Sega didn't push games with identity, which killed their console business, like Commodore.

[ColecoKing]

In other thread it made be realize that Sega made big mistake using Commodore strategy of games first, identifying titles second. You use identifying titles to attract the crowd to your product. Like how good movies can cause viewers to come to your theater where you can push other movies that partner studios put out adding more money to the business. Or a computer that can use popular software to get users to try out other software on the platform.

Commodore had the games on the C64 and the Amiga, a lot of games, and most people who had it will take a few seconds before naming a handful of titles and none of them were games that people identified with the console and same games didn't attract a lot of sales to bring people onto the platform to buy even more games. This led to the C64 and Amiga having a lot of games but nothing that would be comparable to a game console and when you take longevity into account as the years pass the situation is even worse. Instead you have hidden gem explorers that will praise some games as key titles for the C64 or Amiga but they weren't breakouts.

Sega like any arcade developer had hits and duds, but during the 80's that had a good number of successful titles that they ported to their Sega Master System and Mega Drive gaming machines, but they never put and identity to these games, they didn't take the success at the arcades and translate it to the home to bring in buyers they just threw it on the pile and in ads would make it just another game on a list of games, hey look the Sega Master System, it has games you can play, Outrun, Zaxxon, Wonderboy, and Fantasy Zone. Only $40000 and you get two control pads with deluxe edition, just like arcade woo hoo.

Even Atari with 7800 say hey look we got this amazing 3D racing experience with Pole Position II sequel to amazing first game wow 1000 colors this is the power of 7800 super sprites are new, with super sprites you get arcade quality graphics at the fast speeds, and then we got super classic ms.pacman running at 5x the frame rate just like the arcade with 5000 colors, and advanced ball blazer this is the reason to buy consoles super 3D super sprites with advanced graphics technique throw competition in trash can. Nintendo had Mario images everywhere plumberguy find the princess cool levels, place him in ads like he's talking to the reader, hey my game is awesome cool and does things scrolling multiscreen graphics and flying turtles. Some of it is bullshit yes, but it works,

Sega hey guys our Saturn has the Daytons game, the Fighting Vipers and other games from Sega, Saturn has 3d, here is list of other random games and prices, ok yep that's it.


Now there are exceptions like Sonic the Hedgehog however they only really got away with it because of an extreme bundle and marketing campaign. Next game had sales drop over 60%. Sonic character is the mascot but they stop pushing the character as a way to identify with the console they use raw sales numbers and bundle to force attention and make it the mascot and that is why people associate Sonic with Sega but it did not attract the buyers as game sales keep dropping each entry until Sonic Adventure 1 on Dreamcast which has the same problem, had large marking campaign and big bundle deals. Sequel sales already dropping massive even before discontinuation news. Gamecube version of SA 2 early release with big marketing campaign and deals during slow season for gamecube game output, Sonic sales continue to drop outside first major multiplatform Sonic Sonic Heroes which was on 4 systems.

Meanwhile what else did Sega have? You will be angry and say Colecoking crazy Sega had all the good games, but did they sell? Did they have an identity? If they did the games and consoles would have sold more. In japan there was another exception Virtua Fighter. Big deal for a few years and unlike Sonic second game actually sell more than first game but then you have declining sales. To be fair Virtua Fighter as well started with bundled sales and massive marketing camapgin about 3D novelty instead of the game having an identity itself. The attempt for that was Shenmue which originally featured Akira then changed, but when Shenmue eventually released the ads and promotion for it where more about a tech demo than having an identity.

People mention titles like Gunstar Heroes, Thunderblade, Fighters Megamix, House of the Dead, some of those were well in the arcade but were nothing on home gaming devices and were nothing more than a game to put on a list.

