A Look At the Amiga CD32 - The World's "First" 32 Bit Game Console

The CD-32 was NOT the world's first 32 bit game console - that "honour" goes to the FM Towns Marty.

[@RetrogamerGenX]

Yep. That's why it's in qoutes in the title. 🤣🍻Cheers mate for being the first to say it. Another system I hope to do one of these videos on soon.

@@RetrogamerGenX There are actually two versions of the Marty - I was lucky enough to purchase a few of them from Japan years ago before the price of them went through the roof. Interesting system considering they are basically a PC in a console shell almost ten years before Microsoft did the same thing with the Xbox.

[@RetrogamerGenX]

Nice. One day I hope to score one.

[@tarstarkusz]

The FM Towns was kind of bleh. Wasn't there a version with a PCE built in? Or maybe it was a genesis, I don't remember.

@@tarstarkusz No, FM Towns was VERY cutting edge. In fact, when it was released it was one of the few x86 based systems that could actually do the same sort of things the Amiga could..... but it was HORRENDOUSLY expensive, had a lot of software incompatibilities, and had very few games tailored to it's hardware. The Marty had some fantastic arcade conversions - check out it's port of Raiden.

[@ProBreakers]

I was a sophomore in HS in the early 90s and had a computer class. The teacher there had an Amiga and loved to show it off. As someone who only had a 486 at home, I was blown away.

[@RetrogamerGenX]

Amiga was the king for a while back in the day for sure. I had an Amiga 2000 with a 8mb of ram and 030 accelerator card, a 20mb scsi hard drive, a Video Toaster, a XT Bridgeboard card and a 2X CD rom. I wished I would have never sold it. I have a 2000 now, hoping to one day re-build the system I had back then.

[@nickwest932]

​@RetrogamerGenX that was a mean system you had. I would have loved to have seen it run. Scsi also brings me way back. Plug and 🙏. 😂

[@RetrogamerGenX]

🤣

[@TripleDee]

Hi from the UK. Really enjoying your videos on gaming history. Keep them coming.

[@RetrogamerGenX]

Glad you like them! More to come in the future. Keep an eye out for my community posts, there I let you, the viewers, pick which system will be next. Cheers 🍻

[@Lemmingskiller]

Still own a cd32 and several games it's in a big box with my old amiga1200

[@kingsknightuk]

I had a friend at school who got the Amiga CD32 on week of release. I remember being super jelly that he had it. They played that first ad LOADS here in the UK. I remember going round to his house and playing it. I was mega disappointed and was glad to go back to my SNES.

[@RetrogamerGenX]

By the time the CD32 was released in Europe, I was Stateside, so we didn't get to see the ads back then. But lots of gaming and computing magazines were talking about the January release, which of course never happened. I wanted one, but I'm glad I dodged that bullet. But I fell for others like the 32X and later the VirtualBoy. 🤣🤣🤣 It was a weird time in gaming. When the manufacturers were trying to figure out what to do with the cdrom and 32 bit architectures. Also it was at this time that the controller became what it is today. The SNES controller, then that same design refined with the PS1. Which has gone on to be the defacto controller configuration since. Well except for Nintendo products.

[@RicardoGarcia-tc1zh]

When i got my FMV cartridge and played the demo cd with that video i had no idea how that quality was possible, still have it and still works

[@RetrogamerGenX]

Oh right on. I should have brought the FMV module up in the video, but the video was already starting to get long so it ended up on the cutting room floor. But thanks for mentioning it. A cool lil piece of kit that gave the CD32 awesome FMV capabilities. I believe it played FMV better than the Sega CD.

[@RicardoGarcia-tc1zh]

@RetrogamerGenX on the demo cd theres the cdxl with ham mode and fmv both look great but fmv one its was just amazing at the time, paired with sx expansion, 4megs and mouse keyboard was the ultimate a1200, the best is... i take my cfcard from my 1200 and it works on my cd32, the video was and still is much better, not restrained to the sega color pallet restriction... and try Microcosm on cd32, a awful game but there is no versuon that gets close it terms of graphics "colors on screen"

[@Midlife_TimeCrisis]

Of all classic systems out there, this is the one i want the most 😂 i want an authentic Amiga Lemmings on CD Rom

[@RetrogamerGenX]

Good luck in your search for one. They're out there, you'll just have to find a good deal on one.

