The reason the Amiga failed.

[atarilovesyou]

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.

 

if that's your point, then I get it (and can only assume others do as well). I do take notice of what others say, but it's hard to do that in cases like this...it sounds like a bunch of sour grapes from those who don't live in the States (shit, I'm from Canada, and we don't need help to bash on our big southern neighbour but our experiences were much the same regarding video games).

 

So it really comes back to success and the definition of it.

 

PS, when I read that the Amiga should have been the NES of the late 80s, I gotta laugh. The only reason we had a resurgence in these parts of popular video gaming was mainly due to the NES (and other equally priced systems). No parent was going to buy a 500+ dollar video game machine dressed up like a computer. It took a few years for the price to drop on the NES before every kid on the block seemed to have one (I'd say the $150 or less mark). If you could get the Amiga to do what it did for games at that price, then perhaps a case could be made. Shit, in the late 80s we were playing just as much (and in the case of RPGs, even more) of the C64 than the NES. The Amiga was some kind of legend to us; nobody had seen one, ever...other than the magazines.

[atarilovesyou]

 

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).

 

Get crackin', Bill!

[Bill Loguidice]

 

Get crackin', Bill!

 

In all seriousness, I feel I've done my work on the North American perspective and I think from this point forward most of my historical books related to videogames and computers will mostly be platform-specific, like the one on the CoCo. In all honesty, I'd want someone with a similar passion for those respective regions to write those books. If it were someone like me who has grown up in North America (despite having more than respectable European- and Asian-centric platform collections in my collection), the amount of effort required to get the story right would be non-trivial, and, considering how the book market for these things is these days, far from worth it. I'd much rather get the story from a native.

[Nebulon]

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'...

You're definitely on to something. There was a final report released at the time of Commodore's demise. It was clear in the reported figures that the top executives in the company were steadily funneling large amounts of money to themselves. Between that and what appears to be a lack of leadership in R&D decisions in the later years, you have a recipe for financial disaster.

[jhd]

In all honesty, I'd want someone with a similar passion for those respective regions to write those books. If it were someone like me who has grown up in North America (despite having more than respectable European- and Asian-centric platform collections in my collection), the amount of effort required to get the story right would be non-trivial, and, considering how the book market for these things is these days, far from worth it. I'd much rather get the story from a native.

 

The most obvious issue would be language, of course, followed closely by access to source material.

 

It would be impossible to write anything reasonably detailed about the Japanese market, for example, without at least a reading knowledge of the language and also access to back issues of the trade press for the time period. Some background in the culture would be helpful, to place things in a overall context. This would effectively require someone who is a native to that country.

[Bill Loguidice]

 

The most obvious issue would be language, of course, followed closely by access to source material.

 

It would be impossible to write anything reasonably detailed about the Japanese market, for example, without at least a reading knowledge of the language and also access to back issues of the trade press for the time period. Some background in the culture would be helpful, to place things in a overall context. This would effectively require someone who is a native to that country.

 

Yes, ideally it would be an already great book in the native language that then gets lovingly translated both by a good translator who is able to work with someone who has broad knowledge of videogames and computers and the relevant history. The second best scenario would be someone with an intimate knowledge of the history who can also write in English and can collaborate with a good native language writer to smooth out the readability.

 

One of the first books I worked on, Vintage Games, received an Italian translation. It's my understanding the translation was quite good, though sales were not up to expectations because most people interested in the subject apparently just got the English language original. With that in mind, there may in fact be a bit more to the process than just a literal translation, with say 25% more work dedicated to providing the English speaking (or whatever the target) audience with additional context relevant to their perspective. That's why again it would ideally be a collaborative process.

[Tickled_Pink]

A thought just occurred to me. Do Commodore fans have a bogeyman? It seems to me that nowhere is there mention of Commodore's CEO/President/Dictator at the time things went belly up. Following Tramiel's departure it seems the boardroom was full of anonymous grey men in suits. At least with Atari we knew who to send hate mail to.

[Nebulon]

A thought just occurred to me. Do Commodore fans have a bogeyman? It seems to me that nowhere is there mention of Commodore's CEO/President/Dictator at the time things went belly up. Following Tramiel's departure it seems the boardroom was full of anonymous grey men in suits. At least with Atari we knew who to send hate mail to.

That would be Irving Gould. Interesting that you mention bogeyman. People used to call him Irving Ghoul.

[Chilly Willy]

That would be Irving Gould. Interesting that you mention bogeyman. People used to call him Irving Ghoul.

Yeah, us Amiga devs hated him and Mehdi Ali with a passion for what they did to our beloved platform.

[Seob]

The Amiga became popular here in the Netherlands, after the release of the a500. Don't know if the a1000 was available here. The only one i have seen and had for a while was a US version.

 

About buying a homecomputer vs a console, people kn the Netherlands would rather spent the extra cash to get a homecomputer with printer vs a game only console.

Back in the 80's and 90's most households in the Netherlands only had 1 tv. Most people only got about 7 channels, 2 dutch, 2 belgian and 3 german channels. And most channels started broadcasting in the afternoon, starting with child programs and switching to more mature stuff later in the evening.

