From: Anders Carlsson (anders.carlsson_at_mds.mdh.se)
Date: 2004-06-18 15:19:10
On Fri, 18 Jun 2004, Groepaz wrote:
> look at what datel is doing with their products for various consoles.
> none of these is licenced by sony/nintendo/sega/whatnot.
I remember in the 80ties, when Nintendo through their agent were
*very* hostile and threatened to sue the pants of other importer
who sold non-licensed NES games, just to make one example. I don't
know if it ever went to a case, but if the hardware policy (which
some people probably rightfully have dismissed as inappropriate)
stays, why shouldn't there be a software policy?
When it comes to Commodore software, I immediately realized that they
mean the titles produced by C=, not the third party software running
on C= computers. It may have been crap, but there was a wide range of
cartridge and to some extent tape and disk software out there. In
particular the VIC-20 had a huge catelog of Commodore and related
partner's cartridge software.
Something I often wonder is how large the user base is outside the
few of us really interested in Commodore computers, i.e. people who
read these mailing lists, use Usenet, visit various forums, develop
hard- or software etc. I remember in the first press release that
Tulip estimated some ridiculous amount of remaining users. Even if
all the collectors, who generally don't give a damn about new stuff,
are included, I strongly believe that the market share is peanuts.
At least before new devices like the joystick, mobile and PDA based
emulators etc are available, but even then, the market is flooded
with similar or better units. The C64 games may have a touch of
nostalgic, but how many of those who grew tired of it in 1989 are
possible to "wake up" again and will pay reasonable amounts of
money to play old or new but inferior games? Darren on Ironstone
seems to have a good idea about the real user base, but I realize
that there are more people than him (in higher positions even)
who make decisions on whether to invest time and money into a
product which has been commercially dead for more than 10 years.
It must be a difficult way to go - both being nice enough to the
known possible customers and at the same time acting professional
and not tolerate than someone else is gaining (money) on what is
yours. You can also not go public too early to investigate how to
do. I'm not likely to buy any of the offered products (as I almost
never buy something like that anyway), but I fear that if everything
else fails, the whole Commodore brand and community may RIP before
it's 30th birthday (counting from the PET), only keeping laywers
at work.
--
Anders Carlsson
Message was sent through the cbm-hackers mailing list
Archive generated by hypermail pre-2.1.8.