[@Midlife_TimeCrisis]

@RetrogamerGenX maybe if I visit Europe. But then if I could afford to come to Europe, I'd just use eBay 🤣

[@rolux4853]

@@Midlife_TimeCrisisoh they aren’t cheap here in Germany too. I come from the city where Amiga/Commodore had its headquarters and production facility. it’s completely forgotten about here. Fortunately there’s a little privat museum run by a transport companies CEO to not completely let the heritage die. He opens his little project to the public on every first Friday of the month I think.

[@Midlife_TimeCrisis]

@@rolux4853 ah well

[@carbonara2144]

I love my CD32 with tf330. It could have been great success back in the day if commodore wasn't run by crooks who didn't understand Amiga and just leeched money to their personal accounts. Only improvement it could have needed would have been a small amount of fast ram as standard, like games companies suggested.

[@RetroSerj]

thank you for the video, my friend, unfortunately... maybe luckily we didn't have this console in our country and I learned about it only with the advent of the Internet. But there were clones of the thing you are holding in your hands, only there were already other games there. Good luck and success in the future

[@RetrogamerGenX]

Your welcome my brother. You guys in Ukraine kind of lucked out on that one, seeing the short lifespan this system had. Oh your talking about the Game & Watch that I'm holding in my call for action.🤣🤣 Yeah I'm sure there were many clones of it in Eastern Europe at the time. Godspeed my friend, and stay safe. Ласкаво просимо, мій брате. Вам, хлопці, в Україні начебто пощастило з цим, бачачи короткий термін служби цієї системи. О, ви говорите про Game & Watch, які я тримаю у своєму заклику до дії.🤣🤣 Так, я впевнений, що в той час у Східній Європі було багато його клонів. Боже, мій друже, і будь у безпеці.

[@Strange_Armour]

IMHO - Amiga should have just made a CD attachment for everyone who already bought the Amiga 500.

[@RetrogamerGenX]

I would have loved that back in the day.

[@32Bits]

CD32 Best Amiga ever! :P

[@lancebaylis3169]

The Amiga was a top tier home computer- arguably the last of the legendary era of the '80s home micros (Spectrum, C64, etc). When it was released in 1985 it blew everyone away. But it was never as popular in Commodore's home country of the USA, but by the mid 1990s it had a strong and loyal fanbase in the UK, Europe and places like Australia. It's downfall truly was a combination of being past it's time and also poor company management. Past it's time because the likes of Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D and Doom unfortunately heralded that PCs had finally 'caught up' in terms of being viable arcade-style games machines after decades of only really being good for role players and point and click adventures; meanwhile, Amiga management frittered away with loss making side projects like CDTV, the Amiga 600, and the CD32. As an Amiga user at this time, I remember being excited about having an 'Amiga console' on the market, but quickly realized that developers were not providing much incentive to upgrade: most CD32 titles were Amiga 1200 games converted to CD and given FMV intros, but otherwise unchanged. The best was probably Simon The Sorcerer, which at least ported the full voice acting of the PC CD ROM version, but even a great point and click adventure is still a bad fit for something marketing itself as a console. I am aware that Amiga had a life after CD32, but becoming the realm of hobbyists rather than being the powerhouse it once was.

[@lancebaylis3169]

That said, the CD32 was still an Amiga, and still a great machine. Especially if you got a few of the, um, "unofficial" compilation CDs of various Amiga 500 titles. The CD32 was just as capable as the A1200 of playing older Amiga games, so these CDs are naturally a great way to get the most value out of the system (albeit any game that requires keyboard input you'll be plum out of luck).