TV's where also very expensive. So a lot of people bought a homecomputer with a monitor so they could free up the tv.

In other European country's, things are different again. So writing a book about the European market isn't easy.

[108 Stars]

Indeed, that's why I said the US is especially important as a market for any product because it is more homogenous. Americans probably find it hard to imagine, that in Europe you can drive only a couple of hours, get out of the car and don't understand a single word! Same with local habits.

 

In a way, that is reflected by the markets. The Netherlands and Scandinavia are good markets for English language media because people there are used to having subtitles with English voices. Go to Germany and especially France, and they will expect dubbing.

 

Which lead to every country basically relying on its own offspring of a company. If the German arm of a company is doing a good job, the products will sell.

Sega for example had a very good UK distribution, first by Mastertronic, then Virgin which became Sega Europe. Very strong presence, great branding and advertising for local needs, leading to Sega being the dominant force in both 8- and 16-bit console wars in the UK. The German Sega was not terrible, but definitely somewhat weaker. The first translated game we got was in 1993, and they remained few. Marketing was not that strong. On the other hand, Nintendo based its European operations in Germany (to this day) in the late 80ies. Great advertising for the target audience, high quality localizations of games (not neccessarily accurate translations; the translator of Secret of Mana did not speak Japanese for example, and translated from what he saw and a rough Engrish translation, but the texts were always well written), single language manuals and boxes... and Nintendo dominated with Game Boy and SNES as a result.

 

Now with home computers it was the same situation, only with more competitors. The C64, Spectrum and CPC probably shared most of the market, with each one dominating one country or another; and strong secondary players also doing well. In 16-bit days there were fewer machines, but I imagine still different strong regions and weaker ones depending on how business was handled.

 

This will make a book very complex to do. Yet if someone was to tackle it, it would be a very fascinating read. I myself was too young, I only watched the era over my older brother's shoulder, but still I find it great to read about the "wild days" of computers and game development. Back when kids would write games in BASIC and sell them via print ads in magazines, or send them in as listings... when self-taught people could basically even get professional releases for their games, coming straight out of their bedrooms. So much talent was born this way, people growing with the hardware, building a lively demo scene or getting straight to game development with just a cheap home computer. This resulted in the great technical expertise we saw in European games of the home computer era, more so than gameplay-wise, where I would admit the US had the upper hand (with Japan still being far ahead of both). Tragically, with the changing market the people who started out with home computers from their bedroom and came to prominence eventually faded into obscurity, not being able to adapt to the more professional and commercial nature. The shift to consoles is one most of them did not make. The Amiga was kind of like the pinnacle, the final era of the European golden age.

 

So many stories to be told about the machines, their design and success, and the people influencing them and being influenced by them...

Edited December 16, 2014 by 108 Stars

[Lost Dragon]

People often forget or simply might not be aware, but Mastertronic were mot Sega's 1st choice to handle the MS in the UK, they'd originally planned to use Ariolasoft, but rumour doing the rounds at the time was Ariolasoft wanted to set the price ogf games, way beyond that which Sega were 'happy' with (thought consumers were willing to pay for 8 Bit games in UK, cartridge or not) and thus the distrubution deal fell through and they went with Mastertronic instead.

[+wood_jl]

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.

 

The C128 was still cool (for C64 users) and was a "true" successor. The Apple IIgs was a successor. Looking at those 2 computers (even though a 68000-based machine whipped 'em both) still made me envious, as an Atari8 user. We never got something like that, and I would have bought it (an Atari counterpart to those machines) even if it was flawed. I agree with the other stuff you said!

 

[+wood_jl]

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

Apologies, for that (and the attitude).

 

 

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.

Yeah, that's really what it was - considerably more "off the shelf/generic" but a good value, for the time (a short time).

 

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.

If they'd have released the 1040STm with 512K and a trapdoor RAM expansion (ala Amiga 500) and double-sided drive, they'd have done well. I guess they did the best they could - they were a tiny company, and run by a cheap-skate.

[+wood_jl]

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.

You are correct, sir! However, since the title is about "The reason the Amiga failed" and the Amiga didn't really fail, there wasn't much else to discuss.

[Lost Dragon]

Martin Edmondson (Reflections) has said the reason they abandoned the Amiga was due to Piracy, as they were being told around 96%+ of their games doing the rounds on the Amiga were pirated versions.

[Chilly Willy]

Martin Edmondson (Reflections) has said the reason they abandoned the Amiga was due to Piracy, as they were being told around 96%+ of their games doing the rounds on the Amiga were pirated versions.

I take piracy claims with a grain of salt. There was a LOT less piracy on the Amiga than the PC, but you never heard of devs leaving the PC because of "piracy". If you want N0 piracy, you stick with arcade machines.

 

I think the PSX had more piracy than the Amiga, but I don't recall anyone claiming to leave the PSX because of piracy. Several distributors claimed to have left the Dreamcast due to piracy, but that's also rather suspect. Most people in the know at the time were certain they just used that as an excuse, but the real reason is people were fed up with Sega's shit. They burned most of their goodwill when they pushed the Saturn out six months early, then failed to port huge games to other regions, and finally killed the Saturn off early, leaving everyone out to dry until the DC was finally ready.

