rather handy as you did not have to keep muting and un-muting as you switched between the console and regular tv.
I had this system as a child. My dad worked in a company that would organize a Christmas event every year. Usually it would consist in going to the circus and getting a goody bag. I got this console. This was post Mega-drive release. Every kid had one and I was stuck with this.
I am Portuguese and games were very hard to get. I would have to go to this one store in a different city to get a game.
I remember owning Burnin' rubber, a Robocop game, a Tennis game and probably 2 or 3 more.
Very cool!
Cool?...Cool?.
If I was Joe Grumpy, I'd be grumpy too.
All the other kids had Megadrive or SNES and probably swapping games.
This guy had this?
Man, it's true what people say, when you think lifes bad ,there's always someone worse off.
Pause Button and Mute Switch on the console. Bear in mind, most of us during that time played video games with family members and our friends during the 80's and 90's (compare to today where everyone meets online). So it was easy to 'Pause' your game during that era, you've simply ask someone playing with you do press it. I know because that's what we did with the Sega Master System. www.RetroGamersHub.com
As for the Mute Switch, not everyone had a remote tv control with their television. Game console should be closer than the TV set. Also, you could leave your console ON, pause your game, mute it (since some audio waves or background music could still played out of the audio-jack), watch some TV and get back to your game later.
I've literally sat and watched your videos for 5hours straight, amazing channel, great videos, really informative.
+FunnyTummyART Thanks!
Thank you for another great history lesson Adam, it is always pleasure to see these recap series.
Thanks for watching!
Good to see that you re always bringing the business side view, the market strategy of the manufacturer,
Thanks for the video. Greetings from Greece!
Adam, thanks for doing these videos, there's a lot of history here and valuable info.
Thanks for watching!
Oh man, another recap! Always glad to have more of these, man. Maybe one day, we'll get this current generation's recap. Or a 2nd gen recap. Microcomputer recap? Handheld generations recap? Man, so much potential, if you have the time / energy / interest.
I would call this video a insightful and througout article about the console, really interesting and it makes me want to find more about it. I love your commentaries also, I have no idea about the european console market, specially back then. Thanks!
If Adam talked about the Armstrad GX4000 then he definitely can make a video about ZEEBO
I don't know why but I really enjoy when you tell stories and the history of something.
Appreciated.
Excellent video Adam. Pretty much bang on with the details. 👍
Great little console, I had one as a kid growing up in the uk. Many hours spent burnin runner!
I actually remember when that system was announced! But then heard it would be European only. But i now know more about it than i ever had. You always do great vids. Keep up the good work!
I love your videos. Keep up the good work.
Finaly after asking in 3 or 4 videos you did it dude awesome video
Fantastic video! And thanks for showing that voltage step down converter! Amazon has it, and it's not expensive. There is a great book called "Ocean The History", by Chris Wilkins, and it really gave me a great picture of what gaming was like in the UK, in the 1980s and early 1990s. You can buy it in physical form, or iBooks has it digitally. The iBooks version is what I have, and what's cool about it is that there are gameplay videos in some of the pages. Great stuff!
Happy to help! Thanks for the suggestion.
cool video tech talk adam
Awesome video Adam!
Thanks!
Dude how do you not have more subscribers and videos man!? Like fo real! Always, love your vids man :)
Thanks!
Are you getting the Nintendo Switch when it comes out or are you going to wait a year?
Because if all his videos are like this? He's a very boring man.
My PAL Megadrive came with two control pads as standard. Excellent video, btw, well researched.
Thanks.
Cool look at such a rare console. That burnin rubber looks quite nice as a 8-bit racer, almost touching 16-bit visuals imo.
I love watching your recaps! This system in particular has always interested me, but being as I'm in Canada I've never bothered importing one haha
Thanks for watching!
I have no idea this existed, I like it it has a cool desing for me
Woooooo like #1,000 *dance dance*
Loved this whole series, binge watching all of them.
Nice i now need this in my collection
Nice to see another GX video, and I thought me and Xyphoe were the only youtubers that focus on it. Adam, you could have tapped me up for info dude.
Theres lots of youtubers who've covered it???
Cursai Yeah, a few have true. I was being a little factious. lol
The word you're looking for is facetious.
Great to see another one of these videos These are the videos I enjoy the most. Although you have basically covered all the platforms now, i'd love to see more of these style vids on systems that didn't get released. For example the konix multi system or the sega neptune?
I love your generation videos
Thanks!
