The reason the Amiga failed.

[TMR]

'85 Atari 520ST with its single sided EXTERNAL drive and no readily available and easily accessible trapdoor expansion RAM.

Or a TV modulator for that matter. The way i remember it in the UK it was the 520STFM that sold in serious numbers rather than the 520ST or even the STF, that reduces the distance between the success of the ST and the launch of the A500 here at least because we tended to want machines that connected to a television.

 

Oh and the C128 only predates the ST by a few months.

It's a small gap for consumers, but we sort of have to assume that Commodore's staff were aware of the C128's design well before launch.

[Lost Dragon]

From personal exp. it was the 520STFM Discovery Pack that really started to shift ST's in large numbers to people i knew.The combination of the price, fact it was bundled with a lot of games, the 16 Bit games market really seemed to be exploding and the 8 Bit scene really was looking in it's twilight stages, it just seemed the obvious time to jump into the 16 Bit Micro world.

 

 

Regarding use of word failure:It's always been an 'odd one'.The Saturn is often refered to as a failure, yet did great in Japan.The N64 is often classed as a failure as it did'nt do as well as expected or match the SNES....

 

 

I'd personally class things like the CDTV, C64GS, Amstrad GX4000, CD-i etc as real 'failures' in UK.....

[108 Stars]

@atarilovesyou

 

First of all on some details: The Genesis was as successful as the SNES in the US. For quite a while, it was the number 1 in NA, before the SNES eventually took over, which in turn was also a result of Nintendo still focusing on 16-bit when Sega was switching to 32. Sega never delivered sales numbers on a regular base sadly like Nintendo did, but it wasn't before 1994 that the SNES overtook the Genesis. NA was the no.1 market for Sega.

 

Dreamcast also sold pretty well for the time; we're talking some record sales here. It just wasn't enough in the growing market for a handicapped Sega to maintain business. They gambled to have a success like the PlayStation; a normal, good success was not enough.

 

 

Now more generally speaking.

Nobody can deny that the NA market is very important. But I don't really see the casual relationship you suggest. It plays little or no role for a company's demise how successful it has been somewhere years ago. Sega went out of the arcade business more than 5 years after the Saturn was released in the west. Basically, all the money that had been made with the SMS and Genesis had been used up. The arcade business was going down. Sega's bread and butter was gone, worldwide, and that's what lead to the events.

 

Amiga... it had huge sales, and was the dream machine of any gamer here. Obviously, doing great business here in Europe was enough to support the Amiga for many years. Even the C64 was sold here until 1994. The only connection between Commodore's demise and European success is that thanks to that success, the company was too comfortable with homecomputers and missed the switch to consoles and PCs. It's a mistake by the company, one that was lead by how great the European market was for computers.

 

Apple computers were a big deal in the US on the other hand; yet while they are still around, they had terrible times and recovered thanks to products outside the traditional computers. Had they not adapted to ipod, iphone and ipad, they may have bitten the dust too. The Mac is a niche. Commodore failed to find such a new field in time; as did Atari.

 

NA is a good market, because its one big homogenous place to sell. Europe certainly is not. To take your example of the Xbox 360: It dominated in the UK. In Germany, it was outsold by PS3 by 4:1 or 3:1. In the homecomputer days, the Spectrum was the number 1 in the UK, CPC was the leader in France, and C64 ruled Germany. In the Netherlands I believe the MSX was pretty strong. So yes, in that regard it actually is a very worthy goal to conquer NA. And it is absolutely essential for a company to get international market share to make expensive development possible.

 

Do developments outside the US have much influence? I think so.

So many innovative games were born in the European computer scene. I'd argue that the work of devs on homecomputers in Europe is much more interesting than what was done in NA for the most part, at least in technical aspects. The best coders came from Europe. Not adopting Amiga computers, but rather IBM PCs and the NES were imo more likely a big throwback for game development in the US. Both offered inferior hardware capabilities, and the NES was dominated by superior japanese software. In terms of hardware, so many modern devices use ARM CPUs. ARM was first introduced by Acorn for their European Archimedes computer. European influence is very much there, but it may not be as present in the form of companies in the spotlight.

[+wood_jl]

It doesn't feel so vast a gulf when you consider that there was still a huge amount of investment (in multiple senses of the word) in the 8-bit systems during that period.

Whatever it "felt" like, I provided month and year. To any normal person, month-and year to month-and-year feels like month-and-year to month-and-year (the same period). What is your point, in saying that, please?

