Why Was The 68030 Ignored By Game Companies ?

[CaryMG]

bbbb

 

[MultiFinder]

Uhhhhhhh... I don't get it.

 

[CaryMG]

bbbb

???? lol

I think I'd wrote that & then forgot to delete it.

Sorry sorry for the mixup !

What I meant ta say was ....

I was watching this video > "Golden Age Flight Simulators"

In it, one of the hosts asks Gilman Louie now with the advent of the superchip 80386 what wonders -- gouraudshade polygons,

gameplay depth, etc. -- could we expect ?

 

I'm interested in hearing why you guys think the equally powered Motorola 68030 was ignored specifically by the game mentioned

-- "Falcon 3.0" -- and other "Golden Age" [1984-1993] games like "Links386Pro", " Ultima UnderWorld", etc., etc. ....

:b&w:

 

[MultiFinder]

Well duh, because they were used in Macs and EVERYONE knows that Macs don't have any games. Only Windows has the games, not those sucky Macs...

/me suddenly remembers what forum he's in

Probably because the x86 series of CPUs were sooooo much more common/popular and you could be guaranteed to sell 53487598347598347 copies of any software title for it. It was not so with the 68030, or any of the other 68k series of CPUs. They just never reached the same market penetration.

 

[CaryMG]

Right right ....

I forgot the "Macintosh-Games-Don't-Sell" philosophy lol

It's too bad ....

I'm sure sales would've equaled those of their PC counterparts

:b&w:

 

[chris]

PCs=Clones Clones Clones=Cheap Cheap Cheap=LOTS of them sold.

Waaaay larger market for PC games, meaning Windows only of course. Mac was, and still is, a small market compared to PCs for games. Things like education is a different story, but games, PCs ruled the world.

 

[CaryMG]

I see your point, Chris.

It wasn't so much a "Let's Ignore Macintosh Computer Gamers" approach as it was a

"What's The Way We Can Make The Most Money With The Least Effort ?" approach.

:b&w:

 

[MultiFinder]

It wasn't so much a "Let's Ignore Macintosh Computer Gamers" approach as it was a "What's The Way We Can Make The Most Money With The Least Effort ?" approach.

Welcome to the driving force behind most capitalist economies for the last few centuries

 

[macintoshman]

The sega genesis was powered by a 68000 cpu.

 

[CaryMG]

The sega genesis was powered by a 68000 cpu.

Indeed !

As is the AMIGA .

Which brings me to .... > "Macintosh Vs. AMIGA"

:b&w:

 

[QuadSix50]

Also remember that at that time, Apple didn't really care about games on the Mac. They never saw the gaming industry as anything serious for the Mac platform. Of course, when the mid-90s rolled around and Microsoft came out with DirectX, Apple realized that it had made a huge mistake and then tried a lackluster effort to bring games to the Mac. I remember seeing an article all about it in a PC gaming magazine (can't recall the name). There were even some extensions that Apple created for the PPC Macs that were supposed to do something similar to what DirectX did for gaming on the PC (I can't remember what that was called either :-/ ). Unfortunately, it was too little, too late.

 

[CaryMG]

There were even some extensions that Apple created for the PPC Macs that were supposed to do something similar to what DirectX did for gaming on the PC ....

Was it "Sprockets" , maybe ? lol

:b&w:

 

[Quadraman]

I used to play lots of games on my Atari Falcon 030 and there were lots for the Amiga, too.

 

[QuadSix50]

There were even some extensions that Apple created for the PPC Macs that were supposed to do something similar to what DirectX did for gaming on the PC ....

Was it "Sprockets" , maybe ? lol

:b&w:

That was it...thank you for helping my old failing brain out.

 

[Maccess]

Well duh, because they were used in Macs and EVERYONE knows that Macs don't have any games. Only Windows has the games, not those sucky Macs...
/me suddenly remembers what forum he's in

Probably because the x86 series of CPUs were sooooo much more common/popular and you could be guaranteed to sell 53487598347598347 copies of any software title for it. It was not so with the 68030, or any of the other 68k series of CPUs. They just never reached the same market penetration.

During that era (late-1980s) of personal computers, PCs had the advantage of being bootable in lightning fast DOS.

Macs had the Mac OS, and the game had to run on that, so there were some limitations as to performance. Also, most of the Macs at that time were black and white compacts.

Apple, also had this philosophy of not promoting games on the Mac as it was positioning the Mac as a business computer.

 

[bluekatt]

The sega genesis was powered by a 68000 cpu.

..its megadrive

sega was unable to secure the rights for the name in the usa so its genesis there rest of the world its called megadrive

and it used a moto 68k or equivalent

early md's used equivalents from licensees such as signetics or hitachi

the signetics ones are unreliable

 

[SiliconValleyPirate]

As is the AMIGA .

Which brings me to .... > "Macintosh Vs. AMIGA"

In fact, the best combination of compatibility and speed for Amiga Games is found in 68030/50MHz Amiga accelerators (older games have a habit of flaking out on 040s and 060s). I have an Amiga 1200 with a Blizzard 1230 Mk IV accelerator in it, with a the SCSI add-on module and 64MB (count em!) of FastRAM dedicated to playing games using a 5GB hard disk (internal) and WHDLoad.

I think this thread would be more appropriately titled 'why did game developers ignore the Mac?'

..its megadrive

I don't go around telling people from the US that it's a pavement not a sidewalk...

 

[pee-air]

Right right ....
I forgot the "Macintosh-Games-Don't-Sell" philosophy lol

It's too bad ....

I'm sure sales would've equaled those of their PC counterparts

:b&w:

That's just not possible. The law of averages and statistical probability says that a software vendor will sell 10 copies of each Windows based piece of software for every copy sold on the Macintosh. Why is that? Well, I'm glad you asked. The PC market is ten times larger.

Disclaimer: Numbers used are ballpark, and are used for illustrative purposes only.

 

[pee-air]

I see your point, Chris.
It wasn't so much a "Let's Ignore Macintosh Computer Gamers" approach as it was a

"What's The Way We Can Make The Most Money With The Least Effort ?" approach.

:b&w:

Pretty much. But the exclusion of the Macintosh created a void that was quickly filled by vendors who could be satisfied with selling only a million or so copies of a Macintosh software product.

Disclaimer: Numbers used are ballpark, and are used for illustrative purposes only.