Love your videos man! Very cool. You are very knowledgeable! Just in case no one else said anything, Super Nintendo came with two controllers at launch.
Thanks!
It wasn't released in *Fall*, it was released in *Autumn*.
jimjim150 😂😂😂😂
@William Burns the West end wendies of hipster land would say "brunch".
Because the pcb is a modified off a cpc board, it still has the keyboard mapping. the pause button is mapped to P, with other keys disconnected. Tennis Cup 2 supports the analog stick I think. The light gun was released as the Phaser, a modified Magnum spectrum gun, packaged with 2 games. it's a rare package.
Cool and interesting vid, thanks!!!!
Woooooooooooohooooooooo been waiting for this for ages!
Love your videos and channel you deserve more views,likes and subscriptions
+Mettaton Thanks!
No probs man keep doing what your doing you make great and interesting content
Yay, another recap!
I'm basically a walking encyclopedia about old game consoles and I've never even heard about this one. Wow.
I really like the design of the console. Reminds me of the Jaguar aesthetically. They both look like spaceships!
By the way, I think the switch on the back was to disable audio out of the rear (via Scart etc) only, so that you could output sound via the front 3.5mm audio jack to a ddedicated Hi-Fi Stereo. It would save muting and unmuting the TV when moving between games and watching TV.
If that had been 16 bit it just might of done well. Interesting video, enjoyed it.
I have a GX4000 too. Bought it last year. Very hard to get games for it though. I only have four... World of Sports, Burning Rubber, Robocop 2 and Switchblade.
Aesthetically beautiful console.
What do you mean the RF and composite won't work on your NTSC televisions? Most modern televisions have the option for tuning to either PAL or NTSC stations, and even a few DVD recorders from the 90s and 2000s had that option. I have two Panasonic VHS/DVD combo units and one Panasonic DVD/HDD recorder, all three of them have the option to select between PAL and NTSC. Before switching to SCART and S-video to HDMI upscalers with automatic region detectors, I had them plugged into the AV inputs on my recorders and then go into the settings and change from PAL to NTSC whenever I wanted to play an NTSC game.
I was born and grew up in the UK, and I have never heard of the GX4000 to be honest. I have heard of Amstrad, but I didn't know they had a console out too...
Interesting =)
nice t-shirt! Compatible with the video :P
I had this when I was a kid and remember I could never find any games for it. That totally bummed me out. I remember playing a diving game and that's it. Wished there was more games for it.
Living in the UK during that time. I can only recall one person having this. He only had 2 games and was that type of kid that always wanted what the other kids didn't have. He also had the Amstrad Mega PC. The hybrid Amstrad CPC that could play Mega Drive cartridges ...now that was bad ass.
Yeah. I'm amazed that hipster, retro collector's aren't going hyperbolic, ape shit over this console.
But I assume there is a line that even hipsters won't cross.
I'd forgotten about that hybrid!
love your stories, love when you tell a piece of you childhood xD!
edit: this video doesn't have a story from your childhood :(
I've heard and read about amstrad computers back in the day, didn't know about the console though.
thanks for showing footage of that game. BTW you need to still show us footage of that one super rare og xbox game from Singapore, I'd love to see it since the only footage that exists seems to be the PC version.
Just want to make a quick point about the mute button. In 1990 there were lots of TV's still knocking about without remote controls. So to mute the sound TV you would have to have literally turn the volume down on many TV's.
Adam, in the U.K. consoles always came with two controllers until I think the PS2. But my NES, MEGA DRIVE & PS1 came with two controllers in the box with the console.
Stores of unsold systems also happened to the NTSC Amiga CD32 being found in the late 00's. Any NTSC CD32 unit you buy probably came from them being found in a storage and subsequently sold online over the following years.
That's a cool looking console!
Well you'll be disappointed if you ever see games run on it. It's shocking even by 8-bit standards.
@@robertmcmillan3638 Really? I guess it would look good on a shelf though.
@@jeff97ish Just Google for best Amstrad GX4000 games, etc.
It's the nearest people will get (or want to get?) to seeing them run.
@@robertmcmillan3638 ok, thanks!
Hey Adam, it's Adam here....going on about the 2 controller thing my megadrive (your genesis) came with 2 controllers straight out of the box.