Let us look at some examples top 10

Top Sega Saturn sales US

1. Virtua Fighter (Bundled sales only) 250,000
2. Madden NFL 97 240,000
3. NiGHTS (All versions) 220,000
4. Virtua Fighter 2 (All versions) 200,000
5. Sega Rally (All versions) 190,000
6. Daytona USA 170,000
7. Sonic 3D Blast 170,000
8. Tomb Raider 170,000
9. NHL 97 130,000
10. Virtua Cop 130,000

Top Sega Saturn sales Japan
1 Virtua Fighter 2 1.417.034 SEGA
2 Virtua Fighter 630.000 SEGA
3 Sega Rally Championship 598.368 SEGA
4 Daytona USA 570.000 SEGA
5 Fighters Megamix 528.698 SEGA
6 Super Robot Wars F: Final 513.782 Banpresto
7 Sakura Taisen 2 509.091 SEGA
8 Virtua Cop 482.362 SEGA
9 Super Robot Wars F 464.169 Banpresto
10 Virtua Fighter Remix 437.036 SEGA


Top Dreamcast sales Japan
1 Sonic Adventure [All Versions] 438.708 SEGA
2 Resident Evil Code: Veronica [All Versions] 416.816 Capcom
3 Seaman: Kindan no Pet 403.986 SEGA
4 Resident Evil Code: Veronica 403.964 Capcom
5 Sonic Adventure 385.367 SEGA
6 Sega Rally 2 375.074 SEGA
7 Shenmue 355.902 SEGA 29/12/1999
8 Sakura Taisen 3 [All Versions] 349.150 SEGA
9 Virtua Fighter 3tb [All Versions] 330.631 SEGA
10 J-League Pro Soccer Club! 305.337 SEGA

Top PSX sales US
3,261,557 PSX Gran Turismo (Sony)
3,156,882 PSX Gran Turismo 2 (Sony)
3,120,190 PSX Crash Bandicoot 2 (Sony)
3,056,691 PSX Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped (Sony)
2,948,058 PSX Frogger (Atari)
2,756,288 PSX Spyro the Dragon (Sony)
2,751,213 PSX Crash Bandicoot (Sony)
2,701,372 PSX Tekken 3 (Namco)
2,628,911 PSX Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (Activision)
2,623,706 PSX Driver (Activision)


Top N64 sales US
1.5,943,556 N64 Super Mario 64 (Nintendo)
2,5,019,092 N64 Goldeneye 007 (Nintendo)
3.4,796,623 N64 Mario Kart 64 (Nintendo)
4.3,543,388 N64 Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Nintendo)
5.2,741,914 N64 Pokemon Stadium (Nintendo)
6.2,546,810 N64 Super Smash Brothers (Nintendo)
7.2,500,609 N64 Diddy Kong Racing (Nintendo)
8.2,403,652 N64 Star Fox 64 (Nintendo)
9.2,336,132 N64 Donkey Kong 64 (Nintendo)
10.1,916,105 N64 Pokemon Snap (Nintendo)

Top N64 sales Japan
1 Mario Kart 64 1.711.661
2 Super Mario 64 1.646.558
3 Super Smash Bros. 1.632.046
4 The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 1.143.570
5 Pocket Monsters' Stadium 1.094.765
6 Mario Party 2 884.249
7 Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards 882.228
8 Yoshi's Story 852.864
9 Donkey Kong 64 848.375
10 Mario Party 3 846.453

Big difference is that there are key games that gamers don't just play but identify with the console itself which can lead to a spread of sales and a higher attraction to the console. Some earlier games worked with the Genesis after Sonic came out due to the new interest and the expansive marketing campaign but that only lasted awhile and you saw Sega struggling to figure out what to do later on as their lead and hold on the market diminished rapidly leading to the SNES catching up and passing it in the US and a few other territories, was never able to gain a foothold in japan.

Even 3DO had Gex and Need For speed for identifying games, Another world, SFII Turbo, FIFA and Road rash as experiences. While a lower selling console the ration of sales is higher than Sega systems adjusted.