 

 

The C128 pre-dates the ST and the A500 is more like it even down to the shape of the power supply...

The C128 (with monitor) cost about as much as an Atari 520ST with 4X the RAM, and the Atari 520ST kicked the ass of the C128 about 6x around the moon, and especially considering that most C128 users used their C128 in C64 mode, because the C64 at least got significant software support. Once again, those are facts, and I'm wondering if you have a point? I fully understand that you love Commodore and I like it too, but what is your point, and what have I said that is wrong?

[atarilovesyou]

Sorry but this attitude is what dislike. This being big in the us thing is nonsense. Sega sold the dreamcast pretty good in the US. Going out of business had other reasons.

Commodore failed because of other reasons. The cost of the aga chipset vs ibm pc chipsets.

 

Nonsense, but simply your opinion. Long-lasting success without establishing a firm foothold in NA is a fact. Can you show me one company who has lasted more than ten years, achieved mainstream success and was NOT successful in the NA market?

 

I'd really like to know...I've made mistakes before (who's counting, lol).

 

If you take this attitude as a 'better than the rest' front, it's not. I take nothing away from the successes the companies I mentioned in other parts of the world. Which comes back to definitions of failure and success. Just because a certain portion of the world like something more than something else, I'd say that makes a success...in that place. But globally? It doesn't.

[+wood_jl]

Gulf in tech terms and marketing indeed!

Gulf in "tech terms?" Please explain that, as I don't know what you're talking about. What "better" tech terms were Commodore using, then???

 

'85 Atari 520ST with its single sided EXTERNAL drive and no readily available and easily accessible trapdoor expansion RAM.

Kudos for recognizing that the 1985 Atari 520ST had an "EXTERNAL" drive. Rather than balk at the fact that it was external, I rather balk at the fact that it was 360K single-sided. One could purchase a double-sided 720k drive (or a 1040ST). I do agree about the non-expandable RAM. Had the Atari 1040ST been the launch machine, it would have been more competitive. Had the Amiga 500 been the launch machine, it would have been more competitive. Instead, we got the A1000 and Atari 520ST. Ancient history, of course. But here we are, on AtariAge, almost 30 years later, discussing it.

 

Fantasy mode on, *if* Commodore would have released the Amiga 500 first in '85, you think Atari would have been able to compete at all? ONLY reason the ST perceptibly, for the shortest stint of times, "had" it over the Amiga, was because of the A1000's price point in '85-'86.

That's my entire fucking point. The A500 *SHOULD* have been released first, in 1985. It fucking wasn't, as we all know. So Atari (with the ST) did what it did (history), and the Atari Corporation lasted longer than Commodore. Did I get that wrong? Please correct that previous sentence, and tell me specifically which part is inaccurate. The Amiga (1000) price point was about $1800 in 1985, with a measly 256K or RAM. The 520ST had double the RAM and almost half the price. These are long-dead systems, but if that wasn't the case, nobody would even know what the fuck a 520ST was now, if it sucked as bad as you think it did.

 

A500 was released in '87 and the ST experienced sad times ever since.

Yeah, it took Commodore 2.5 years to finally get the Amiga (nice machine, mind you) cost-competitive. If Jack Tramiel (cheap bastard) had still been working there, probably significantly-less time than that. Right, my C64-loving friend? What I'm really curious about is the [again, hypothetical] situation where Commodore didn't get the Atari-esque Amiga design. Atari Corp. could have used the Amiga design, and didn't get it. So they contrived the Atari ST on a short timeframe. Other than the Atari-esqe Amiga, what would have been Commodore's next step, without the Amiga? Atari Corp. survived longer, without it.

 

 

Oh and the C128 only predates the ST by a few months.

[atarilovesyou]

@atarilovesyou

 

First of all on some details: The Genesis was as successful as the SNES in the US. For quite a while, it was the number 1 in NA, before the SNES eventually took over, which in turn was also a result of Nintendo still focusing on 16-bit when Sega was switching to 32. Sega never delivered sales numbers on a regular base sadly like Nintendo did, but it wasn't before 1994 that the SNES overtook the Genesis. NA was the no.1 market for Sega.

 

Dreamcast also sold pretty well for the time; we're talking some record sales here. It just wasn't enough in the growing market for a handicapped Sega to maintain business. They gambled to have a success like the PlayStation; a normal, good success was not enough.