I'm from the UK, I was around when this thing was out. And it passed us by completely, I only learned of its existence from the internet. I think the biggest reason why it failed was simply that the UK was not a console market, until the arrival of Super Nintendo in 1992. That's not to say that consoles weren't a thing at all here, but it was by far not the dominant force of UK gaming. Micro computers were the powerhouse, due to the low cost of software. It was all about price, for us. Cassette was king. Cassette games typically retailed at £1.99, which I guess would convert to around $3 US at that time. And although the hardware was very old by 1990, it persisted to be enormously popular. The Amstrad GX4000 would have had significant hurtles to leap, to even get a foothold in the market. It would have to rival rock bottom micro software prices, micro hardware specs, and also the big players of the console scene. The Amstrad offered nothing to nobody. And we were not hoodwinked by companies trying their luck at repackaging an existing micro into a console casing. It was a nice try, but an Amstrad console of any kind was never going to get a foothold here. There was never a gap in the market for it.
i have always disputed the official release numbers for this unit, maybe there was a warehouse full of these things that were liquidated after its official end, all i know is these units are way more common than they should be based on the "official" numbers.
forget ebay if you want one in the uk your local carboot sale(swapmeet) is they place to go, every carboot iv'e been to recently had one mainly in the box too, the last one i went to there were three all on different stalls, one had games with it, there is an everdrive for this but they are built to order, ebay and those retro maker sites that sell custom built interfaces and leads sell them, you can get a massive library of games this way by running cpc464 and 128 version games.
I remember as a kid getting a Nintendo 64 for Christmas and it came with 2 controllers in the box from the factory. The standard gray one and the translucent purple. No idea if that was the last one though.
That was bundled in later, wasn't standard to do that.
Good point, and great video!
The C4CPC is the primary and available flash cart, comes with all the game roms and converters cpc games. People have made open boards with rom chip swaps, but these are dubious.
I like the idea of a console being powered by the TV...
Hi, just want to point out the plus models were essentially the CPC's with the GX4000 built in. The carts were interchangeable. So the GX4000 was essentially a stripped down version of the plus models.
I think that mute switch is there because the board had it on that side so the engineers probably just took advantage of it and thought 'sure lets just stick a button here'.
I have the UK PAL Green Xbox, this too came with 2x Xbox Controller S in matching transparent green, but I agree, it's very unusual for a console to be packaged with more than 1 controller.
philipbain the Xbox 360 elite was bundled with two controllers when it first came out
The GX has 2 machines to which it can be compared to. Firstly, the C64GS. This was basically a keyboardless C64, no enhancements at all and used the C64 carts. But they were mostly unplayable because many C64 games require a keypress to start or change settings. The other could be the PC Engine/Turbografx. Now, of course the PCE was vastly superior, but it has similar hardware capability aside from the 16 bit graphics chip. If more effort was made with the vast majority of GX games, it could produce some awesome stuff. Robocop, Pang and a few others show a glimpse of this potential
Novabug lol the c64gs sounds like a disaster
Squigin it was, sells for a ton of cash now though due to it's collectabilty
Novabug yeah it sounds like something that they probably only sold like 20 of lol.
I think GX can be compared to C64GS and Atari XEGS in terms of business philosophy: just take a computer and fiddle with it to make it into a console. Then, don't develop any quality first party titles like Nintendo, Sega, and Hudson, and hope and pray some 3rd party developer will make their killer app for them. All the companies that went belly up had that in common... Atari, Sinclair, Amstrad, Commodore all were, in the end, hardware merchants who did not invest in developing quality first party titles. No Zelda, no Sonic, no Bonk. Their core business was selling computers driven by software piracy. So in addition to lacking quality first party titles, major developers like Capcom and Konami willingly signed away their freedom and souls to Nintendo to live under the protection of 10NES chip. I remember reading Alan Sugar or some Amstrad executive claiming that GX was at least a SNES in terms of capability. But all I see is less than a PC-Engine gameplay on their paltry release of 20 or so games.
@@bobjones27 Yes that's more accurate. I don't see the Amstrad next to the PC Engine at all. People were salivating over the PC Engine back in the late 80s.
having the pause button on the console had 2 reasons: people used to play close to the TV back then so it was within reach and as consoles back then paused the game by actually pausing the CPU, more like a hardware based pause unlike most consoles that use a software loop to pause the game
I know that Sinclair, the business bought out by Amstrad, designed case before the innards, but my recollection was that Alan Sugar was more interested in mass market low-cost utilitarian devices and getting them into as many homes as possible. Which is why he built a cassette deck into the ZX Spectrum +2. Although someone prove me wrong?
the switch mutes the mono audio sent with the video signal, when you flick that switch you can put a normal stereo jack lead in the front and get your audio in stereo from you hifi etc.