[@RetrogamerGenX]

I was one of the few people in the US that was an all out Amiga fan. But it was hard to find hardware and software for it. There was one mom and pops computer store in town back then that sold Amigas and Commodore stuff. But that was it. So if they could get what I was looking for I was hosed. Too bad what became of Commodore. The Amiga has somewhat "survived" over the years. But the Commodore name has been through the ringer a few times. Lol

[@mr.y.mysterious.video1]

My mind goes back to being at a street market at the time of the cd32. A video game selling stallholder talked some poor sap into buying an amiga cd32 over a megadrive. I still recall he said 'the cds hold 600 meg, youll never get a 600 meg megadrive cartridge. Poor guy how he must have suffered

[@RetrogamerGenX]

🤣

[@agamazofficial]

wow I just wanted to educate myself on this and it came out 2 days ago yay

[@RetrogamerGenX]

Awesome, I hope you enjoyed it. Not a very well known system in America.

[@agamazofficial]

@@RetrogamerGenX I am European and never heard of it, but I was born in 1999

[@tarstarkusz]

Wasn't Dick Smith's an Australian electronics shop? You didn't mention the land down under in your video as having been a market for the Amiga CD32.

[@RetrogamerGenX]

I cut a few pieces out that I should of kept in. That's one. Canada and Australia received their shipments. But the US didn't. The few CD32's that were in the US back then, were the ones snuck into the country from Canada. hehe I don't think Canada recieved all their units though. The details were sketchy on this, that's why I left it out.

[@joejoe2658]

because only ignorant seppos use that phrase...

[@tarstarkusz]

The CD32 has a few problems. First, it's just an Amiga. This presents several problems. One, very few Amiga games targeted AGA. It was a fraction of the number of Amigas. Worse, most of them in the early days were A4000s which were very expensive and meant for workstation type use, not the home user and thus the game market. Worse, a huge percentage of Amiga games targeted the Atari ST which is significantly less powerful than the Amiga. Second, even in its most successful market, it had a tiny market share. What happens to even good hardware that only exists in small numbers, is even the games they get are quick and dirty ports that don't take advantage of the extra capabilities of the machine. You saw this a lot with the CD addon for the Genesis. The CD32 game Methane Bros was released for the GP2X and it is a pretty good game. Though, to be fair, it probably would have run fine on an A500.

[@the710gamer9]

So true. Trying to market a has been computer as a console was a joke. No wonder Commodore died. I'm not saying the Amiga wasn't a great computer, but let's face it, by 1993 the 68000 based pc was going the way of the dodo, x86 had taken over already. Power PC only lasted a few years more until Apple finally switched over briefly to Intel. Amiga would have been wiser to market it as an arcade board. I'm mean there's a reason slot, video poker, and arcade manufacturers bought them in the fire sale.

[@tarstarkusz]

@@the710gamer9 The 1200 had an 020, not a 68000. Believe it or not, the 68k processors were in a lot of powerful arcade machines of the early 90s and even mid 90s. IMHO, the weakness of the CD32 hardware wasn't the 020, it was the AGA. The 020 is more than fast enough for the logic of the games. The reason arcades used them so much was they were good enough and cheap and they could put the money into the sound and graphics chips. But AGA was an evolutionary increase from OCS and not a revolutionary one. The problem was Commodore never really had the money to properly support the Amiga. They had shoe string budgets. The Amiga was many years ahead of the PC in 1985 and even in 1987. But by 1992, the PC had caught up and commodore was in the same place it was in 1985. Still, even if Commodore had not handled the Amiga so ineptly, the Amiga's days were always numbered. The PC was an unstoppable juggernaut. Mac barely hung on.

@@the710gamer9 The Amiga was hardly "has been" in 1993, especially if you count how popular it still was in many parts of the world including the majority of Europe and Australia. Whilst Motorola was rapidly losing market share and becoming irrelevant in the PC market by this time, their processors still competed well with the latest x86 releases - the Motorola 68060 can actually outperform the Pentium at the same clock speeds, so the fact a CPU was becoming less mainstream does not suddenly make it a bad choice for a closed architecture platform such as a proprietary console! The biggest issue with the CD-32 was it usage of planar graphics, which are fine and dandy for 2d, but in the 32bit console age 3d and texture mapping was all the rage.... and the CD-32 was ill equipped for this (the Akiko chip was a sticky tape and gum solution). At the end of the day, the CD-32 was a quite powerful and capable console... released by a company on the verge of going under, with very poor software support (lot's of lazy A1200 and even A500 ports with a CD soundtrack), and not made available in the numbers being demanded by the market (Europe was crying out for more CD-32's) in order to generate enough income to pull Commodore out of hole THEY dug for themselves.