 

 

Now more generally speaking.

Nobody can deny that the NA market is very important. But I don't really see the casual relationship you suggest. It plays little or no role for a company's demise how successful it has been somewhere years ago. Sega went out of the arcade business more than 5 years after the Saturn was released in the west. Basically, all the money that had been made with the SMS and Genesis had been used up. The arcade business was going down. Sega's bread and butter was gone, worldwide, and that's what lead to the events.

 

Amiga... it had huge sales, and was the dream machine of any gamer here. Obviously, doing great business here in Europe was enough to support the Amiga for many years. Even the C64 was sold here until 1994. The only connection between Commodore's demise and European success is that thanks to that success, the company was too comfortable with homecomputers and missed the switch to consoles and PCs. It's a mistake by the company, one that was lead by how great the European market was for computers.

 

Apple computers were a big deal in the US on the other hand; yet while they are still around, they had terrible times and recovered thanks to products outside the traditional computers. Had they not adapted to ipod, iphone and ipad, they may have bitten the dust too. The Mac is a niche. Commodore failed to find such a new field in time; as did Atari.

 

NA is a good market, because its one big homogenous place to sell. Europe certainly is not. To take your example of the Xbox 360: It dominated in the UK. In Germany, it was outsold by PS3 by 4:1 or 3:1. In the homecomputer days, the Spectrum was the number 1 in the UK, CPC was the leader in France, and C64 ruled Germany. In the Netherlands I believe the MSX was pretty strong. So yes, in that regard it actually is a very worthy goal to conquer NA. And it is absolutely essential for a company to get international market share to make expensive development possible.

 

Do developments outside the US have much influence? I think so.

So many innovative games were born in the European computer scene. I'd argue that the work of devs on homecomputers in Europe is much more interesting than what was done in NA for the most part, at least in technical aspects. The best coders came from Europe. Not adopting Amiga computers, but rather IBM PCs and the NES were imo more likely a big throwback for game development in the US. Both offered inferior hardware capabilities, and the NES was dominated by superior japanese software. In terms of hardware, so many modern devices use ARM CPUs. ARM was first introduced by Acorn for their European Archimedes computer. European influence is very much there, but it may not be as present in the form of companies in the spotlight.

 

I could cherry-pick your post, but why? We're in agreement on a lot of issues. My original point was that when someone makes a post as to whether a particular system was a failure or not, and that person comes from NA, you can count on a few European guys who contest that point due to the success of said system/computer...success in Europe. I made a joke that sarcastically said 'everything' is a success in Europse, but where are those companies now? And what does success in a limited marketplace mean for the long-term viability of a company mean if it ultimately leads to the demise of that company?

 

Certain folks LOVE to rag on Nintendo, criticize it for inferior hardware, marketing practices, all that stuff...but why the hell are they still around? Apart from the Wii, what 'killer app' did they have to get them through the lean years, and did they have to go to a completely different format like Apple did? (not that those two companies have any relevance, IMO, for this discussion. Apples and Oranges, so to speak ).

 

I might sound like a fanboy at times, but I'd rather than than back weak arguments from people who have little more than nostalgia and feel-good vibes about the systems they tend to defend. Sure, the Amiga was huge in places. I personally never saw one, our area had an ST or two but that's it. PCs dominated. But I don't bash the Amiga for 'not' being a success, but if someone puts up a post as to why it was, why argue the fact that it did indeed fail? The company went bankrupt. That's failure. You can take that person to task about the REASONS of failure, but to deny that it was a failure at all simply because it had a few good years in a limited marketplace? If there's nonsense to be had, it's right there in my opinion.

 

It's great that people to the research, but to have the only source of information from magazines of the day is hardly rock-solid evidence. People pick and choose what they want to believe from those sources; one believes the sales numbers, the others don't due to this reason or that, and so it goes.

 

Anyways, my point has been made and actually bolstered by some of the rebuttals. I found a few of Keetah's reasons weak (what does the colour of a computer have to do with anything?), and considering the computer had a life and vibrant community, IMO it's not a failure. The Adam was a failure, but look at the people who love that machine. Same issues.

 

SEASONS GREETINGS, in any case.

[TMR]

Whatever it "felt" like, I provided month and year. To any normal person, month-and year to month-and-year feels like month-and-year to month-and-year (the same period). What is your point, in saying that, please?

