The GX4000 is a
video game console
A video game console is an electronic device that Input/output, outputs a video signal or image to display a video game that can be played with a game controller. These may be home video game console, home consoles, which are generally placed i ...
that was manufactured by
Amstrad
Amstrad was a British electronics company, founded in 1968 by Alan Sugar at the age of 21. The name is a contraction of Alan Michael Sugar Trading. It was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in April 1980. During the late 1980s, Amstrad ...
. It was the company's short-lived attempt to enter the games console market.
The console was released in Europe in 1990 and was an upgraded design based on the then still-popular
CPC technology.
The GX4000 shared hardware architecture with Amstrad's
CPC Plus computer line, which was released concurrently. This allowed the system to be compatible with the majority of CPC Plus software.
The GX4000 was Amstrad's first and only attempt at entering the console market. Although offering enhanced graphics capabilities, it failed to gain popularity in the market, and was quickly discontinued, selling 15,000 units in total.
Launch
After months of speculation, the GX4000 was officially announced along with the 464 plus and 6128 plus computers at the
CNIT Centre in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
in August 1990. The system was launched a month later in four countries, Britain, France, Spain, and Italy, priced at £99.99 in Britain and 990F in France; software was priced at £25 for most games.
The racing game ''Burnin' Rubber'', a power pack, and two controllers were bundled with the machine.
Initial reviews of the console were favourable, with
CVG calling it a "neat looking and technically impressive console that has an awful lot of potential at the very low price of £99", but while impressed by the graphical capabilities, they criticised the audio and controllers.
ACE
An ace is a playing card, Dice, die or domino with a single Pip (counting), pip. In the standard French deck, an ace has a single suit (cards), suit symbol (a heart, diamond, spade, or club) located in the middle of the card, sometimes large a ...
magazine came to a similar conclusion, stating that the system "puts the other 8-bit offerings to shame bar the
PC-Engine
The TurboGrafx-16, known as the outside North America, is a home video game console designed by Hudson Soft and sold by NEC Home Electronics. It was the first console marketed in the fourth generation, commonly known as the 16-bit era, though ...
".
A marketing budget of £20 million was set aside for Europe,
with the advertising focused on selling the GX4000 as a home alternative to playing
arcade games
An arcade game or coin-op game is a coin-operated entertainment machine typically installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are presented as primarily games of skill and include arcade v ...
. The tagline for the machine was "Bring the whole arcade into your home!"
Market performance
The GX4000 was not successful commercially. During its lifespan, software for the system was short in number and slow to arrive, consumer interest was low, and coverage from popular magazines of the time was slight, with some readers complaining about a lack of information regarding the machine (
Amstrad Action
''Amstrad Action'' was a monthly magazine, published in the United Kingdom, which catered to owners of home computers from the Amstrad CPC range and later the GX4000 console.
It was the first magazine published by Chris Anderson's Future Publishin ...
was one of the few magazines to support the console). Within a few weeks of the initial launch, the system could be bought at discounted prices, and by July 1991 some stores were selling it for as little as £29.99.
There were many reasons for the system's lack of success. At this stage the 16-bit
Commodore Amiga
Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphi ...
and
Atari ST
The Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the Atari 8-bit family. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985 and was widely available in July. It was the first pers ...
, along with earlier 8-bit consoles and computers, were already dominating the European video game market, and hype for new 16-bit consoles such as the Mega Drive was starting to rapidly grow. Amstrad also lacked the marketing power to compete with the producers of the
Mega Drive
The Sega Genesis, known as the outside North America, is a 16-bit fourth generation home video game console developed and sold by Sega. It was Sega's third console and the successor to the Master System. Sega released it in 1988 in Japan a ...
(released in November 1990 in Europe) and eventually the
Super NES
The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), commonly shortened to Super NES or Super Nintendo, is a 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan and South Korea, 1991 in North America, 1992 in E ...
.