[@RetrogamerGenX]

Wow man. A has been computer... 😲😳 But what your saying is kind of true, by then the IBM compatiable, x86 was taking the lead over all other computers. But wow man, that is harsh to hear when your an Amiga fan! 🤣🤣

[@RetrogamerGenX]

Ah you broke my heart by saying "Just an Amiga" 🥹🥹🤣🤣

[@joejoe2658]

very subtle stock footage.

[@nearvanaman]

I was a relatively late convert to the Amiga after half a decade of 8 bit gaming. Got the 500+ in 1991, and the 1200 a year later. When the CD32 came out I had already been seduced by the PC and was gone shortly after that. Now I own a CD32 with that Terrible Fire card which, frankly, I've not really investigated how to get the best out of yet.

[@RetrogamerGenX]

That would have been nice to have an AGA system back then. I stopped at the Amiga 2000, but mine was fully loaded, I used it until 98' when I got my first PC. Argh... I wish you well on you CD32 adventures!

[@shiningphantasy1393]

Interesting video; I really didn't know all of the details surrounding the development and release timelines of this console, and the fact that it was held up. I would have been interested to know what they planned to price the unit in North America at launch, and whether it would have included a free pack-in game or not. Even without the complications involving the lawsuit it would have been an uphill battle against the well established competition. For one they should have made it mandatory to have all of their existing Amiga conversions to fully utilize the CD technology rather than some of them which were direct and lazy ports. They also did not have any kind of a launch game that would have compelled people to stand up and take notice, and sell through large quantities of units. Needed that big Amiga exclusive property that would appeal to the at-large consumer base and give them a reason to pull away from their existing gaming outlets. As it is it probably would have done about as well as the Jaguar did.

[@RetrogamerGenX]

I believe, it was going to be sold for $499 here in the US with 2 pack in games, Pinball Dreams being one and the other I can't think of off the top of my head. I don't think it would have done well here, at least not good enough to save the company. Maybe, if they could have shipped here, and possibly broke even. Commodore could have closed business in the North America, and continued on in Europe. But really for how much longer, IBM compatiable PC's had taken over by then, Amiga and Atari computers were destined for extinction. I'm actually surpised Apple survived. If Jobs hadn't came back and Gates investing so much $$ in Apple they probably wouldn't have.

[@shiningphantasy1393]

@@RetrogamerGenX With all of the other options out on the market during that time I don't think that they would have moved many units at $499. I doubt that most of the big box retailers would have even carried it. It falls in that soon to be outdated category upon release like the 32x, Neo Geo CD, and PCFX were.

[@CountScarlioni]

You have to remember a major chunk of the enormous Amiga game catalogue was unknown in the US. What in Europe was a 'lazy port' would have been a new title to a hypothetical American parent. It was designed to compete with the Mega Drive and the SNES which it was capable of doing, although it was destined to get eclipsed by the arrival of the PlayStation (although one imagines a possible CD32-2 might have been on the cards were it around by then). It must be said, the CD32 did just fine in the UK despite the lack of strong launch titles. The 2 pack-in games were a mediocre and forgettable europlatformer, and a slow burn mining strategy game which was really good, but a very eccentric title to put on a console. The killer-app was meant to be Psygnosis' Microcosm (great to look at, average to play), which wasn't ready for the euro launch but may well have been included had a US launch gone ahead. I got lured into buying one in the UK for Xmas '93 when I saw the intro for 'Captive II: Liberation' playing in a computer store and my jaw hit the floor (still looks and sounds good even now)! Probably not one of my better purchases in hindsight but heyho! I concur with RetrogamerGenX though, Commodore's management was so lousy that the company was doomed even if they survived the 1994 bankruptcy. The rot was too deep to save. The US wing of Commodore never seems to have understood what they had in the Amiga, still trying to market it to Americans as a business or multimedia machine even whilst it ruled gaming in Europe. In terms of comparison with the Jaguar, The CD32 sold a similar number of units in months, what took the Jaguar years to accrue. And in its short lifespan the CD32 had more game titles released for it. Not too bad for Commodore's final parting shot.