You don't really need a mascot, or 5 mascots, just games that make players see a connection to the console in some form. Some identity that attracts them to the product. Sega didn't really have that, they had a few games that sold well given the situation or novelty, some fads, and rare few identifying games and one of those was force fed with less interest each entry until its force fed again.

Commodore had the same issue, if they had these types of games we could have seen more Amigas sold. C64 benefited from being the leader and extremely cheap for the time. Winning the price war had it's own benefits as well with an open policy for games which brought in a slew of games of different quality but it never had the same appeal consoles had despite its sales, and sales of actual games proved this.

With the Amiga those other advantageous were gone and Amiga was being handed to by PC and clones. When the end of Commodore was near and their only hope was a games consoles they were DOA for this reason.

Funny, years after Sega discontinue consoles they finally get it and do much better. But now they don't have their own console anymore. Commodore is of course, dead.

[turboxray]

So many in-cohesive related ideas just smashed together in that post. It reads like you had this epiphany, and then went out looking for something to back it up/prove it - twisting facts as evidence and causation. 1/10

Edited September 12, 2020 by turboxray

[ColecoKing]

And which part do you disagree with?

Edited September 13, 2020 by ColecoKing

[mbd30]

3 hours ago, ColecoKing said:

In other thread it made be realize that Sega made big mistake using Commodore strategy of games first, identifying titles second. You use identifying titles to attract the crowd to your product. Like how good movies can cause viewers to come to your theater where you can push other movies that partner studios put out adding more money to the business. Or a computer that can use popular software to get users to try out other software on the platform.

Commodore had the games on the C64 and the Amiga, a lot of games, and most people who had it will take a few seconds before naming a handful of titles and none of them were games that people identified with the console and same games didn't attract a lot of sales to bring people onto the platform to buy even more games. This led to the C64 and Amiga having a lot of games but nothing that would be comparable to a game console and when you take longevity into account as the years pass the situation is even worse. Instead you have hidden gem explorers that will praise some games as key titles for the C64 or Amiga but they weren't breakouts.

Sega like any arcade developer had hits and duds, but during the 80's that had a good number of successful titles that they ported to their Sega Master System and Mega Drive gaming machines, but they never put and identity to these games, they didn't take the success at the arcades and translate it to the home to bring in buyers they just threw it on the pile and in ads would make it just another game on a list of games, hey look the Sega Master System, it has games you can play, Outrun, Zaxxon, Wonderboy, and Fantasy Zone. Only $40000 and you get two control pads with deluxe edition, just like arcade woo hoo.

Even Atari with 7800 say hey look we got this amazing 3D racing experience with Pole Position II sequel to amazing first game wow 1000 colors this is the power of 7800 super sprites are new, with super sprites you get arcade quality graphics at the fast speeds, and then we got super classic ms.pacman running at 5x the frame rate just like the arcade with 5000 colors, and advanced ball blazer this is the reason to buy consoles super 3D super sprites with advanced graphics technique throw competition in trash can. Nintendo had Mario images everywhere plumberguy find the princess cool levels, place him in ads like he's talking to the reader, hey my game is awesome cool and does things scrolling multiscreen graphics and flying turtles. Some of it is bullshit yes, but it works,

Sega hey guys our Saturn has the Daytons game, the Fighting Vipers and other games from Sega, Saturn has 3d, here is list of other random games and prices, ok yep that's it.


Now there are exceptions like Sonic the Hedgehog however they only really got away with it because of an extreme bundle and marketing campaign. Next game had sales drop over 60%. Sonic character is the mascot but they stop pushing the character as a way to identify with the console they use raw sales numbers and bundle to force attention and make it the mascot and that is why people associate Sonic with Sega but it did not attract the buyers as game sales keep dropping each entry until Sonic Adventure 1 on Dreamcast which has the same problem, had large marking campaign and big bundle deals. Sequel sales already dropping massive even before discontinuation news. Gamecube version of SA 2 early release with big marketing campaign and deals during slow season for gamecube game output, Sonic sales continue to drop outside first major multiplatform Sonic Sonic Heroes which was on 4 systems.