On top of this, there were also problems with software manufacturing, with many companies complaining that the duplication process was taking months instead of weeks, leading to little software available at launch, and some games being released late or cancelled entirely. Lastly, many GX4000 games were simply
CPC games released onto cartridge with minor or no improvements,
which lead to generally unimpressive-looking games and consumer apathy, with many users unwilling to pay £25 for a cartridge game they could buy for £3.99 on
cassette
Cassette may refer to:
Technology
* Cassette tape (or ''musicassette'', ''audio cassette'', ''cassette tape'', or ''tape''), a worldwide standard for analog audio recording and playback
** Cassette single (or "Cassingle"), a music single in the ...
instead.
When discussing the market failure of the system, the designer, Cliff Lawson, claimed that the GX4000 was technically "at least as good" as the SNES,
and that the machine faltered due to a lack of games and Amstrad not having the money to compete with
Nintendo
is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles.
Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produce ...
and
Sega
is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational video game and entertainment company headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Its international branches, Sega of America and Sega Europe, are headquartered in Irvine, California and London, r ...
.
When asked whether anything could have been done to make the machine a success, he replied that more money would have been required to give software houses more incentive to support Amstrad, and that the games and software needed to be delivered sooner; he also remarked that making the machine 16-bit would have helped.
Technical specifications
![Amstrad-GX4000-Console-Front-Flat](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Amstrad-GX4000-Console-Front-Flat.jpg)
*CPU: 8/16-bit
Zilog
Zilog, Inc. is an American manufacturer of microprocessors and 8-bit and 16-bit microcontrollers. It is also a supplier of application-specific embedded system-on-chip (SoC) products.
Its most famous product is the Z80 series of 8-bit microp ...
Z80A at 4 MHz
*ASIC: Support for sprites, soft scrolling, programmable interrupts, DMA Sound
Resolution
*Mode 0: 160x200 pixels with 16 colours
*Mode 1: 320x200 pixels with 4 colours
*Mode 2: 640x200 pixels with 2 colours
Colour
*Depth: 12-bit RGB
*Colours available: 4096
*Maximum colours onscreen: 32 (16 for background, 15 for sprites, 1 for border)
Maximum onscreen colour counts can be increased in all Modes through the use of interrupts.
Sprites
*Number: 16 high resolution sprites per line
*Sizes: 16x16 (each sprite can be magnified 2x or 4x in X and Y)
*Colours: Each sprite can use up to 15 colours
Memory
*RAM: 64 kB
*VRam: 16 kB
*
ROM
Rom, or ROM may refer to:
Biomechanics and medicine
* Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient
* Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac
* R ...
: 32 kB
Audio
*3-channel stereo;
AY-3-8912 chip
*DMA
IO
Audio output, 2x Digital controller connectors, Analog controller port (IBM standard), Lightgun connector (RJ11), Audio and RGB Video output (8-pin DIN), Power supply socket from external PSU, Power supply socket from monitor.
Peripherals
Standard controllers
![Amstrad-GX4000-Controller-FL](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/Amstrad-GX4000-Controller-FL.jpg)
The GX4000 controller is similar to popular 8-bit gamepads of the time such as those for the
Master System
The is an 8-bit
third-generation home video game console manufactured by Sega. It was originally a remodeled export version of the Sega Mark III, the third iteration of the SG-1000 series of consoles, which was released in Japan in 1985 and ...
and
Nintendo Entertainment System
The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the commonly known as the The NES, a redesigned version, was released in America ...
, as well as that for the
TurboGrafx-16
The TurboGrafx-16, known as the outside North America, is a home video game console designed by Hudson Soft and sold by NEC, NEC Home Electronics. It was the first console marketed in the fourth generation of video game consoles, fourth genera ...
. It contains only two buttons on the actual pad with the pause button located on the console itself, and uses the prevailing de facto standard
Atari-style 9-pin connector.
Analog Joysticks
The GX4000 supports the use of analog controllers through its specific IBM standard analog controller port. The controller was not widely supported by software.