You said that "The Atari 520ST launched in June 1985, while the Amiga 500 launched in October 1987. That's 2 years, 4 months" but it's only that if you were "there" at the start and most "normal" people weren't. It was the STF or more likely the STFM which arrived in 1986 (so far less than two years and four months) later which made the difference for them.

 

And it might be "an eternity in the tech world" but the average punter doesn't view things that way; they were still running 8-bit machines which were at least three years old when the ST came out and closer to five when the A500 appeared.

 

The C128 (with monitor) cost about as much as an Atari 520ST with 4X the RAM, and the Atari 520ST kicked the ass of the C128 about 6x around the moon

i was referring to your claim that the A500 was "copying the Atari 1040ST form factor, quite obviously" and pointing out that Commodore already had a machine with a similar form factor before even the 520ST came out (as i noted, even down to the shape of the PSU). i didn't mean to imply that the C128 could compete with the ST, that would be ridiculous since i'm usually near the start of the line complaining about the C128's flaws... i do like Commodore but i'm not polishing over their cracks.

[Lost Dragon]

Just curious, but does there 'exist' any kind of...'ballpark' figure for just how much, in terms of cash reserves/investment made in terms of R+D, manufacturing and advertising, projects like the CDTV, A600, C128, C16/Plus4 and C64GS cost Commodore?.

 

 

Just wondering in hindsight, had CBM not put money behind projects like these (and CD32?) if things could have worked out differently for the company and they could have weathered the storm as it were in the dying days of the Amiga scene (A1200 era) 'better'...

[TMR]

Nonsense, but simply your opinion. Long-lasting success without establishing a firm foothold in NA is a fact. Can you show me one company who has lasted more than ten years, achieved mainstream success and was NOT successful in the NA market?

How about Sinclair Research? 1973 to 1986 under original management and the sale to Amstrad saw the name and IP continue into the 1990s, but the attempts to take their computers into the US via Timex didn't take off.

 

Actually, i don't have time to do the research right now but didn't parts of the MSX consortium last past the ten year mark as well without really breaking America...?

[+save2600]

Gulf in "tech terms?" Please explain that, as I don't know what you're talking about. What "better" tech terms were Commodore using, then???

No, no, no... now you're on a much different wavelength. lol

 

Was agreeing with what you said about 2 years and 4 months being an eternity when it comes to the tech world. Same with the marketing aspects of the features/specs at the time.

 

Not the saying the ST "sucked" really. It is what it is or was in this case: a cheaper, low cost "off the shelf" 16-bit competitor to the Amiga. I rather like the styling of the ST (all models) actually, especially the function keys.

 

Re: the ST's single-sided 360k external drive - yes, I do think that was an embarrassing move for them. Besides being single-sided that is, can't imagine there being much, if *any* cost savings vs. including it internally. Especially for the consumer. Extra cables and power supply - yech. Obviously didn't make much sense to Atari either as they quickly changed and improved on their original design. It's all very interesting today to look back at some of the decisions made.

 

And yeah, the silliness with the 256k A1050 front door RAM card. Costs be damned... the machine should have been born with 512k from the start. Every consumer *had* to purchase that sooner (way sooner!) than later, including myself BITD.

 

A1000 - $1295

A1050 - $195

A1080 - $395

[Lost Dragon]

@TMr:i've seen it claimed the MSX range spanned 4 generations of hardware and had a 12 year life cycle from the introduction in '83 to being discontinued in 1995 (MSXturboR).

 

 

How 'factual' this is, i've no idea....but thought it might 'help' suggest an answer to your question.

[Retro Rogue]

Here's an interesting video on the making of the Amiga.

 

As I've mentioned in the past, unfortunately everything RJ states about Amiga's early dealing with Atari Inc. is made up (but told very entertainingly nonetheless). As he states in another video, when it's the choice between the facts and a good story, he'll choose the good story.

 

 

 

If you're saying that the idea that Jay Miner wanted it to be a computer is an urban legend, then you are incorrect. He clearly stated that he wanted it to be a computer in a published interview.

 

However, if you're saying that the idea of the Amiga being strictly a computer is an urban legend, then I'd have to agree with you. The Amiga is essentially a computer that is based around the design philosophy of a console. And that's because about half of the design team (including R.J. Mical) wanted a game console and most of them were very familiar with the use of custom hardware (like blitters) for the purposes of running video games.

