New Commodore Invictus from Commodore USA

[abbub]

To paraphrase a saying from when commodore still had (a tiny bit) of relevency, "It's the software, stupid!"

It would be ridiculously easy to make some money if you had the commodore name and a bit of venture capital, but this is not the way to do it.

[abbub]

No, I agree completely.  In fact, my problem with these latest 'products' isn't the internals, it's the externals and the software.  

Two brilliant case studies for what Commodore needs to do are already out in the market place and do quite well:  the 'New Beetle' and the 'new MINI'.  Both pay massive amounts of homage to the original, iconic product, while still managing to modernize the brand.

They need to limit themselves to one primary sku, and actually hire a designer to create a new case for it that looks cool, retro, and most importantly, like a Commodore.  Also, beige is the new black.  Embrace it.

I'd also hire some software engineers.  I think you could easily get away using linux or BSD as the base for the OS (Darwin?!), but you have to write a custom GUI for it that also manages to look modern yet retro.  You might even be able to get away with using a modified version of something like Haiku on it.  I definatly would NOT ship it with Windows.  Windows should be a boot camp sort of option.  It's going to be a niche market one way or the other to begin with, so why not embrace that?  From the software side, I'd be trying to move towards an Apple model.  

Built-in emulation would be a given, but also get some guys to re-write and modernize some classic games from the C64 and include them with the system.

Finally you need marketing, marketing, marketing, marketing.  Reaching out to a bunch of guys on an Amiga retro website is easy.  You need to convince the 30-40 year olds who played with commodores when they were kids but who haven't thought about commodore in 20 years that this is the machine that can take them back to a time when computers were for fun, not spreadsheets.

...oh, you also need to keep this less than $500 a unit.

[abbub]

@Tone007
Why you feel the urge to stomp on this, when this represents the ONLY chance of a Commodore comeback. I really don't know. (sigh)

I suspect he feels the urge to stomp on this because it looks like (yet another) fly-by-night attempt to rape the corpse of one of his childhood friends.  That's sort of what it feels like to me, anyway.  I don't get the sense that there's (much) money behind this, therefore I expect the chances of this succeeding are about nil.  I don't see good branding.  I don't see any consideration for design.  I don't see any compelling marketing.  I don't see any compelling software.  When I was talking about hiring software engineers to write a custom GUI on a *nix base, I was thinking more of an OS X sort of deal, not re-skinning Ubuntu.

Christ, man, we should be the most FERVENT of your target audience.  If you can't sell us, how to you expect to sell anyone else?

[abbub]

There are a range of machines for different people. Cutting off at a particular price only has people saying "if only they".  You can't please everyone with one product, you can't even do that with many products.

This, more than anything else you've said, exemplifies why this is a pipe dream.  You're not...or, at least you shouldn't be, trying to please everyone.  You're not even trying to please most everyone.  The target should be a VERY niche market to begin with.  

You create a range and people buy according to what they're willing to spend and their sensibilities. Should Apple only have one product? What you are asking for would be suicidal.

Did not Apple start out with only one product?  Was it suicidal?  With this effort, I think you need to emulate the early days of computing not only with your design, but with your philosophy.  You start out with one model and then build up from there.  One model, by the way, doesn't mean that you don't have different memory options, storage options, network options, etc.  But you want to make ONE machine that LOOKS like a commodore.

You don't think these devices are a modern spin on the Computer in a keyboard concept so reminiscent of Comodore's computer heritage?

Once you get past 'the CPU is INSIDE the keyboard', all similarities to Commodore ends.  Maybe this thing is a modern spin on a ZX Spectrum?  That seems as possible, if not more, than it being an homage to Commodore.

New designs costs a lot of money and there is no guarantee of success. There will be new designs.

This is true.  That's the nature of business...it takes money to make money, and there's no guarantee that you'll make money.

The Commodore Phoenix is an apt name as it will help Commodore rise from the ashes.

I bet you $20 it won't.

I pushed for Beige. Barry laughed at me.

Sounds like Barry doesn't know his target demographic.

People also want the machine to boot into the Blue/Cyan ready screen too. I have to think beige is a rather acquired taste these days. I don't think I've ever heard anyone ask for a beige Amiga either. I see people asking for black.

Black is everywhere.  Black is a dell, an HP, even an Apple.  A nice retro beige case is where to go...retro should be a big part of the campaign for this thing, and beige is the ultimate retro.  And you don't chase after what people say they want.  You show them something that they didn't know they wanted and you MAKE them want it.

Wait, so you're going to pick....Darwin, or Haiku, over AROS. How very un-Amigan of you.  :-D

Yes, but I'm not trying to recreate an Amiga.  I'm trying to recreate a commodore 64.  There are A LOT of people out there who used C64s who never had a thing to do wtih Amigas.

I've already mentioned the desire to put AROS as a standard boot option. If you couple it with ROMS it could provide the ultimate Commodore retro experience.

Again, is the goal here to recreate a C64, or an Amiga?

It is not about being Apple. You simply can't go and build something new that is as good as MacOSX anyway and it's suicide to try.

I disagree.  I say it's suicide to not try.

You can't expect Commodore to, all by themselves, come up with a revolutionary new operating system to compete with the likes of Apple no matter what short-cuts they take. People already lament that MacOSX is just another unix/linux.

That's EXACTLY what I expect Commodore to do.  And that's why this will fail, because the copyright owner doesn't have the vision, the capital, or the will to actually do it.

They do?  Apple users I know fall into two categories:  people like me, who appreciate the fact that Apple has provided the ultime *nix on the desktop while linux users chase their tails (and often bad mouth apple in the process), and people like my niece, who uses OS X daily, and has no idea what a *nix operating system even is, much less that she's using one.

