Commodore Amiga could have easily competed with SNES & MD if they didn't focus on proprietary.

[ColecoKing]

Atari ST was known as the game machine due to cheap price and bundles the first few years which pissed off many developers. But as many studios went to Amiga they never looked back and Commodore took over the gaming market in the computer side of the industry. Even before the CD models Amiga sound crushed the competition, powerful insides allowed for fast paced scaling and 3D gaming. Many features in relation to sprites were also built in from launch showing that Commodore did notice the massive amount of games support the C64 had and the C128 lacked.

Commodore had multiple opportunities to enter the gaming industry proper to compete with SNES and Mega Drive the popular consoles of the time.

The first was the CDTV they made two mistakes that never could recover. The first is that they gave up on it too early and some will say it is because of $999 launch price. But look at Phillips CDI and NeoGeo(and one game) both of which were more expensive and the Phillips CDI sold 1 million and the NeoGeo sold 700,000. The CDTV was based on the Amiga 500 so prices would have dropped quick, buy 1993 CDTV may have been $200 or less. Instead after a year of slow sales Commodore already started pulling the plug without even trying, didn't even give much promotion!!

The second big mistake was proprietary CD gaming. when Amiga computers added CD every CD software should have been compatible with CDTV and that was not the case. They had a modified Amiga 500 inside the CDTV but many CD software didn't work and Commodore should have pushed for full compatibility and got developers to promote their software on Amiga and CDTV.

This is one of the reasons Commodore died, lack of compatibility which would retail large install base over time.


Then there were mistakes made later in the Amigas life before Commodore folded. The Amiga CD32 which was a console based on the Amiga 1200. Commodore guess what? Learned no lessons. Once again incompatible gaming consoles developers had to port games to instead of just releasing the same games already on CD. With no backing from Amiga many developers took pre-CD games and just shoved them on the disc with audio, and games that were made with CD in mind were not compatible unless they released it on the new standard. They also released it too late they would have had to sell half a million units quickly to make enough money to stay alive and they couldn't even make that many to sell.

Look at the comparisons:

Amiga gaming







SNES gaming





Genesis gaming






As you can see Amiga was more than a match for the SNES and Drive at the time. Why Commode let such a major opportunity pass them by will be a question for the ages. They never took the home space seriously, they could have been the king of games on computers and home console which the C64 and Amiga were designed to do, play games well, and do media stuff, not so much spreadsheets and pagination.

If only they fixed the mistakes above. Now the last time I saw a logo was a shit chinese tier lowend laptop from a company that got the bran license back in 2009.




The worst part is that Amiga was around for nearly 10 years and Amiga never had the brain to figure out something so simple until right when they were about to be buried 6 feet under.

[mr_me]

Commodore was not a video game company.  Many amiga games suffered from poor conversions as developers quickly got stuff out on several systems as quickly as possible.  First party video games are really needed for the best chance to succeed.  The Amiga graphics hardware was designed for video games before being purchased by commodore.  It should have been a game console by 1987 or earlier to have a chance; 1993 was too late.

[ColecoKing]

^I said in OP they messed up on CDTV came out just in time of new super generation of consoles, if they fixed compatibility and dropped the price without quiting early it would have been a big deal. Many Amiga games already by that time ran circles over what was available on mega drive and competitive with the genesis. There are even OCS 3D games.

Commodore not a video game company? Vic-20 was gaming computer, C64 had gaming capabilities built in and they went to focus on that for their later business strategy even tried a poorly supported TV console C64GS but could have did better job with it.

Edited September 19, 2020 by ColecoKing

[empsolo]

I’ll echo what @mr_me said. The console market is a razor and razor blades Industry. Consoles are typically sold at a loss and the money is made through first party sales and third party sales and licensing agreements.

Edited September 19, 2020 by empsolo

[Keatah]

When I got my first Amiga, an A1000, I bought it for two things. Graphics and Games. It partly fulfilled its promise as an introduction to working with a mouse for creating and editing gifs. PhotonPaint and DeluxePaint and DigiPaint were titles in my box of disks.

 

There were a few games, maybe 10-15 that I played regularly like Flight Simulator II, Jet, F/A-18 Interceptor, Terrorpods, F-22 Retaliator, SimCity, Carrier Command, StarGlider, and some obscure one-offs. The names escape me at the moment.