Meanwhile what else did Sega have? You will be angry and say Colecoking crazy Sega had all the good games, but did they sell? Did they have an identity? If they did the games and consoles would have sold more. In japan there was another exception Virtua Fighter. Big deal for a few years and unlike Sonic second game actually sell more than first game but then you have declining sales. To be fair Virtua Fighter as well started with bundled sales and massive marketing camapgin about 3D novelty instead of the game having an identity itself. The attempt for that was Shenmue which originally featured Akira then changed, but when Shenmue eventually released the ads and promotion for it where more about a tech demo than having an identity.

People mention titles like Gunstar Heroes, Thunderblade, Fighters Megamix, House of the Dead, some of those were well in the arcade but were nothing on home gaming devices and were nothing more than a game to put on a list.

Let us look at some examples top 10

Top Sega Saturn sales US

1. Virtua Fighter (Bundled sales only) 250,000
2. Madden NFL 97 240,000
3. NiGHTS (All versions) 220,000
4. Virtua Fighter 2 (All versions) 200,000
5. Sega Rally (All versions) 190,000
6. Daytona USA 170,000
7. Sonic 3D Blast 170,000
8. Tomb Raider 170,000
9. NHL 97 130,000
10. Virtua Cop 130,000

Top Sega Saturn sales Japan
1 Virtua Fighter 2 1.417.034 SEGA
2 Virtua Fighter 630.000 SEGA
3 Sega Rally Championship 598.368 SEGA
4 Daytona USA 570.000 SEGA
5 Fighters Megamix 528.698 SEGA
6 Super Robot Wars F: Final 513.782 Banpresto
7 Sakura Taisen 2 509.091 SEGA
8 Virtua Cop 482.362 SEGA
9 Super Robot Wars F 464.169 Banpresto
10 Virtua Fighter Remix 437.036 SEGA


Top Dreamcast sales Japan
1 Sonic Adventure [All Versions] 438.708 SEGA
2 Resident Evil Code: Veronica [All Versions] 416.816 Capcom
3 Seaman: Kindan no Pet 403.986 SEGA
4 Resident Evil Code: Veronica 403.964 Capcom
5 Sonic Adventure 385.367 SEGA
6 Sega Rally 2 375.074 SEGA
7 Shenmue 355.902 SEGA 29/12/1999
8 Sakura Taisen 3 [All Versions] 349.150 SEGA
9 Virtua Fighter 3tb [All Versions] 330.631 SEGA
10 J-League Pro Soccer Club! 305.337 SEGA

Top PSX sales US
3,261,557 PSX Gran Turismo (Sony)
3,156,882 PSX Gran Turismo 2 (Sony)
3,120,190 PSX Crash Bandicoot 2 (Sony)
3,056,691 PSX Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped (Sony)
2,948,058 PSX Frogger (Atari)
2,756,288 PSX Spyro the Dragon (Sony)
2,751,213 PSX Crash Bandicoot (Sony)
2,701,372 PSX Tekken 3 (Namco)
2,628,911 PSX Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (Activision)
2,623,706 PSX Driver (Activision)


Top N64 sales US
1.5,943,556 N64 Super Mario 64 (Nintendo)
2,5,019,092 N64 Goldeneye 007 (Nintendo)
3.4,796,623 N64 Mario Kart 64 (Nintendo)
4.3,543,388 N64 Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Nintendo)
5.2,741,914 N64 Pokemon Stadium (Nintendo)
6.2,546,810 N64 Super Smash Brothers (Nintendo)
7.2,500,609 N64 Diddy Kong Racing (Nintendo)
8.2,403,652 N64 Star Fox 64 (Nintendo)
9.2,336,132 N64 Donkey Kong 64 (Nintendo)
10.1,916,105 N64 Pokemon Snap (Nintendo)