 

It started out as an idea between Jay and Joe Decuir as a console/computer hybrid (ala the Atari 400). A 68000 based console with a keyboard on it that would allow developers to code directly on the console, and also support game distribution by floppy disk. It continued in that spirit when Jay joined Hi-Torro and then brought Joe on there as well (he was badge #3 and he was the chipset architect and designed the Angus). As he states, their original concept was for something that would have looked like the Amiga 500 with 128K of DRAM and no GUI OS. In fact he also feels if the video game industry problems hadn't happened people would have been playing Amiga consoles in the second half of the 80s instead of the NES. Instead the problems happened, Amiga sold out to Commodore and they changed the course of it.

 

Someone else mentioned the question about what would have been different if Atari had gotten the Amiga chipset. I'm assuming they mean Atari Inc., because that's who had the deal with Amiga. It was only a licensing deal, it wasn't for any ownership. Amiga was free to continue on with their own system and even license out the technology to others (though Atari did stipulate a list of competitors they were not allowed to license to). The license itself was only for an Atari game console (and coin use), which would be allowed to expand with a keyboard the following spring. Atari Inc. was then allowed to release a full computer on the market in 1986, again specifically constructed because Amiga wanted time on the market first with their own.

 

If the original asker meant Atari Corp., the RBP (the proto of the ST) was *never* planned around any Amiga technology. They didn't even know about the deal with Amiga when they were sold Atari Inc.'s Consumer Division, and in fact it didn't even come with the purchase. It stayed with Warner Communications (as did GCC's contract and several others). His son Leonard discovered the cashed initial check while going through papers in late July. Commodore had already placed an injunction on Shiraz and two other former Commodore engineers claiming theft of trade secrets, which effectively shut down all development for July. With Commodore's announcement of the pending purchase of Amiga and Leonard discovering the check and agreement, Jack negotiated with Warner for the contract in early August, got it and launched a countersuit at Commodore via Amiga. I.E. trying to do to Commodore what they had done to him.

 

 

As for the original question why the Amiga failed, it was the same reason the ST failed. Both companies had been relegated to niche markets (the ST with musicians and the Amiga with video production) by the 90s as the Wintel format began to take over. Apple isn't a really good comparison to say "Well it didn't happen to everyone." Apple was indeed going down, it just had deeper pockets to last through that fall a bit longer than the others until the tools for it's famous transition were in place. No matter whether people love or hate Steve Jobs, it was that transition to him and the steps he took that saved it. The Apple over the last fifteen or so years has little resemblance to the one that was dying in the early 90s.

Edited December 13, 2014 by Retro Rogue

[+save2600]

On the subject of failures, almost forgot one of the (if not THE) largest glaring omission from Atari IMO: lack of composite inputs on their ST monitors! WTF was that all about? Besides ST not outputting composite of course. No audio input either. Another "great" cost savings measure that really wasn't passed onto the consumer as ST monitors weren't *that* much cheaper than Commodore's were they?

They should/could have even had composite only monitor(s) to marry up to the XE and XL series of 8-bits too BITD, but noooooooooo!

Still think their ST monitors could have been a little more universal to suit their other computer lines. Would have matched up nicely with the color scheme and styling of the XE's especially. Seems to me some missed opportunities there and today, always strikes me as strange seeing 1702/1802's or 1080/1084's with our Atari stuff.

[atarian63]

Whatever it "felt" like, I provided month and year. To any normal person, month-and year to month-and-year feels like month-and-year to month-and-year (the same period). What is your point, in saying that, please?

 

 

 

The C128 (with monitor) cost about as much as an Atari 520ST with 4X the RAM, and the Atari 520ST kicked the ass of the C128 about 6x around the moon, and especially considering that most C128 users used their C128 in C64 mode, because the C64 at least got significant software support. Once again, those are facts, and I'm wondering if you have a point? I fully understand that you love Commodore and I like it too, but what is your point, and what have I said that is wrong?

You are correct, 520ST is what killed C128 sales in our store right away. Not a love for either for most folks but the value as you mentioned, ram size etc and many already had a c64 and that filled that need. St added a big advance in power.

Edited December 13, 2014 by atarian63

[atarian63]

 

As I've mentioned in the past, unfortunately everything RJ states about Amiga's early dealing with Atari Inc. is made up (but told very entertainingly nonetheless). As he states in another video, when it's the choice between the facts and a good story, he'll choose the good story.

