Amstrad GX4000 - Market Perfomance

Market Perfomance

The GX4000 was a commercial failure. 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 was one of the few magazines to support the machine). 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, and Atari ST, 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 Sega Mega Drive (released in November 1990 in Europe) and eventually the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. 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 titles, and consumer apathy, with many users not prepared to pay £25 for a cartridge game that they could buy for £3.99 on cassette 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, and Sega. When asked whether anything could have been done to make the machine a success he replied that more money would've 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 also have helped.