Top N64 sales Japan
1 Mario Kart 64 1.711.661
2 Super Mario 64 1.646.558
3 Super Smash Bros. 1.632.046
4 The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 1.143.570
5 Pocket Monsters' Stadium 1.094.765
6 Mario Party 2 884.249
7 Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards 882.228
8 Yoshi's Story 852.864
9 Donkey Kong 64 848.375
10 Mario Party 3 846.453

Big difference is that there are key games that gamers don't just play but identify with the console itself which can lead to a spread of sales and a higher attraction to the console. Some earlier games worked with the Genesis after Sonic came out due to the new interest and the expansive marketing campaign but that only lasted awhile and you saw Sega struggling to figure out what to do later on as their lead and hold on the market diminished rapidly leading to the SNES catching up and passing it in the US and a few other territories, was never able to gain a foothold in japan.

Even 3DO had Gex and Need For speed for identifying games, Another world, SFII Turbo, FIFA and Road rash as experiences. While a lower selling console the ration of sales is higher than Sega systems adjusted.

You don't really need a mascot, or 5 mascots, just games that make players see a connection to the console in some form. Some identity that attracts them to the product. Sega didn't really have that, they had a few games that sold well given the situation or novelty, some fads, and rare few identifying games and one of those was force fed with less interest each entry until its force fed again.

Commodore had the same issue, if they had these types of games we could have seen more Amigas sold. C64 benefited from being the leader and extremely cheap for the time. Winning the price war had it's own benefits as well with an open policy for games which brought in a slew of games of different quality but it never had the same appeal consoles had despite its sales, and sales of actual games proved this.

With the Amiga those other advantageous were gone and Amiga was being handed to by PC and clones. When the end of Commodore was near and their only hope was a games consoles they were DOA for this reason.

Funny, years after Sega discontinue consoles they finally get it and do much better. But now they don't have their own console anymore. Commodore is of course, dead.
 

 

Sir, this is an Arbys.

[BassGuitari]

13 hours ago, mbd30 said:

 

Sir, this is an Arbys.

🤣

[youxia]

[Gamemoose]

Identity...you keep using that word...I don't think it means what you think it means...

 

I don't know what you really mean by Sega "never put and identity to these [arcade] games, they didn't take the success at the arcades and translate it to the home"

 

That WAS the identity- bringing the arcade games home. "Hey, here's Outrun on the Sega Master System- like the arcade!". Then the Genesis, besides us being sold about it being 16 bits, they sold folks on the fact that they could play Sega arcade hits that LOOKED and SOUNDED like the arcades...just what Nintendidn't. It was pretty much arcade games first sprinkled with games that were arcade-like and great looking sports games (with recognizable names like Joe Montana and Arnold Palmer). Then it was selling that fact that their next RPG was so complex that you needed a computer to play games like that.

 

In short-the identity was arcade quality games (both ports and original) followed by raw console power (comparing the Genesis to a computer). Everything else came later, like the "mascot wars", if you want to call it that.

 

Commodore and other computers...they had identity...of being computers. Pretty much all computers sold the idea of being productive for the home, a learning tool and yes, they played games. Most developers/companies maxe games for multiple platforms, so a lot of the time computer gamers didn't miss out on much. Unless of course they saw the same game look better on a different platform than theirs.

 

Yeah I fed the thread but hey it served my purpose: getting an overtired 4 year old to sleep.

[high voltage]

Tiger game.com had identity.

[carlsson]

On 9/13/2020 at 12:12 AM, ColecoKing said:

Commodore had the games on the C64 and the Amiga, a lot of games,

Actually Commodore had rather few games on the C64, mainly a bunch of early cartridge, tape and disk releases in the 1982-84 window. When it comes to the Amiga, I would be hard pressed to name even a single game published by Commodore themselves. What you are describing are all the 3rd party titles, and since these were home computers not locked in by any licensing agreement, everyone and their dog were able to publish games, often ports available on multiple formats but sometimes also exclusive titles, not by decision but by being the only format the developer was working with.

