Changes

By 1990 Amstrad had realised that the home market was heading towards the 16-bit machines, one on one hand, and towards the new generation of game consoles like the Sega Master System or the Nintendo Entertainment System, on the other. Therefore, just as they created the 464 Plus and 6128 Plus to compete against the ST and the Amiga, they also created a stripped-down variant called the GX4000. The GX4000 was, in essence, a Plus motherboard in a new case, with no keyboard, cassette deck or disc drive, and with most extension ports gone - save for the cartridge port and two joypads.

As was quite easy to predictexpected, the GX4000 was a flop that could not break the stranglehold that Sega and Nintendo had on the market at the time. As a result, the GX4000 was soon to be found selling at ridiculously low prices - as little as £19.99 in the UK - as dealers tried to offload their stock. It was a shame, because if Amstrad had realised the market potential and produced this console a few years earlier, it could well have been a success. As it was, it had to suffer the same fate as the even less powerful Commodore 64GS.