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."

Comments

I wonder

[MemoryDragon]

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....

Re:I wonder

[DZign]

The developers got paid for developing back then.
It's the current copyright owners who now cash in royalties.

How much?

[Tune]

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?

Commodore MP3 player

[hool5400]

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.

Re:right.

[Dave2 Wickham]

Because these are, uh, legal?

I wonder how long before

[FunkyRat]

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.

Re:I wonder how long before

[John Harrison]

You wouldn't even need the hard drive. Just use a flash card. How much storage would it take to hold every C=64 game you ever played? I would guess not much. What did the disks hold? 360k? Maybe less? I had a large C=64 game collection on about 200 disks, which I am sure weren't all full. That is about 70MB. So I am sure that a 256 MB flash card could hold every game I ever even thought about playing.

Make it the size of a Palm device with a built in control pad and thumb board. Then add USB ports to hook up the joysticks and a full size keyboard along with a S-Video out so you could hook it up to the TV. Even simpler, have a dock that hooked it up to the TV, keyboard and old-school joysticks.

Oddly I am now willing to pay for games that I pirated as a child.

Re:I wonder how long before

[FunkyRat]

For me it's all about the whole C64 form factor which I found so appealing. Of course, you're idea about the flash card is a much better solution than a HD. Although, in reality, with your approach, the whole thing could be built into the size and shape of an old C64 ROM cartridge. Conceivably, one could then sell the C64 keyboard unit separately and use the slot where one would plug cartridges into the unit to dock the actual computer into the keyboard unit.

"Credits system"

[GoRK]

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

Too bad they don't have Jumpman

[John Harrison]

That game alone would make the thing worth buying.

The real question

[Captain Rotundo]

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

Jumpman's status....

[JMZero]

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...