 

 

 

It started out as an idea between Jay and Joe Decuir as a console/computer hybrid (ala the Atari 400). A 68000 based console with a keyboard on it that would allow developers to code directly on the console, and also support game distribution by floppy disk. It continued in that spirit when Jay joined Hi-Torro and then brought Joe on there as well (he was badge #3 and he was the chipset architect and designed the Angus). As he states, their original concept was for something that would have looked like the Amiga 500 with 128K of DRAM and no GUI OS. In fact he also feels if the video game industry problems hadn't happened people would have been playing Amiga consoles in the second half of the 80s instead of the NES. Instead the problems happened, Amiga sold out to Commodore and they changed the course of it.

 

Someone else mentioned the question about what would have been different if Atari had gotten the Amiga chipset. I'm assuming they mean Atari Inc., because that's who had the deal with Amiga. It was only a licensing deal, it wasn't for any ownership. Amiga was free to continue on with their own system and even license out the technology to others (though Atari did stipulate a list of competitors they were not allowed to license to). The license itself was only for an Atari game console (and coin use), which would be allowed to expand with a keyboard the following spring. Atari Inc. was then allowed to release a full computer on the market in 1986, again specifically constructed because Amiga wanted time on the market first with their own.

 

If the original asker meant Atari Corp., the RBP (the proto of the ST) was *never* planned around any Amiga technology. They didn't even know about the deal with Amiga when they were sold Atari Inc.'s Consumer Division, and in fact it didn't even come with the purchase. It stayed with Warner Communications (as did GCC's contract and several others). His son Leonard discovered the cashed initial check while going through papers in late July. Commodore had already placed an injunction on Shiraz and two other former Commodore engineers claiming theft of trade secrets, which effectively shut down all development for July. With Commodore's announcement of the pending purchase of Amiga and Leonard discovering the check and agreement, Jack negotiated with Warner for the contract in early August, got it and launched a countersuit at Commodore via Amiga. I.E. trying to do to Commodore what they had done to him.

 

 

As for the original question why the Amiga failed, it was the same reason the ST failed. Both companies had been relegated to niche markets (the ST with musicians and the Amiga with video production) by the 90s as the Wintel format began to take over. Apple isn't a really good comparison to say "Well it didn't happen to everyone." Apple was indeed going down, it just had deeper pockets to last through that fall a bit longer than the others until the tools for it's famous transition were in place. No matter whether people love or hate Steve Jobs, it was that transition to him and the steps he took that saved it. The Apple over the last fifteen or so years has little resemblance to the one that was dying in the early 90s.

As I recall didn't Apple get some cash from Micro$haft?

[Retro Rogue]

As I recall didn't Apple get some cash from Micro$haft?

 

Yup. Jobs set that up in '97.

 

http://www.tuaw.com/2014/05/20/what-ever-became-of-microsofts-150-million-investment-in-apple/

[Seob]

My only point was to point out that the world market is bigger then just the US.

And so it would be nice to take notice of what people say from other parts of the world.

Don't treat the US market as it's the same market as Europe, Oceania, Asia, South America or Africa because it isn't.

 

Even Sega had noticed it, leading to the release of the 32x and the Saturn.

And because these 2 divisions didn't listen to each other it resulted in the beginning of the ending of Sega as a hardware manufactur.

[am1933]

No offence to all you previous posters, but the question was about the "supposed failure" of the Amiga-and you all seem to have degenerated into a ST v Amiga, Europe V US battle, I thought this shit was consigned to the playground 30 years ago.

[108 Stars]

atarilovesyou, I don't deny the importance of the NA market. Just saying: the demise of Commodore happened 9 years after the Amiga was introduced, Atari died 11 years after the ST launch. As someone said before, that's ages in the computer industry, and says very little about the success of either computer. What it does say is that both companies failed to bring something consumers wanted after the Amiga and ST lines' time was up.

 

Commodore even still manufactured the C64 until shortly before the end. Doesn't mean the C64 was not a success either.

 

In a shifting world you need to keep up and reinvent yourself all the time. Fail to do so, and you go belly up. Commodore tried to keep Amiga alive past its time, and reused it for systems such as CDTV and CD³², which were commercial failures. Too late, and not the right products in an enviroment of the PC becoming stronger, and consoles achieving a level of technical capabilities that matched or eclipsed their computers.

 

All I'm saying is Amiga was a success; not a worldwide one, and thanks to that not as remarkable as the C64, but enough for Commodore to feel comfortable in their seats and missing the signal when it's time to move on. Missing the right time and product to move on lead to the end, not the Amiga. Imagine Nintendo had still relied on the NES in 1995.