I played North and South a lot on the Amstrad
Nice t-shirt. Also, I absolutely love this series. when will you do the second generation? I would love to see it.
Also, Did you know that amstrad was founded by somebody called lord Sugar? he hosts the apprentice.
Thanks, eventually.
Awesome video like always. I like to point out that Commodore was not European, its founder Jack Tramiel was Polish but the company was found in Canada although Commodores computers were highly popular in Europe. Again thanks for the video, never heard about Amstrad home console before, cool.
as far as the games go, around half of the official games were 'old' cpc ports. I have a comparison series highlighting these games.
I'd recommend checking out a documentary called 'From bedrooms to billions: the rise of the British games industry' it will give you a great insight into companies like US Gold and Ocean. It's quite funny also sad at times but thoroughly enjoyable. I know it is on Netflix in UK hopefully it is all over. Thank you as well for continuing this series, i really find them an enjoyable insight into the past.
I've not heard of that, sounds good!
@@Halbared yeah they followed it up with one specifically about the Amiga.
I've always wondered why this console is classed as third generation despite being released after the MegaDrive and PC-Engine.
Would love too see some more of ur recaps for non American release only consoles. I've really would every console recap you've done so far snd the land of youtube is in dire need of more obscure console reviews like these. was also wondering if u ever plan on taking these recaps a step back in time, I've always been interested in the many many console that were released before the NES days OTHER THEN THE DAM 2600. leave it too 3/4s of the gaming scene and the inky console to every exist before the NES days were the the 2600 and Pong, which we know is so very wrong. have always wanted to watch and learn more about the earliest gen home consoles as I intend on adding a few ro my collection in the years to come. keep up the awaome videos bro have been a fan of ur channel for years and you never disappoint !!! Catch ya later brother
From my research the SNES in North America at least did come with two controllers standard.
I'm 1990 a lot of people still had TVs from the early 80s without remotes so I guess having the sound button makes sense. as for the pause button I guess they just thought it was a cool design at the time.
Was the mute switch on the back maybe designed with retail displays in mind? If you wanted to setup the system as a demo unit you could mute it so it isn't annoying in the store? It would still be easier to just mute the tv, so that doesn't really make sense either.
Dixon’s were first to price crash this to £:30 , .sold out in stores in a few hours , I read about it in an old mag called computer x , anyone remember it? It was like a small newspaper priced about 70p out weekly
Hey Adam, I know this vid is old now but, I've also found the console pause button to be an oddity as well and the most logical thought I could come up with was that the on-console power buttons were most likely minute marketing strategies towards parents so that they could be in control of the pause play button and could pause the system and tell little Jimmy to go finish his homework. The mute switch on the system could have been the same idea. The parent could have control over the volume if they were trying to have a conversation on the phone or whatever. This has never been confirmed or researched but unless someone can provide a more reasonable purpose for these, you can't convince me educated engineers added this button for any other logical reason. Just food for thought
that suitcase has been on some journeys.. i'd love to see a GPS history of it since it was first made, probably in the 70s? it was P.I.M.P. anyway.
maybe the pause button on the console is to stop kids getting too lazy with them vidyamagames.. they have to scramble across to pause.. keep em from seizing up! genius.
Yeah, that'd be amazing.
Oh, so the guy takes the Mike Kennedy, "Create the shell first" approach to designing a console. That being said, I do really like the styling of this system, and it does look a lot like a spaceship. It's a shame that it didn't come out a few years earlier.
i LOL'd for real when you talking about how they designed it as a space ship haha
I heard that if you unplug the console while it’s on it can fry the console board, I think it says that on the plug for the system
I know you will start to play this nightly.
It basically is my current life.
The story of consolized computers reminds me of the Commodore CD32 or this early Apple/Bandai thing which were both essentially an Amiga1000 (possibly a 1000) and some more advanced Macintosh of that time.
If these things have anything in common then that these are nothing more than collector pieces today.
Oh and also nice input on why US/Can prices for stuff are usually lower than European ones.
CD32 was an Amiga 1200
Commodore was American, although it was popular in Europe, and the two console models were both sold only in Europe.
Actually, we're both wrong. Turns out it was Canadian.
my brother had one when i was a kid. i remember burning rubber and Robocop. i remember Robocop was hard as nails.