Amstrad GX4000 - Swansong for the 8-bit console era

The box in all of its glory

The Amstrad GX4000 was, for me, and only for a short time, the dream machine. Launched in the autumn of 1990, Amstrad hoped to prolong the life of their CPC home computers by bringing in an updated range of CPC+ machines and an associated 8-bit games console, the GX4000. It turned out these were the last throw of the dice for 8-bit machines in the UK. Indeed, it was probably not the greatest business decision by Amstrad to launch an 8-bit console as the era of the 16-bit Sega Megadrive and Nintendo SNES was beginning but by this time, Amstrad were turning away from home computing and focusing on the expanding PC market, leaving their older machines to die off slowly.

Still in decent nick

What did the +plus machines bring to the market? Well, some fancier graphics modes (compared to the older models), a SCART socket and a cartridge slot that permitted software to access the new graphics modes. And that was part of the problem, the requirement to use the cartridge slot to benefit from the new capabilities. The plan was that the new fancy games on cartridge benefited both the home computers and the console and Amstrad made more money from the use of cartridges. Bear in mind that this was also the period of breakout sales for the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST, computers that hovered around the £300 to £400 mark that Amstrad had also priced the +plus range at. Ok, you got a dedicated monitor with the Amstrads' but portable TV’s were also decreasing in price and in most cases, people already had a portable TV before buying a computer so didn’t really need another display on their desk.

Ports at the back - 2 x power (mains and monitor), RBG, SCART and RF.

Ports at the front - headphone, 2 x 9 pin controller, 1 x 15 pin analogue and RJ11 for light guns.

Still, they released the new range, with an unlikely competitor from Commodore with their C64GS which was basically a Commodore C64 computer without the keyboard. With nothing new to add to that platform, the C64GS disappeared with barely a whimper. Amstrad did gain the support of quite a few European software houses, with the likes of Ocean, Titus and US Gold promising new titles. What consumers ended up getting, however, were conversions of CPC titles that cost £24.99 to £29.99 due to their cartridge format. Most of these looked no better than their cassette brothers retailing for under a tenner. Lazy conversions and pricing aside, the GX4000 carts also suffered when compared to similarly priced 16-bit software, which looked better, had a higher resolutions and offered better sound quality. Yet, for all of that, early reactions were positive and at £99, the GX4000 compared favourably to the existing 8-bit Sega Master System and Nintendo NES machines, especially when programmers took advantage of the extra graphics modes the cartridge access allowed. One final +plus (see what I did there) was that the machine had a distinctive look, similar to a Cylon fighter from the original Battlestar Galactica TV show. It certainly looked different to the usual black or grey box under the TV.

Evil, just evil.

The one other downside that needs to be mentioned is the controller. Yes, you got two of them in the box, but they were and are horrible. They’re tiny, cause hand cramp within 10 minutes of use and the response from both the d-pad and buttons is mushy and lifeless. The plastic also creaks alarmingly.

I suppose I liked the GX4000 so much at the time because of its heritage. Having owned a CPC464 since 1987, and only just about to make the jump to the Amiga 500. The CPC464 was my formative home computer and I will never forget the fun playing games, programming and just plain messing about on it that took up many a weekend. Times, they were a changing though, and as far as Amstrad was concerned, they simply couldn’t compete with the likes of Sega and Nintendo who had the software pedigree and sheer volume of titles to bury the little British upstart. It didn’t help that the software support pledged was dependent upon the machine selling well. But as the machine sold poorly, partially due to lack of software, few games were released.

A total of 27 titles were released for the GX4000, most of which were straight conversions of existing CPC games. Looking at contemporaneous reviews, few of them reviewed well, with only the likes of "Burning Rubber", "Robocop 2" and "Pang" getting anywhere near above average scores. One thing of note is the cartridge packaging which, although outlandish compared to the boring DVD-style case mundanity we have now, brought a certain sense of style to any shelf and are more robust that the cardboard or plastic jewel cases used by other consoles in the ‘90’s.

90's game packaging - rather unique.

And also bigger than strictly necessary.

That the GX4000 is comparatively rare is underlined by the quite high prices they go for on E-Bay, around £50 for the console itself and more than a few sellers asking for £80+ for individual titles. The machine I have was about that price but comes in the original packaging with inserts. The plastic hasn’t dis-coloured too much and the condition overall is very good. I think this is the start of a collection for me and I’ll be keeping an eye out for games on E-Bay, retro games shows and online dealers, all the while avoiding the scalping that the rarity (and lack of popularity) of the machine seems to bring. I think getting hold of every game will be a challenge but a worthwhile one and like I said before, the cases do look good on the shelf (ok, one case, but it’s a start).

Lacking the exotic appeal of the NEC PC-Engine (which never received an official European release) or the extreme expense of the 16-bit SNK Neo Geo AES, the GX4000 is little known outside Western Europe and even then, you have to be of a certain age or a console history buff to know of it. The GX4000 represented the end of the European manufacturers in the home videogame market and, shortly afterwards, the home computer market too. The more advanced 16-bit generation was the dawn of the US and Japanese companies which had a whole different scale of operation that the likes of Amstrad couldn’t match. Nonetheless, that Amstrad tried shouldn’t be criticised. It was a worthy effort, with decent specs even for the time and as such, deserves to be remembered for that, if nothing else.