 

It never became the system I had wanted. A lot of waiting. A lot of wanting. And more waiting. Being naive about how the industry worked I kept hanging on. Had I had any insight into the politics and forces that shaped the industry I would have stayed away from the platform. And magazines didn't do any good either. They're like advertisements you pay for - constantly upselling the subject they're focused on. Both subtly through editorials and reviews and blatantly through ads placed by manufacturers. It's all buy.. buy.. buy.. buy this, buy that.

 

They kept saying this was gonna come out. That was gonna come out. And whenever I went to my local computer stores all I saw (overall) was a shrinking market share. NES was on the rise. And PC even more so! And Comp-USA didn't even have anything Amiga-related aside from 3.5" blank disks and surge suppressors.

 

The vast array of PC options and expansions was seriously overpowering. Prolific enough that there were like 8 or 9 stores within 10 miles of each other. Possibly more if you figure in the tiny mom'n'pop shops. In fact there was so much PC stuff that Byte grew to almost and inch thick and ComputerShopper was 2" thick!

 

I should have been paying attention to the PC once it advanced from plain'ol PC to XT to AT and 286 and 386 and beyond.

 

[turboxray]

22 hours ago, ColecoKing said:

As you can see Amiga was more than a match for the SNES and Drive at the time. Why Commode let such a major opportunity pass them by will be a question for the ages. 
 

Apparently you know little about Amiga hardware. The Amiga was definitely NOT more than a match for SNES and Genesis. Hell, it even had trouble matching the PC-Engine. That aside, the Amiga not being a dedicated console is not what killed off the Amiga. Where do you come up with this crap?

[+Black_Tiger]

Hardware didn't sell consoles. The 2600 beat everything that tried to compete. The NES' weird color and odd shaped sprites streamrolled the SMS outside of the markets Nintendo couldn't cheat business-wise.

 

Amiga software typically had issues that console players would be turned off by, but that's besides the point. Any console could have ruled any market in an alternate reality where they did the right (or often legally or morally wrong) things and if the parent company had unlimited resources.

 

Fantasy scenarios like this which point out how few units something like the Neo Geo sold are silly because they say "if my console did everything right and the others STILL made the wrong choices, it could've been number one!"

 

Put the Amiga up against a $100 Neo Geo AES with $30 cart games and featuring all the software from SNES and Genesis libraries (bumped up to Neo Geo quality) and how well would it have faired?

[+Black_Tiger]

4 hours ago, turboxray said:

Apparently you know little about Amiga hardware. The Amiga was definitely NOT more than a match for SNES and Genesis. Hell, it even had trouble matching the PC-Engine. That aside, the Amiga not being a dedicated console is not what killed off the Amiga. Where do you come up with this crap?

Here are a couple good examples of games built for the Amiga that demonstrate how the best devs had trouble matching console quality on the hardware. Both run in low res and SotB is particularly cramped with fewer enemies/sprites happening. Mega Turrican received a pretty hefty upgrade to the backgrounds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ColecoKing]

^How can Mega Turrican receive upgrade if Mega Turrican came out first?

Also why you ignoring gifs in the OP showing it was clearly competitive graphically? fanboys my gawd. Show me the SNES version of no second prize, or anything as clean as the 2D racing game, if SNES could do mode 7 like that it would have caused people to have heart attacks. Not every game is about how many sprites are on the screen in a spaceship shooter or run n gun, ask Atari how that went.

[zzip]

On 9/19/2020 at 1:50 PM, ColecoKing said:

Commodore not a video game company? Vic-20 was gaming computer, C64 had gaming capabilities built in and they went to focus on that for their later business strategy even tried a poorly supported TV

Well they made a computer with decent graphics/sound capabilities, and sold a ton of them.   So they became a defacto game systems.   It's funny when I think of C64 I think games,  but when I think Commodore, I don't think games company.   I think they tried to position themselves as more serious than say Atari.

[ColecoKing]

zzip

Well they made a computer with decent graphics/sound capabilities, and sold a ton of them. So they became a defacto game systems. It's funny when I think of C64 I think games, but when I think Commodore, I don't think games company. I think they tried to position themselves as more serious than say Atari.

