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History
Jack Tramiel and Manfred Kapp founded Commodore on October 10, 1958 under the name Commodore Portable Typewriter, Ltd. in Toronto, to sell imported typewriters. Through the years, the company evolved to include calculators and, finally, computers. In 1981, it released the VIC-20, its first home computer, which included a cartridge port. In 1982, Commodore introduced the successor to the VIC-20, the Commodore 64. The C64 had tremendous success, shipping over 22 million units and making it the best-selling computer of all time.
In 1984, after a power struggle with the chairman of the board, Irving Gould, Jack Tramiel left Commodore to create his own company, bringing with him many senior Commodore engineers. Commodore responded by buying the Amiga Corporation, while Jack Tramiel acquired the consumer side of Atari Inc. Although the Amiga was a powerhouse, it failed to evolve as quickly as the PC. By 1990, the company was in a difficult financial position and was looking to diversify its products.
At the same time, Commodore UK was experiencing fierce competition in the low-end computer market. With the ZX Spectrum and the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64 sales were on the decline. One of the main reasons was that the cost of the disk drive made the C64 not viable in the UK, so, to reduce the cost, it was sold with a cassette deck. Although cheaper, the cassette as a medium was terribly slow. The C64 had a cartridge port, but this medium had mostly been abandoned by that time by C64 developers. Commodore also faced fierce competition from the Nintendo Entertainment System and the Sega Master System. To stay competitive, Commodore UK approached Commodore International for help. Commodore was working on a new computer called the C65, which would have a cartridge port and be backward compatible with the C64. It was a blessing for Commodore UK, as the C65 could be the answer it was looking for. In spring 1990, Kelly Sumner, Commodore UK’s marketing manager, met with Commodore International to discuss the C65 timetable. The release of the C65 was planned for March 1991, which was too late in Sumner’s opinion. His concern was that Commodore’s market share was already melting away and that the brand might not survive one more Christmas without an offering. He then pitched the idea of a consolized C64 gaming system.
Although everybody understood that this system would only be a temporary fix, the proposal was deemed a good compromise by Commodore International engineer Jeff Porter, who agreed to work on the hardware if Commodore UK could provide the carts. The hardware of the C64GS was fairly easy to create, as it only required a small redesign of the motherboard to position the cartridge slot on top. As for the cartridges, the future was also bright. As RAM was expensive at the beginning of the 80s, the early C64 cartridges were only 16K. This forced developers to use other media, such as floppy disks, to distribute their games, so the C64 games library on cartridges was less than stellar. And most of the game cartridges that already existed required the keyboard in some form, so they wouldn’t be compatible with the C64GS. But by 1990, memory was cheap, and it was now possible to use 512K cartridges, which would give the C64GS a fighting chance against the Nintendo Entertainment System and the Sega Master System, provided it had a solid line-up.
In August 1990, Commodore announced that it would release the Commodore 64 Games System for Christmas. Commodore UK started to approach potential third-party developers with a solid sales pitch. If they developed games for the C64GS, the games would also be compatible with the millions of C64s already sold and with the upcoming C65. A few publishers, such as Ocean, jumped on the bandwagon. At this point, the future was bright, and Commodore expected that more than 100 games would be ready for launch. But time was running out, as Amstrad unveiled its GX4000, which put even more pressure on Commodore to hit the market soon.
Commodore produced 20,000 units at its Braunschweig, Germany factory, with plans to make more, way more.
Release
Released in December 1990, the launch of the C64GS was a disaster. Sega had just released the Mega Drive in the UK in September 1990, and it was sweeping the nation. It had sold around 40,000 units in the UK before Christmas, and although it was more expensive, the 16-bit era had indeed begun. The C64GS, which was already a relic of the past at its inception, didn’t have a lot going for it. Not only did it have a bulky design, but its game library, which was supposed to be the selling point of the console, was just not there. Out of the 100 games promised for launch, only around 25 were available, most of them ports of existing games. To add insult to injury, the cartridges manufactured by Ocean didn’t fit properly into a normal C64, which spun the rumor that the games were not backward compatible. This persistent rumor led to fewer sales, which in turn led to fewer developers wanting to develop for the C64GS.
Demise
By the end of the Christmas season, the fate of the C64GS was already sealed. With the upcoming release of the improved C65, Commodore didn’t have any intention of putting more effort into it. It tried to liquidate the remaining consoles, but in the end it was not able to sell the entire 20,000 units. Ocean continued to release games for the C64GS until 1992, as they were ultimately compatible with the C65, bringing the total to 28 released titles.
Games
Only 28 games were developed for the system. Several UK companies designed the games, with Ocean Software releasing most of them. Only a paltry 9 games were exclusive to the C64 Games System; the rest were ports of older games that had already been released in cassette format. Lots of great games had been released for the Commodore 64 computer prior to the Games System, but most of them could not be played on the console, as they required a keyboard.
- 4 in 1 cartridge (pack-in)
- Fiendish Freddy’s Big Top O’ Fun [Commodore]
- International Soccer [Commodore]
- Flimbo’s Quest [Commodore]
- Klax [Commodore]
- Double Dragon (only sold at trade shows) [Ocean]
- Navy SEALS [Ocean]
- RoboCop 2 [Ocean]
- RoboCop 3 [Ocean]
- Chase HQ 2: Special Criminal Investigation [Ocean]
- Pang [Ocean]
- Battle Command [Ocean]
- Toki [Ocean]
- Shadow of the Beast [Ocean]
- Lemmings [Ocean]
- Batman: The Movie [Ocean]
- Last Ninja Remix [System 3]
- Myth: History in the Making [System 3]
- Badlands [Domark]
- Cyberball [Domark]
- Fun Play featured three Codemasters titles: Fast Food, Professional Skateboard Simulator and Professional Tennis Simulator [The Disc Company]
- Power Play featured three MicroProse titles: Rick Dangerous, Stunt Car Racer and MicroProse Soccer, although Rick Dangerous was produced by Core Design, not MicroProse itself [The Disc Company]
- Stunt Car Racer [The Disc Company]
- MicroProse Soccer [The Disc Company]
- Bounces [Denton Designs]
This is a fantastic read if you want to go into more detail: In 1990 Commodore turned the C64 into a console. This is the story of the C64 GS.