 

But yeah, I know I'm opening a Pandora's box full of worms now...

 

Edit: I had to check Lemon Amiga. That site lists four (4) titles published by Commodore: Mind Walker (Synapse game from 1986), Defender of the Crown (CDTV edition 1991), Defender of the Crown II (CDTV/CD32 edition 1993) and Amiga CD Football (CD32 edition 1993). Actually I remembered there would be a few more from 1986-ish but perhaps those are listed on a different publisher.

Edited September 14, 2020 by carlsson

[Bill Loguidice]

The Amiga's issues had nothing to do with identifiable games. That's a completely different issue for the time period and platform type. In fact, one could argue that the Amiga did just fine in the area of defining games with titles like Defender of the Crown showcasing what at the time was truly state-of-the-art audio-visuals and that continuing on with other games. The Amiga's issues, like the ST, were entrenched and rising DOS PCs and a hook (digital video prowess) that was just a bit too niche (again, like the ST with its MIDI capabilities). The only "other" computing platform that got a "good" niche was the Macintosh with desktop publishing, which proved to be a bit more widely appealing, among several other factors for that platform being able to hold on versus the other two.

 

In any case, a lot of factors go into why a particular platform - computer or console - has success. It simply doesn't boil down to just games with "identity".

[Black_Tiger]

You are either painfully unfamiliar with Sega's libraries or intentionally ignorant.

[Leeroy ST]

Sega had a bad time picking the right games that would become blockbuster hits selling millions of copies. The only blockbuster hits from Sega across their consoles had only been Sonic + Altered Beast and I guess VF from Japan if the sales numbers in the OP are true. The last handful were third party from Midway, Capcom, and Virgin USA.

 

Meanwhile SNES had 20 blockbuster hits by itself. N64 had 23.

 

However, I don't see how this means the games didn't have identity? I mean it looks like the OP is making a sales argument but I'm not sure. 

[mbd30]

20 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

Sega had a bad time picking the right games that would become blockbuster hits selling millions of copies. The only blockbuster hits from Sega across their consoles had only been Sonic + Altered Beast and I guess VF from Japan if the sales numbers in the OP are true. The last handful were third party from Midway, Capcom, and Virgin USA.

 

Meanwhile SNES had 20 blockbuster hits by itself. N64 had 23.

 

However, I don't see how this means the games didn't have identity? I mean it looks like the OP is making a sales argument but I'm not sure. 

 

Here's the list of best selling Genesis games.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Sega_Genesis_games

 

Streets of Rage 2 should have been a bigger seller. It was even bundled with the system at some point. Also surprised there aren't more sports games on the list.

 

[Leeroy ST]

9 minutes ago, mbd30 said:

 

Here's the list of best selling Genesis games.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Sega_Genesis_games

 

Streets of Rage 2 should have been a bigger seller. It was even bundled with the system at some point. Also surprised there aren't more sports games on the list.

 

Assuming this list is right it seems I nailed the handful of blockbuster sales on the head, only a few games sold millions of copies. The competition had a lot more.

 

Of course I still don't see what sales have to do with identity OP seems to be making an argument with those consoles lists. Like everyone knows the PSX had more games with mass appeal than anyone else this is common knowledge. 

 

 

[CatPix]

I don't understand where the argument wanna go. Especially when mixing Commodore with Sega.

 

First, Commodore was in the computer business. They did not need the games. They had no need for making recognizeable games or mascot; their market was larger than games; the reason why the C64 is the most sold computer are certainly not gamers, but businesses and (for the US) schools, and student buying the computer they worked on at school.

It even ignore the fact that Commodore wanted to end the C64 but didn't because it kept selling. Ultimately, the C64 was ended because Commodre themselves ended. Else, the C64 would have been made and supported until 1995.

