I was pleased to see that Commodore Gaming has a new affiliate program on Affiliate Future.

Commodore just evokes such great memories for me, that I really hope this program is a success. My very first computer (of my own) was an Amiga A500. There was some brilliant games for it, and cool stuff like Deluxe Paint. I loved that thing and actually still have it in the loft.

Later on, I believed Commodore's vision of the future - combining a computer with a media centre (an early stab at convergance) - and got the CDTV system from a shop called Tandy, another brand which is long forgotten in the UK. It didn't take me long to realise that the CDTV wasn't much cop at all but I was at least a little bit in awe of my multimedia encyclopedia.

I should really have learned my lesson, but I was a real fan, so I couldn't wait to get the CD32 when that came out in 1993. Marketed as the world's first 32 bit games console, it looked slick and had some mysterious auxiliary port, with the hint of virtual reality devices to come. Oh well, that turned out to be a flop as well and as with the CDTV, it was mostly just ports of standard Amiga games which were available.

Commodore went bankrupt and what was left was bought by a German computer company called Escom. Coincidentally, Escom also bought some branches of Rumbelows, which was closing down, and Rumbelows was the shop I got my CD32 from. Escom itself went bankrupt not long after. Yikes, was there some kind of curse at play!?

As is often the case, all that was left was the brand and the intellectual properties. I don't think Commodore Gaming of today has any actual relationship to the Commodore of years ago, but they own the Commodore brand and it's something I will always be fond of so I hope it does well. I was also just reading on their website that they are starting to make C64 games available on the Wii virtual console. Woohoo. Their affordable gaming PCs they make look pretty funky, and they're offering 5% commission. It's an oft-stated cliche that there's no room for sentiment in business but I hope affiliates who grew up with Commodore will get behind them and help make it a success.