GX 4000

Amstrad only "real" outing in the home videogame market. The GX 4000 system was a console based on the technology that was the heart of the second revision of their CPC computer line. Following the success of the first CPC systems (CPC 464, CPC 664 and CPC 6128), Amstrad renowed the entire line to contrast Commodore and Atari and their 16-bit computers. The new line of computers, called CPC+, were based on the old Z80 CPU but used more advanced graphics processors. They were a big failure but the most incredible failure was the console based on this technology. This console was called Amstrad GX 4000 and used cartridges that was compatible also with the other CPC+ computers. Only a few carts were made and the system could be considered one of the biggest failure in the videogame history! In a few weeks the system could be bought at a very discounted price and a popular UK videogame magazine gave the system as a price for the worst letter of the month sent by readers! The system was distributed in UK and few other European countries. After this big failure Amstrad stopped any activity in the computer and videogame field. Only a few games (not more than 20) were produced for the systems: all were made by Ocean (now Infogrames UK) and US Gold (now Eidos), two of the most important UK publishers of the time.