In our e-mails Commodore USA's owner has told me that there will be a significant amount spent on marketing. Much more than the last Commodore companies seemed to have spent.

There's more to marketing than money.  It needs to be good marketing, and I think the cats already out of the bag, anyway.  

What you are asking in terms of revamps of Commodore games is outside Commodore's area of interest.

It's the software, stupid.  Part of the marketing campaign is actually showing this system doing something *unique*.  If they expect that people will just start developing for it on their own, they're out of their mind.

[abbub]

Ok @abbub
How do you recreate a Commodore 64? I'm listening.

...because I'm bored, I'll do a little brainstorming.

How much capital do I have?  What's my target demographic?  Who should I view as my competitors?

Assuming I have unlimited capital...

First and foremost, I buy up every license I have to until I'm the SOLE copyright owner to the Commodore/CBM name.  With unlimited capital, this means I'd be buying all of the various 'Amiga' names, too, and also probably Cloanto.

It almost seems that the current owner somehow thinks that Apple, HP, Dell, Lenova, etc. are who he's up against.   I think that, to a SMALL extent, Apple might be, but certainly not HP, Dell, Lenova, etc.

The C64 is, in my mind, an oddity in that it not only competed against Apple (and IBM) back in the day, but also against Atari, Nintendo, and Sega.  That is to say, it's a computer, sure, but it's primarily an entertainment computer.  (Okay, I guess that was true of all computers of the era to some extent, but in my mind, the C64 was better at it than other computers...)

I'd say that our new C64 should largely be designed to be used on a television, in the living room, rather than in the study.  Towards that end, I really see Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft as my three largest competitors.  I'm not saying the new Commodore should be designed as a console, but rather that it's chief competition for the time and money of a perspective buyer are these other consoles, and that should garner some serious consideration when the feature set is planned.  Wireless HDMI, high-def video playing capability, and wireless internet access would probably be must-haves.

I'd say that our new C64 should also be designed to be SIMPLE.  The OS should include a modern browser, a capable email client, and a word processor capable of loading and saving office compatible documents.  Creating a Commodore version of iLife would be a good idea, because initially the amount of software for this beast is going to be limited, so why not give the consumer what they need out of the box.  I'd say that if you could include 10 revamped versions of iconic C64 games that'd be perfect.  I'd also borrow heavily from Apple/nintendo/microsoft and have a Commodore version of iTunes/Wiistore/Xbox Arcade where you could, for a small fee (a dollar or two a game?) download classic C64 games in some sort of encapsulated format that includes the documentation in a PDF format and a simple click-to-play format.  No fooling around with setting up emulators.  Every game you buy comes ready to play without your having to fool around with anything.  In addition to repackaged classic games running in emulators, you'd also want to give developers the opportunity to sell 'modern' games designed to take advantage of the hardware.

The more I think about it (again, pretending that capital is no problem), the more I REALLY like the idea of using BEOS as the core of my operating system and having Windows-support available as a 'boot camp' sort of option.  I'd also pull an Apple and work hard to keep my OS off of other hardware.   99.9% of the reason to buy Apple hardware is the desire to run Apple software.  I'd say the goal with our Commodore OS should be the same.

The aesthetics of our C64 should be a nice, simple homage to the original breadbox.  I'd hire the best design team I could find and give them pictures of the original breadbox, with instructions to 'modernize and pay homage'.  There should be 0% doubt that the finished product is the 2010 version of the C64, and there's a lot more to that than just being a keyboard with a system board integrated.

I think I'd dub the system the Commodore 1024.  Give it a medium powered Atom and a gig of memory.  In 6 months, we'll launch the Commodore 2048d, which is a desktop system with wireless mouse/keyboard, a more powerful Atom, 2 Gigs of memory, and an available matching 24" 1080p LCD panel.

Don't even get me started on a year or two down the road, when we start taking advantage of those Amiga trademarks we bought up today.

[abbub]

You said ... "No. I don't think he did, as it wasn't mentioned in his post. Having an online "arcade" does not mean its competing with a 360 or PS3.

My intention with the "on-line" arcade was to provide a legal means to stable emulation for the new platform.  The idea was to create a similar ecosystem for C64 emulation to Microsoft and Nintendo's legacy software support on their modern consoles.  

And this was the reply "He was asked to describe next 'true Commodore' and detailed a machine with lntel Atom CPU which can't even play 720p video files, let alone 1080p  360/PS3 games.

This assumes that the CPU is the only processor in the system, which would not have to be the case.  You seem to have a chip on your shoulder about the Atom.  The Atom is to the i7 what a 6510 is to a 80286.  It's not the most powerful processor on the market, and no one is arguing that it is.  It's inexpensive, and it's powerful enough to stand as the base for a modern C64, especially when you divorce it from Windows.  (Haiku, for instance, runs amazingly well on a PIII with 256 MB...I'm sure it's quite snappy on an Atom.)

As the original post I was replying to was detailing another member's personal description of a spiritual successor to the Amiga using some rubbish Intel Atom and lame graphics card like a netbook I said this was not suitable.

If you're talking about me, I was attempting to roughly outline a spiritual successor to the Commodore 64, which is a completely different beast from the Amiga.

You appear to be attempting to outline a far more powerful computer than I ever intended to.  The C64 was never the fastest or the most powerful computer of its time, and did well despite that lack of power.

My thoughts were that the Commodore traditionally sat in their strange place that was somewhere between a computer and a console, and it would be interesting to try and find that niche again.

This is all idle fantasy, anyway.  It's fun to think about, but ultimately it's just an amusing pipe dream.

[abbub]

This is not a cut price Commodore for kiddies and it is not a gaming powerhouse. This is a niche item for grown-ups who grew up with Commodore, which you will need to pay a premium for.

No...I really won't...