Yes, Commodore had games and even helped developers and published some themselves, but they were two face they were always trying to get into the broader computer market which is why they never really went all in on gaming. They could have gained a large market share putting focus on games and then branched out but instead games were a limited bridge to other parts of an Amiga computer and they would put most of their money on chasing the workstation and home office segment. Issue is that segment is expensive and their continuous failure is why Amiga became a commercial failure and why C64 big success didn't turn into a warchest of money. Commodore could have had enough money to blow through anything. It was like multiple PS3 mistakes but with a company without the billions of dollars Sony had.

[zetastrike]

27 minutes ago, ColecoKing said:

^How can Mega Turrican receive upgrade if Mega Turrican came out first?

Also why you ignoring gifs in the OP showing it was clearly competitive graphically? fanboys my gawd. Show me the SNES version of no second prize, or anything as clean as the 2D racing game, if SNES could do mode 7 like that it would have caused people to have heart attacks. Not every game is about how many sprites are on the screen in a spaceship shooter or run n gun, ask Atari how that went.

You're calling HIM a fanboy?

 

First of all, you need an accelerated Amiga for those 3D games and that mode 7 esque racer to run at a decent framerate.  Even a stock 1200 wasn't adequate much of the time.

 

Second of all, you don't take into account things like game balance/level design/enemy placement/pacing (which Euro developers sucked at back then), controls (hello 1 button), poor production values (games not full screen, lack of parallax, sub-60/50 fps, music OR sound effects).  Having a bunch of dollar store knockoffs of popular console games wasn't going to help the Amiga's cause.

[desiv]

On 9/20/2020 at 8:52 AM, turboxray said:

Apparently you know little about Amiga hardware. The Amiga was definitely NOT more than a match for SNES and Genesis. Hell, it even had trouble matching the PC-Engine. That aside, the Amiga not being a dedicated console is not what killed off the Amiga. Where do you come up with this crap?

No, that's wrong on a couple of sides.

One, why are you dissing the PC-Engine?    That machine had some great games that compared well to Genesis/SNES quality.

And the Amiga was definitely capable of competing in that area. 

There were some games that prove that no problem...

 

That said, as a huge Amiga fan, I will admit that the Genesis and SNES were better hardware wise at the top end.  The Amiga could (and did) have some games that are really good Genesis/SNES level games.  (Hybris, Battle Squadron, Leander..  Lots really.)  But there are some great Genesis/SNES games that the Amiga couldn't handle.

 

That's not to say an Amiga game machine couldn't have succeeded on paper.  The hardware was good enough to produce games that could have competed, but that didn't happen for a couple of reasons.

1:  Commodore.. (nuff said there)

2:  It was a computer.  You didn't have the same quality control and focus that a console needs.  This goes back to the razor/blade analogy.  Very different markets.  That also meant you had some really deep games that wouldn't be successful on a console of the day.

3:  1 button games.  Yes, this has nothing to do with the hardware itself as it supported multiple buttons.  But the developers wrote games for the lowest common denominator.  Even a lot of the CDTV and CD32 games were just Amiga games plopped on CDs.  (You did have a bit of that with the SegaCD too.)

 

If you wanted the best games device, you got a console.  If you wanted the best console style games on a computer, you got an Amiga.   IMHO.

 

I was never a console kid, so was happy with my Amiga.  It wasn't quite as good as the Genesis/SNES.  But it was good enough for me.

 

The game balance issue is a good point.  But at the same time, that is just a dev issue.  Nothing to do with hardware.

 

In a theoretical world, if Sega had bought Amiga technology and the Genesis was basically Amiga hardware (and there was never an Amiga computer), I think it would have been a successful machine.  The CPU (same), graphics processer, sound chip are really good.  With Sega and 3rd party Sega developers designing games, those games would have been great.  (I think the tricky part would have been sound.  Only 4 sound channels is a bit tight on a game console...)

 

But once something is a computer, it won't also make a great console.  Different markets...  Different focus...

 

[zetastrike]

7 minutes ago, desiv said:

No, that's wrong on a couple of sides.

One, why are you dissing the PC-Engine?    That machine had some great games that compared well to Genesis/SNES quality.

And the Amiga was definitely capable of competing in that area. 

There were some games that prove that no problem...

 

That said, as a huge Amiga fan, I will admit that the Genesis and SNES were better hardware wise at the top end.  The Amiga could (and did) have some games that are really good Genesis/SNES level games.  (Hybris, Battle Squadron, Leander..  Lots really.)  But there are some great Genesis/SNES games that the Amiga couldn't handle.

