Slashdot Mirror
Commodore Follows Up TV Game With ROM Selling
An anonymous reader writes "Since Commodore recently re-appeared selling a Commodore 64 joystick 'TV game', as previously mentioned on Slashdot Games (the company is now owned by Dutch computer builder Tulip), they're now expanding their efforts, and have set up a legal emulation site where you can buy classic Commodore 64 titles, initially including Epyx and Hewson titles. Apparently, in a later stage, Commodore will release a Gentoo Linux based set top box which plays MP3s and runs Commodore 64 games."
Since Epyx went belly up with their handheld console, they produced for Atari. Who is getting the royalties for those Epyx games sold over the net. I have sever doubts the developers of those games will see a single cent....
I was unable to find descent pricing information. There's talk of a monthly subscription fee (5 euro's for 7 titles), but does that mean I'm only allowed to (legally) use the game for one month?
How much do I have to pay to download just one game?
The Commodore brand also popped up on a cheap-and-nasty MP3 player a little while back, as shown on Dan's Data.
Apparently it's unlicenced, but certainlty a shock to the brain to see that logo on a recent product.
Remember, it takes 42 muscles to frown and only 4 to pull the trigger of a sniper rifle.
Because these are, uh, legal?
some company just brings about an updated Commodore 64. With modern day integration it seems to me you could easily get a 2.5" harddrive in the old C64 case, modem, ethernet port and even video and TV out ports. Make it dual boot Contiki OS and old school C64 OS and I'd buy it.
No real point to this post, just basking in the glow of potential off-the-shelf nostalgia.
Dear StarRoms and Commodoreworld,
In case anyone who is responsible for business decisions in one of these companies is reading this...
The "Credits" system you folks have devised and deployed for purchaing ROMs is completely bogus unless you also have some way of earning credits other than spending money. If credits are equivalent to money, then please publish a price. You have to dig pretty deep and pull out a calculator to find out that a game will (for instance) cost you $7.00 up front or $3.25 if you purchase a monthly subscription instead.
I understand the reasoning behind the credits system, but if it is not easy for someone to equate it to a dollar value, then you are driving away customers. It is not very hard to calculate price tables in this manner. You might consider using wording to this effect:
"100 credits (as low as $1.00)"
In this example, clicking on the "as low as" should bring up a pricing table explaining that it's $5.00 if you buy it outright and can be as low as $1.00 if you buy a package of 2000 credits)
~GoRK
That game alone would make the thing worth buying.
Lasers Controlled Games!
Are these good original disk images, or are they all crack liked the ones floating around already ? :)
Of course I don't remember playing many Commodore games that didn't have a 'cracked by' intro
Yeah, I think someone should track down who really has the copyrights to those these days and beg until they let folks distribute the ROMs freely. It's not like they're really valuable these days or anything...
...and right now I'd need a really cool lo-rez pixel font too, and C64's is my favorite =)
Another cool project would involve complete rewrite of the firmware. A further optimized OS and a new BASIC interpreter that doesn't suck would rule... =)
No, but back in the golden eighties I saw a project that linked two machines together on cable. Imagine a Beowulf cluster of those!
The legal status of Jumpman is somewhat different than the other Epyx titles. The rights to the game are now in the hands of its creator, Randy Glover. I'm guessing he'd make a deal with these people if one was offered.
If you'd like to play Jumpman again, check out the Jumpman Lounge at ClassicGaming. You can play faithful remakes, expanded games with editors (like Jumpman: Under Construction), or you can get my own game "Jumpman Zero" (a prequel available for Windows or Palm).
Jumpman is just as fun as you remember it...
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
I never beat the original. Never beat Jumpman Jr. either. That hailstone level always took too many lives.
Lasers Controlled Games!
Shows how much you know-- the original poster is correct. You're either not old enough to remember, or had a C64 late enough that the disk drives were cheaper and the software was more commonly on disk. For a long time, though, there were tons of games available on cartridge-- I had Zaxxon, Attack of the Mutant Camels, Jupiter Lander, among others.
I don't understand companies like Tulip or Cloanto (who's been trying to do the same thing with Amiga). I see them more as rom squatters than people who are serious about supporting the existing retro-computer community. It's all about how they can squeeze a few dollars from some fossils, and, Oh! if someone tries to get around paying the toll, how they bite the hands that feed them! What I don't understand is why these people don't try to add some value to these products. They need to provide another answer than "It's illegal" when someone asks, "Why not just download the ROM for free?" Can Tulip or Cloanto offer *ANYTHING* of value other than the "good conscious" of paying people a toll who had nothing whatsoever to do with the development of these games? I can see value in Cloanto's games in a stick--but selling these old roms is just flat out silly. If I owned the patents or copyrights to this old stuff, the first thing I'd so is release it all into the public domain and spend the rest of my time trying to get people to take advantage of it and build some new markets.
http://c64upgra.de/c-one/
ATX form factor, IDE, CF, SDRAM, 20 MHz 65816, hires graphics, multichannel SID sound.
READY.
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