Lightguns
The GX4000 supports the use of a lightgun through its dedicated RJ11 lightgun connector. Multiple 3rd party Lightguns were available, and official releases supported this peripheral. There were two games supporting the use of a lightgun on the GX4000 — ''Skeet Shoot'' and ''The Enforcer'', both of which were distributed with a third-party gun.
Games
In all, nearly 30 games were produced and distributed for the GX4000.
The majority of games were made by UK- and French-based companies such as
Ocean
The ocean (also the sea or the world ocean) is the body of salt water that covers approximately 70.8% of the surface of Earth and contains 97% of Earth's water. An ocean can also refer to any of the large bodies of water into which the wo ...
,
Titus
Titus Caesar Vespasianus ( ; 30 December 39 – 13 September 81 AD) was Roman emperor from 79 to 81. A member of the Flavian dynasty, Titus succeeded his father Vespasian upon his death.
Before becoming emperor, Titus gained renown as a mili ...
, and
Loriciels
Loriciel (also sometimes Loriciels) was a French video game developing company that was active from 1983 to the early 1990s. The name is a combination of ''logiciel'', the French word for software, and ''Oric'' which was the first computer they ...
.
Notable games were the pack-in game, ''Burnin' Rubber'', as well as ''
RoboCop 2
''RoboCop 2'' is a 1990 American science fiction action film directed by Irvin Kershner and written by Frank Miller and Walon Green. It stars Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, Dan O'Herlihy, Belinda Bauer, Tom Noonan and Gabriel Damon. It is the seq ...
'', ''
Pang'', ''
Plotting'', ''
Navy Seals
The United States Navy Sea, Air, and Land (SEAL) Teams, commonly known as Navy SEALs, are the United States Navy, U.S. Navy's primary special operations force and a component of the United States Naval Special Warfare Command, Naval Special Wa ...
'' and ''
Switchblade
A switchblade (aka switch knife, automatic knife, pushbutton knife, ejector knife, flick knife, Stiletto, flick blade, or spring knife (Sprenger,Benson, Ragnar (1989). ''Switchblade: The Ace of Blades''. Paladin Press. pp. 1–14. . The sw ...
''.
Many more games were initially announced, such as ''
Toki'', ''
Kick Off 2'', and ''
Out Run
(also stylized as ''OutRun'') is an arcade driving video game released by Sega in September 1986. It is known for its pioneering hardware and graphics, nonlinear gameplay, a selectable soundtrack with music composed by Hiroshi Kawaguchi (comp ...
'', but later cancelled when the system failed to sell
*
Barbarian II: The Dungeon of Drax
*Batman
*Burnin' Rubber
*Copter 271
*Crazy Cars II
*
Dick Tracy
''Dick Tracy'' is an American comic strip featuring Dick Tracy (originally Plainclothes Tracy), a tough and intelligent police detective created by Chester Gould. It made its debut on Sunday, October 4, 1931, in the ''Detroit Mirror'', and it ...
*
Fire & Forget II
*
Klax
*Mystical
*
Navy SEALS
The United States Navy Sea, Air, and Land (SEAL) Teams, commonly known as Navy SEALs, are the United States Navy, U.S. Navy's primary special operations force and a component of the United States Naval Special Warfare Command, Naval Special Wa ...
*No Exit
*
Operation Thunderbolt
*
Pang
*Panza Kick Boxing
*Super Pinball Magic
*Plotting
*Pro Tennis Tour
*RoboCop 2
*Skeet Shoot
*
Special Criminal Investigation
''Special Criminal Investigation'', also known as ''S.C.I.'' for short or as ''Chase HQ II: Special Criminal Investigation'' in some home versions, is a 1989 vehicular combat racing game published by Taito for arcade game, arcades. It is the seque ...
*Switchblade
*Tennis Cup 2
*
Tintin on the Moon
*Trojan Light Panzer
*The Enforcer
*Wild Streets
*World of Sports
References
External links
Old-Computers.com page on the GX 4000The CPCwiki article about the GX4000. Much info
{{Home video game consoles
Home video game consoles
Third-generation video game consoles
Amstrad CPC
Amstrad
Products introduced in 1990
Z80-based video game consoles