 

That's not to say an Amiga game machine couldn't have succeeded on paper.  The hardware was good enough to produce games that could have competed, but that didn't happen for a couple of reasons.

1:  Commodore.. (nuff said there)

2:  It was a computer.  You didn't have the same quality control and focus that a console needs.  This goes back to the razor/blade analogy.  Very different markets.  That also meant you had some really deep games that wouldn't be successful on a console of the day.

3:  1 button games.  Yes, this has nothing to do with the hardware itself as it supported multiple buttons.  But the developers wrote games for the lowest common denominator.  Even a lot of the CDTV and CD32 games were just Amiga games plopped on CDs.  (You did have a bit of that with the SegaCD too.)

 

If you wanted the best games device, you got a console.  If you wanted the best console style games on a computer, you got an Amiga.   IMHO.

 

I was never a console kid, so was happy with my Amiga.  It wasn't quite as good as the Genesis/SNES.  But it was good enough for me.

 

The game balance issue is a good point.  But at the same time, that is just a dev issue.  Nothing to do with hardware.

 

In a theoretical world, if Sega had bought Amiga technology and the Genesis was basically Amiga hardware (and there was never an Amiga computer), I think it would have been a successful machine.  The CPU (same), graphics processer, sound chip are really good.  With Sega and 3rd party Sega developers designing games, those games would have been great.  (I think the tricky part would have been sound.  Only 4 sound channels is a bit tight on a game console...)

 

But once something is a computer, it won't also make a great console.  Different markets...  Different focus...

 

Speaking as someone whose expectations for games was set by consoles and PCs and didn't experience the Amiga until several years ago, it absolutely has merit and I enjoy messing around with it.  But I think it really takes some effort to adjust your expectations and understand the context of the environment that it thrived in.  I know a lot of people won't do things like that.  A late 80s Amiga console or the CD32, if released mass-market in the US, probably would have been derided by players and the media due to how Amiga games were made.

[ColecoKing]

zetastrike

First of all, you need an accelerated Amiga for those 3D games and that mode 7 esque racer to run at a decent framerate. Even a stock 1200 wasn't adequate much of the time.

You can run some 3D games on a 500 you do know that right?

[desiv]

1 hour ago, zetastrike said:

A late 80s Amiga console or the CD32, if released mass-market in the US, probably would have been derided by players and the media due to how Amiga games were made.

I agree, but mostly because of Commodore and the fact that it was a computer first.

If you had those same console devs writing games for Amiga hardware (which wouldn't have happened unless it was only a console), I think the hardware would have been good enough for some really good console gaming.

Although if it weren't for the XOR lawsuit and if the CD32 would have been released sooner, it might have had some more legs.

It was in that period pre Sony Playstation, where the competition was 3DO and NeoGeo, all being MUCH more expensive.

So I think timing/hardware/game wise, the CD32 would have had an interesting Window to sell some units.

 

I don't see it surviving the Playstation tho; and even if it wasn't the XOR lawsuit, Commodore would have managed to find some other way to kill it.   

(But games like Flink and Banshee on the CD32 show what it could have done quality wise.)

Edited September 22, 2020 by desiv

[zetastrike]

51 minutes ago, ColecoKing said:

zetastrike
 

You can run some 3D games on a 500 you do know that right?

 

At an acceptable framerate?  Not very often.

[ColecoKing]

^CD32 wasn't meant to compete with 3DO or Playstation, it was meant to save the company and from what I understand they had to sell 500,000 units to be green. if they had better distribution and launched CD32 a bit earlier, the systems did sell, so they likely would have had time to seel a few million before it became clear with 3DO price drop and ultra 64 PlayStation it was outdated. By then Commodore may have had enough money for an actual competitor since they would be a console company at that point.

But Commodore likes making mistakes and this didn't happen.

[desiv]

8 minutes ago, ColecoKing said:

^CD32 wasn't meant to compete with 3DO or Playstation, it was meant to save the company and from what I understand they had to sell 500,000 units to be green. if they had better distribution and launched CD32 a bit earlier, the systems did sell, so they likely would have had time to seel a few million before it became clear with 3DO price drop and ultra 64 PlayStation it was outdated. By then Commodore may have had enough money for an actual competitor since they would be a console company at that point.

But Commodore likes making mistakes and this didn't happen.

