Changes
The software wing of [[Amstrad]], '''Amsoft''' was created with one very specific goal: to get software on the shelves for the launch of the [[CPC old generation|CPC 464]]. [[Amstrad]] owner [[Alan Sugar]] viewed this as a key element in the succesful launch of the machine was determined not to make similar mistakes to the [[Dragon 32]], [[Oric]], [[Enterprise]] and dozens of other would be competitors to the [[BBC Mirco| BBC]], [[ZX Spectrum]] and [[Commodore 64|C64]] and first and foremost amongst them was taking on successful brands with a large back catalogue of software.
To do this, '''Amsoft''' were given a very simple brief of getting as many games on to the shelves as possible to support the launch and first years of the machine's life, regardless of how good the programme was. The '''Amsoft''' priority in the early years was very much quantity over quality, famously refusing to bid for prestigious games like [[Elite]] because they could knock out a dozen other games for the price of buying the rights to that one game.
Strictly a third party publisher, '''Amsoft''' did no coding in house, instead franchising out to a number of other developers including [[Indescomp]] (who published the titles in Spain on behalf of '''Amsoft'''), [[Mr Micro]] and [[James Software]] to name only a few.
In this time the distinctively bright '''Amsoft''' branding did it's job and the early games sold well thanks to some savvy marketing and an eye for a good opportunity.
The earliest success for Amsoft, and it's biggest legacy, was the [[Roland]] series. Named after [[Roland Perry]] the character was used as the basis for a number of games none of which (with the exception of [[Roland in Time]] and [[Roland in Space]] had anything to do with each other! Instead, the Roland brand was added almost arbitrarily to a selection of games from different developers and despite the generally poor quality of these titles, they still sold by the bucket load!
As games became more advanced and the bigger companies like [[US Gold]], [[Mikro-Gen]] and [[Ocean]] broke away from the '''Amsoft''' branding to publish for the machine under their own labels, '''Amsoft''' tried re-branding itself by introducing the '''Amsoft Gold''' label. Despite an encouraging start by re-releasing disk versions of [[Sorcery]] and [[Strangeloop]] (by adding the moniker '+' to both games and including additional areas of gameplay) not to mention a few good original titles like [[Doors of Doom]], it became all too clear that '''Amsoft Gold''' had little or no distinction in terms of quality control from plain old '''Amsoft''' and the company was quietly disbanded, it's last releases [[Tapper]] and [[Hardball]] despite being potentially high-profile [[Arcade Ports|arcade ports]], were sneaked out with little fanfare. Indeed the last game in development for the company, a conversion of the coin-op [[Spy Hunter]], was never actually released by '''Amsoft''', eventually being released on [[US Gold]]'s budget label Kixx.
== Games ==