[emkay]

The reason the Amiga failed was because it was cheap and manufactured by a toy company. For all the might and mighty graphics & sound (of the day) it sported, businesses wanted nothing to do with cheap plastic machines that had limited expansion.

AMIGA was all but cheap. Amiga had powerful expansion possibilities ,actually the Amiga 2000 here with a build in 500MB HDD beats a 486 easily in many aspects, which came 5 years later. Commodore was a selling ace back in those days.

And let's face it, the blue and white default colors of the CLI were campy. Whereas the professional looking monochrome text of a real computer.

The blue background was the best that could be done in those CRT times. It also wasn't the monochrome , it was the higher refresh rate and the "non interlace" in high resolutions. 60 or even 70Hz made it, not the colours.

 

It had slots you say? That didn't matter, the custom chips weren't upgradeable because they were too entrenched in the backbone. While you could put a faster CPU in there, the custom chips were the real limiting factor. In fact making the whole system go faster would require redesign of those 3 parts - so intimate were they to memory and i/o.

They forgot to enhance the custom chips (reminds me of something /sneaking towards the A800XL ) and to keep the down compatibility.

I never bought an A3000 or any newer model, because of the missing compatibility. So instead, I bought a PC, knowing that my software from today is not obsolete tomorrow.

It might have been better to have taken "Amiga technology" and package it into a multi-media board for the PC. And make it cheap. Had that passed through we might not have needed Creative Labs or 3Dfx/Nvidia or all those sound and videoboard add-ins we so painstakingly upgraded throughout the years.

 

You know, PCs have been sold with big clocking speeds and HD size. People acted on that and wondered why everything was that slow. A better sound and a clean displaying device would have helped the Amiga to keep the good name. Commodore took too long to fill that gap with a clean stereo sound device and a hires high refresh display...

[emkay]

Amiga died for several reasons but the Amiga drew an audience because it could do what other computers couldn't.

Once it fell behind in capabilities it was done for.

That's why revisions of computers always die. But new revisions keep competition for many years to the PC. PS4 f.e.

If such a great market goes down, as with the Amiga, there is something wrong inside the company.

Doom popularized 3D games and Amiga's bitplane graphics weren't suitable for it.

AGA was too little, too late and too slow.

I'm still pretty sure, an "ECS" Amiga can handle a Doom game, and AGA is fast enough for even more.

 

The architecture and OS were too tightly coupled to make upgrades easy.

Motorola was falling behind in the processor wars but multi-processing and DSP projects that would have kept the Amiga speed competitive had been cancelled.

One comes to the other. Amiga (OCS) itself has already been a real multi Processing computer. As the Sound- and Screenhandling didn't need the CPU to act on. That's why Multitasking was no problem on the Amiga from the 1st day on.

But, the needed parts didn't grow by software usage, so the successing parts won't be there... so the market will die sooner or later...

Edited December 14, 2014 by emkay

[emkay]

Here you go, multimedia and the Amiga in a nutshell:

 

"The Amiga was so far ahead of its time that almost nobody — including Commodore's marketing department — could fully articulate what it was all about. Today, it's obvious the Amiga was the first multimedia computer, but in those days it was derided as a game machine because few people grasped the importance of advanced graphics, sound, and video."

 

-Byte Magazine

At least ALL C64 users should have known that term. In many aspects, the C64 was the 1st Multimedia PC . People bought it, because it offered a colourful Screen and Music got unbelievable realistic in that time. The sounds were very "synthie" but a charthit was recognized by the 1st listen. People also had no problem with that low speed CPU and to wait for an hour to load a game, just listen to the nice music and the colourful screen that it shows ...

Edited December 14, 2014 by emkay

[Nebulon]

 

While there are several books that discuss the history of the video game market in North America, is there anything published (in English) that provides equally comprehensive coverage for the other regions?

There are two that contain content regarding other regions. One is Game.Machines by W. Forster (great book), and the other is High Score! by Demaria and Wilson (there's a chapter near the end covering UK systems).

[Bill Loguidice]

There are two that contain content regarding other regions. One is Game.Machines by W. Forster (great book), and the other is High Score! by Demaria and Wilson (there's a chapter near the end covering UK systems).

 

With all due respect to those books, I don't think they offer quite what was requested, i.e., a genuinely comprehensive European- and Japanese-centric historical perspective (respectively).