this is such a lackluster product..
- The cord for the joystick looks to be even shorter than the NES minis.
- Those 35 games.. California Games, impossible mission.. and then a lot of fluff... such a bad lineup.
- You need to use another keyboard to type??? wtf?
- They will launch a fullscale model later ??
this makes no sense to me..
I agree, somewhat. I really adored the C64DTV (the self-contained C64 in a joystick with 30 games) that was released in 2004, and still play with it occasionally. If this is based on the C64DTV hardware, then it stands a chance at being a solid product.
That being said,
this machine seems to be somewhat underwhelming in 2017. It's cool that they allow you to use two joysticks, and the video output is HDMI. On the downside, there doesn't appear to be any way for users to load other C64 software onto this machine. Maybe it can be accomplished with a USB flash drive, but they haven't said anything about this yet....which leads me to think that it's not going to happen. It's also too bad that the keyboard appears to be purely decorative, and is non-functional. Maybe the "full-size" version will allow you to use other C64 peripherals and software.
The library of 64 built-in games is a hit-or-miss selection. They've got a lot of the same games that appeared on the C64DTV (and most of those games were pretty good), but the remainder of the selection is mostly--as you put it--"fluff". I get the notion that they were intent on including
sixty-four games, but after they got around 35-40 games they seem to have stopped caring, and just went for whatever they could license cheaply and easily. Honestly, I would prefer that they just took the top 40 games and stopped there, and then allowed you to load your own games through USB.
I also notice that the game selection is
extremely heavy on the European games. Aside from Epyx, there's almost no representation from the western hemisphere. Don't get me wrong, I thought Epyx was a great company, and there were surely some top-notch games out of Europe (many of which are in this package), but there are significant holes in the library that could have been filled by other high-profile American games. As it stands now, most of the European games (even the great ones) are virtually unknown on "this side of the pond". This game selection would not appeal to most Americans seeing the product on a store shelf.
I'd like to have some games from publishers like Activision and Electronic Arts. I realize those two companies are now titans in this industry, and licensing probably would have cost a small fortune...but if they couldn't handle the licensing, then that's all the more reason why loading external games would have been an extremely valuable feature.
Another major player is Atari. They published several good games for the C64 (mostly arcade conversions), but they also have a much larger catalog that they've acquired through various mergers and acquisitions over the years. Atari's catalog might also encompass games from MicroProse, Spectrum HoloByte, Accolade, Ocean, Infogrames, and probably others that I've forgotten. (Atari might have divested some of those properties in recent years--for instance, they no longer own the Accolade brand name.)
Even Commodore itself had put out some worthwhile games. They've had some good Midway arcade conversions, as well as several original games. The fact that there are absolutely
zero Commodore brand games makes me question whether this is "officially licensed". The official Web site has cleverly skirted around using the "Commodore" name when referencing the "classic computer", so my guess is that this does
not have the blessing of whoever the heck currently owns the rights to the Commodore brand. (For what it's worth, the old C64DTV from 2004 was officially licensed, and was able to use the "Commodore" name.)
All in all, I have very mixed feelings about this product. I don't follow the Sinclair computers all that closely (since I was a C64 guy, and Sinclair had very little impact here in the US in the day), but from what I've seen of the recent Spectrum revivals is significantly more appealing. I'd love to see that level of effort in a Commodore retro computer. If they couldn't have done that, then they should have either aimed for a cheaper price by sacrificing 20 or so of the "fluff" titles, or they should confirm that there is in fact an easy way (i.e. no "hardware hacks" necessary) to load your own C64 software on this machine through USB.