The Amiga had a market in video editing, 3D modeling, etc.. The Amiga's failure is mostly due to Commodore's poor decisions for half baked upgrades, a growing and confusing range of computers that were not even 100% compatible with each other  (not helped by crazy mixed numeratation : the Amiga 1000 was the first computer, with less RAM than the Amiga 500.

But the Amiga 1200 is indeed "better" than the Amiga 600, which was a failure because it should had replaced the A500 but was partly incompatible... and The Amiga 2000 and more were better than all. Confused much?).

In both cases, they had no need for flagship games. The reason why we remember as game machines today is because... well, it's why we're here after all. Also, no one but a few crazy people use a C64 daily for type letters or do accounting.

 

For Sega, again, their issue was more a string of bad management decision, and more importantly, the growing gap between Sega Japan and Sega of America. 32X? Sega USA. Sega Nomad? Sega USA. Failure to sell the Saturn in the USA (and Europe?) Sega of USA (the unfamous early sale without warning and without stocks for the US sales, and taking over Sega of Europe for distributing games, which meant that any games deemed "not good for the US" would never make it to Europe; very jarring when grey market and direct import for the Master System and Megadrive where part of the appeal of both systems in Europe;  also, most gaming zines would feature Japanese Saturn games, that European gamers would never see.)

As for games with no identity?

Sonic has a defined one. I was watching Sonic cartoons before I even heard of the word Sega. Probably less know in the US but European gamers still hope to see an Alex Kidd game at any point in time.

Again, there is certainly mismanagement of the Sonic franchise (and total abandonnement of Alex Kidd and Shinobi) but when they were actual IP, they were huge and recognized by every console gamers.

[carlsson]

Well, if you rewind the clock until 1980/81, Commodore under Jack Tramiel did put some efforts on publishing games for the new VIC-1001/VIC-20 computer. But they certainly didn't do it for the sake of gaming, but as a way to kickstart sales of the computer. A decent games library was a cheap way to enter the market, in particular as it had specs well below the competition in most aspects such as memory, number of columns etc. There was some in-house development, but the majority was outsourced to the forerunner to HAL Labs, various bedroom and other small developers in America. By the time of the C64, there were enough publishers into Commodore games so they didn't have to release a lot of games on their own, and they probably figured others would make more attractive games anyway.

 

I'm not sure the C64 sold that many units to schools and even less so to small businesses. Here the Apple vs Commodore argument tends to rise, that both the education and business sectors were cornered by Apple until IBM entered. But even if the C64 is a gaming computer, like I described in the previous paragraph Commodore didn't have to be a gaming company because there were already enough games publishers for it to float on its own. We can debate which publishers lead the race and which put the C64 front. Epyx comes to my mind as a company which in the early years made Atari 8-bit games but around 1984 strongly shifted over to C64 and definitely made games with "identity". Electronic Arts and Activision were more all-round with C64, Atari 8-bit, Apple II, DOS etc, meaning while they often had good games, neither really stood out as definng the C64 as a games platform. A lot of software houses outside the USA also should be counted.

 

Regarding "bringing people onto the platform to buy even more games", unfortunately there is a simple explanation why game sales might've been lower per sold system than on the console side: piracy. No matter how good, unique and defining the games were, if copies were spread around the sales of the originals would still be moderate. But claiming most people who once had a C64 would have a hard time naming a few favorite games is unfair.

 

When it comes to the Amiga, similar arguments could be made except for what I wrote above, Commodore themselves pretty much didn't publish a single game (well, I counted to four titles of which two were re-releases) so in that case all of the Amiga games fame relied on 3rd party, which obviously was thriving enough for Commodore not to intervene and get some blockbuster titles to publish themselves to help the platform. Actually they bundled some models with 3rd party titles like Oscar, Digger etc. Neither of these bundled games are among the best recognized, but that is the closest you get to Commodore taking any form of action to maintain the Amiga as a gaming computer.