[@echosmith6092]

The Atari loan was just before Jack T took over Atari that's what the lawsuit was about & he only took over Atari's hardware division

[@RetrogamerGenX]

Ah yes. I was somewhat confused abuout it. Jack sued saying that Atari already had the rights due to the loan being out. So I just summed it up as Jack's doing.🤣 But becuase Atari paid up by the end of the loan term, he couldn't touch it. Didn't he sue Jay Miner personally over it as well? Yep, the Atari Arcade division split between Namco, AT Games and Warner at the time.

[@excitedpixelsmedia]

I had one for many years. Add on an SX1 and you had a souped up A1200. Some good games but most were just enhanced disk games.

[@RetrogamerGenX]

Nice. I bet you enjoyed it. Yeah they were, but still fun games.

[@ST2008X]

Saw a box for one at a Pawn Shop in Canada, don't know if the console is in there or not. If the console is in there, that must be an expensive item at this pawn shop. Seems the Amiga CD32 was available in Canada.

[@RetrogamerGenX]

Yeah there was a small release in Canada, but the Candians didn't get their full shipment either.

[@pqrstzxerty1296]

As I worked for Commodore there are quite alot of factual errors in this video.

[@RetrogamerGenX]

Quite frankly I wouldn't doubt it. I put out on social media for ex Commodore employees to contact me so I could get more detailed information about the CD32. However nobody responded back and I couldn't find much documentation because, let's face it the company was in shambles by then . Even Bil Herd didn't respond, which he usually does but he wasn't on the Amiga side anyways. But you can find my email on the channel. If you want to drop me an email with some information, I can update this for the end of the year history video.

[@Volcell-85]

Systems need games simple as

[@davidmylchreest3306]

The CD32 was a bit under served in it's time I feel, with most of it's games being straight ports of floppy disk Amiga titles. Here in the future of 2025 though, it's library of well over 100 games is a good slice of late era Amiga titles with the convenience of CD. It's a better games machine than it ever got the credit for.

[@RetrogamerGenX]

As a guy that only had OCS and ECS Amiga's, the CD32 would have been a cheaper option to go to AGA than buying the A1200. If it would have been launched in the US, I would have bought it for just AGA games, and used my other Amigas for school and OCS games. But that never happened unfortunately, and Commodore died shortly after.

[@V3ntilator]

Amiga sure wasn't a has-been in 1993. It were still fully supported for 2-3 years after that by the usual game developers. As for the demo scene competitions, Amiga still dominated until 2000. Amiga still compete with PC in the demo scene worldwide as of 2025. Amiga still get lots of new games etc. in 2025...

[@RetrogamerGenX]

Right. I used my Amiga until 98' when I switched over to PC. Argh.. lol

[@V3ntilator]

@@RetrogamerGenX 1998 were the same year PC became my main thing too. lol I did have 486 PC since 1994, but still used Amiga most. In face i built 4 new powerful PC's during those 4 years and still used Amiga most.... The reason is that Win 3.1, 95 and 98 were useless compared to Workbench for most things. I went with Windows NT 4.0 and then Windows 2000. Most stable windows ever. Only used 32.GB RAM out of 768.MB RAM in my 1999 PC.

[@valley_robot]

i had an a1200 with a cd drive. it ran all CD32 games , they were mostly shite , the PC was already way more powerful by then and the playstation was around the corner

[@RetrogamerGenX]

Very true, it stood little chance against the upcoming Saturn and PS1.