Both the 3DO and CD32 released in late 93.  The CD32 might not have been "meant" to compete with the 3DO, but that was the new guy on the market and compete they would have.   Especially if Commodore could have released it in early 93 (or even better late 92, but I am not sure they had it far enough along for that).

I like the concept of the CD32 saving Commodore, but I think Commodore (being Commodore) was beyond saving by then.

 

My gut tells me that if they had released it early and had great sales, they would have done something to mess it up. 

But even then, the Playstation released in 1994.  So Commodore would have had a year and a half or so of possible good sales.  

 

The CD32 couldn't compete with the Playstation 3D wise, and Commodore couldn't compete with Sony.

I can't see a situation where Commodore becomes a successful video game console company.

 

I think the only thing that "MIGHT" have happened would have been that it gave Commodore another year to right the ship on their computer lines.

But looking at Commodore's trajectory, I don't see that happening either.

And as a huge Amiga fan, I would LOVE for that to have happened.  I just don't see it...

 

Perhaps if they had managed to get a decent CEO somewhere in there???

[bluejay]

Yes, the Amiga could have competed in the video game market. But the same can be said about any failed console.

The Amiga was a great system, but the thing is, the Amiga was a computer. So was the VIC-20 and C64. They just happened to be really good for playing games on. As people have said, Commodore isn't a game developer. They're really not the best at making video games. And you need good first party games for the game system to sell initially, and once the console sells well the third party support comes.

There are very good reasons the Amiga failed to compete. The computer market was dominated by PC/Compatibles, and the gaming industry was dominated by Nintendo and Sega. There was really no room in either side for the Amiga to fit, as it failed to impress in either of the sides.

Again, what you are saying can be said about any other failed console. Take the virtual boy for example. If the games were better and the design actually made sense, it could have been a great hit. The Atari 5200. If it wasn't the size of a coffee table and it had controls that function like they should, it could have competed with Nintendo. The CD-i. If it had more better ,non-FMV games and it were cheaper, it could have succeeded.

[ColecoKing]

desiv

Commodore couldn't compete with 3DO or Jaguar let alone Playstation.

But playstaion didn't release in 1994 in relevant countries only in japan only in 1995 was it released in relevant countries and playstation didn't blow down gates immediately.

Commdore may have had a couple million sold by then if they released earlier enough to save company and build new console. But as you say they make so many mistake I don't know even in that timeline things would be better.

Commodore had a 500,000 goal for a console they couldn't even make 500,000 to sell. Does that make sense? no. That's commodore. Never making sense.

Also I disagree bluejay, Amiga did have room gaming was a separate segment of computer industry not dominated by PC yet and they could have used their head start to use that as springboard they didn't, because Commodore, that's why.

[desiv]

4 minutes ago, ColecoKing said:

Commodore couldn't compete with 3DO or Jaguar let alone Playstation.

I disagree...

If a CD32 was out at a decent price compared to the crazy price of the 3DO, it very definitely could have competed.

And I have and love my 3DO. 

But for significantly less money, would I be just as happy with Flink than with Gex?   Yep.

 

People seem to keep thinking that "not being as good" is the same as "can't compete" and those are not the same.

Yes, the 3DO had more power, but a well priced CD32 could easily have competed with an exorbitantly price 3DO in the market.

Especially if it had released many months ahead of time.

 

As for the Jaguar, a lot of the Jaguar games are just Amiga ports anyway.   

[bluejay]

@ColecoKing What you are saying doesn't make sense. You're just saying the Amiga CD32 could have sold a couple million units. The Gizmondo could have sold 2 million units. I mean, I don't even know how to explain this to you. Of course any console could have succeeded. But the fact is, they didn't.

Edited September 22, 2020 by bluejay

[ColecoKing]

Zeta

At an acceptable framerate? Not very often.

Ok, but they were playable 3D games released at a time when no console could do them and would be reason for buyers to buy. Look at how much early 3D games sold on at time. Some of the game did have ok frame rate though.

[ColecoKing]

Bluejay I don't get why you are confused I responded to your point here

The computer market was dominated by PC/Compatibles, and the gaming industry was dominated by Nintendo and Sega. There was really no room in either side for the Amiga to fit

But there was, just Commodore didn't take advantage of it, they had games and could have used it as a springboard and dominated that they didn't because Commodore run but the patients at a mental clinic.