[@the710gamer9]

Man this guy! Come on, the CD32, the dumbest console ever. Oh wait it was Commodore! Just messing with you. I know how much of a commodore fan you are. Great video! Keep it up, you'll have a million subs in no time. 👍🤣🤣

[@RetrogamerGenX]

Hey man, I do all the consoles. No hate here, i love each and every one. Retrogaming 4 life brother!!!

[@TheBerendir]

There's an alternative universe where the only consoles available right now are Atari, Amiga, Sega and Nintendo makes titles for them all 😂.

[@RetrogamerGenX]

Sounds like an awesome universe to be in. I miss them all...

[@yuvraj01]

I brought into the hype at the time, having previously had the Amiga 500, but even if Commodore had survived, and weren't held back from the U.S, the CD32 never stood a chance against the likes of the 32x, Jaguar, not to mention the "BIG" guns that were 3DO, Sony and Sega, it wouldn't have survived into 1994, when you had taken a look at what the competition was bringing on....hell it would have struggled to even run AVP like the Jaguar did...for all the hype of being the the "West's" first 32 bit console, it was also the weakest against the competition circa 1993/1994....I mean Commodore were even gunning for Sega, saying our CD32 is more powerful than your Mega/Sega CD, yet Sega's add on, at least had "some" games that showed its capabilities which again I couldn't see the CD32 pulling off, ie Sonic CD, Thunderhawk, and the game from Core Design whose name I can't remember..(a sci-fi game) ..

[@Fergo101]

Length of the video a coincidence? I think not.

[@the710gamer9]

WTF is this all about! The whole spider monkey thing. 1542 Worlds's First! Oh!!! Conspiracy theroy. Weak minded simpleton.

[@The_Gaming_Bristolian]

I have to disagree when you said the CD32 was popular in Europe, It really wasn't. Take it from someone who was around at the time. The Mega Drive and SNES where way bigger. Even The A500, A1200 and Atari ST where more popular. Some Die Hard Amiga fans may have had one, But your Average gamer would of gone Sega or Nintendo.

[@RetrogamerGenX]

I was around too.. That's why there's the Gen X in my name.🤣🤣 Yeah I was around Ramstein Air Base🤣 But yes. I have to say Sega was king back then in Europe at least. When we came back to the States it was SNES vs. Sega Genesis. In Europe, there was way more choices. Although, the top dogs were still Sega and Nintendo until Sony came along and changed the game forever.

[@johneygd]

“Sorry amiga fans?’ You probably mean sorry to more talking about the history of commodore and atari rather then showing and talking about the amiga CD32. And with that said a proper title would,ve been “little history about atari & commodore’ But aside from that. I found it stupid that the us goverment didn’t allow commodore to release the CD32 before paying the bills, because maybe the CD32 could,ve been a success and so maybe they could,ve pay the bills and make profit. But at the other hand if the CD32 did flopped in the us, then commodore could,ve sinked more deeper in financial troubles. So it understandible why the us goverment did this but still…

[@RetrogamerGenX]

OK Sorry CD32 fans, but finding real documented history on who actually developed this system, the number that shipped to different regions, actual sales numbers, prototype pics, and what that interesting HP chip is on the mobo, (ahh, let me catch my breath) from when commodore as a company was a complete disaster, is a nightmare to find. But I hope you enjoyed the Amiga history lesson.. There is that better.. 🤣😆😂 Just messing with ya brother... But yeah, it would have been interesting to see how it did in the US market. Honestly, as much of an Amiga and Commodore fan I am, I'd have to say it wouldn't have done well. Even against the Sega CD here, let alone the CDi, 3DO, 32x, Saturn, and Playstation. Sure I would have loved to get my hands on one back then, but just like the 32X I had, it would've turned out to be a bust because the way Commodore was being ran at the time, it was going under no matter what unfortunately.

[@echosmith6092]

google white cd32 i made that moded version it had a disk drive all in white extra 8mb

[@RetrogamerGenX]

Nice!

[@moskic153]

ah cd32 the console created in 3 months and chunky to planar chip who work mediocore 3d chip and as god uart chip it was a fun platform but just to late and commodore was dead already

[@RetrogamerGenX]

Yep by the time the CD32 launched Commodore was on life support.