[bojay1997]

I take piracy claims with a grain of salt. There was a LOT less piracy on the Amiga than the PC, but you never heard of devs leaving the PC because of "piracy". If you want N0 piracy, you stick with arcade machines.

 

I think the PSX had more piracy than the Amiga, but I don't recall anyone claiming to leave the PSX because of piracy. Several distributors claimed to have left the Dreamcast due to piracy, but that's also rather suspect. Most people in the know at the time were certain they just used that as an excuse, but the real reason is people were fed up with Sega's shit. They burned most of their goodwill when they pushed the Saturn out six months early, then failed to port huge games to other regions, and finally killed the Saturn off early, leaving everyone out to dry until the DC was finally ready.

Actually, plenty of PC game developers did move on to cartridge based consoles or serious application development as a result of piracy. There was massive piracy on the Amiga and of the Amiga owners I was friends with growing up, I don't know a single one that didn't have a massive pirated library even if they purchased the occasional legit game. I think non-pirates on the Amiga, Commodore and Atari ST would be the exception and not the rule.

Edited December 19, 2014 by bojay1997

[atarian63]

 

if that's your point, then I get it (and can only assume others do as well). I do take notice of what others say, but it's hard to do that in cases like this...it sounds like a bunch of sour grapes from those who don't live in the States (shit, I'm from Canada, and we don't need help to bash on our big southern neighbour but our experiences were much the same regarding video games).

 

So it really comes back to success and the definition of it.

 

PS, when I read that the Amiga should have been the NES of the late 80s, I gotta laugh. The only reason we had a resurgence in these parts of popular video gaming was mainly due to the NES (and other equally priced systems). No parent was going to buy a 500+ dollar video game machine dressed up like a computer. It took a few years for the price to drop on the NES before every kid on the block seemed to have one (I'd say the $150 or less mark). If you could get the Amiga to do what it did for games at that price, then perhaps a case could be made. Shit, in the late 80s we were playing just as much (and in the case of RPGs, even more) of the C64 than the NES. The Amiga was some kind of legend to us; nobody had seen one, ever...other than the magazines.

It actually was supposed to be an Atari game console before the mess with atari and commodore happened

Amiga contract

Jay Miner, one of the original designers for the custom chips found in the Atari 2600 and Atari 8-bit family, tried to convince Atari management to create a new chipset for a video game console and computer. When his idea was rejected, Miner left Atari to form a small think tank called Hi-Toro in 1982 and began designing the new "Lorraine" chipset. The company, which was later renamed Amiga Corporation, was pretending to sell video game controllers to deceive competition while it developed a Lorraine-based computer.^[9]

Amiga ran out of capital to complete Lorraine's development, and Atari, owned by Warner Communications, paid Amiga to continue development work. In return Atari received exclusive use of the Lorraine design for one year as a video game console. After one year Atari would have the right to add a keyboard and market the complete computer, designated the 1850XLD. As Atari was heavily involved with Disney at the time, it was later code-named "Mickey", and the 256K memory expansion board was codenamed "Minnie"

[The Usotsuki]

Oh, there was piracy on arcade machines, too.

[108 Stars]

Afaik piracy was really pretty huge, be it on Amiga, on ST or on C64. Everyone and their mother had stashes full of copied floppies. I know for a fact that Factor 5 left the Amiga for that reason, bringing the 3rd Turrican to Genesis instead (with another team then porting to Amiga out of their own wish). The team of Thalion, which was a German developer founded of demo scene legends and freaks risked their company on the attitude of Amiga players; after disappointing sales for previous games, they announced that they would not put copy protection in their new AAA games Lionheart and Ambermoon. It would be up to the gamers to either honor the hard work put into the games, or to just play a bootleg and live with the Amiga losing all support.

 

This was the disclaimer:

 

 

Lionhart had disappointing sales, and while Ambermoon did a little better, it was still in no relation to the work put into a vast, high production RPG of its kind.

[TMR]

Afaik piracy was really pretty huge, be it on Amiga, on ST or on C64. Everyone and their mother had stashes full of copied floppies.

Piracy happens behind closed doors so the people complaining were either involved with the cracking scene to get at some idea of scale or they were just making the numbers up and choosing big ones to scare people; Thalion fall into the former camp because they were staffed by members of The Exceptions who have a crack intros for releases of ST Soccer, Backlash or Rampage in their catalogue at Pouet.

 

Factor 5's big break was a rip off of R-Type so depending on how you define piracy... =-)

[108 Stars]

Sure, Factor 5 and Rainbow Arts became well known for clones in the first place; have to agree there. And I still find it fascinating how some people praise Giana Sisters despite it being not nearly as well designed as its "inspiration".

But in general you didn't need to be a cracker to know of the problem. You just needed to visit basically anybody with an Amiga to see his box with dozens of copied Amiga floppies, and one or two originals to mix things up.^^

[Rybags]

I'd not rate Amiga piracy much worse than the likes of C64 or ST.

 

Amiga games were generally easier to copy though - the more sophisticated FDC onboard the Amiga made duplicating most schemes much easier, IIRC the Amiga can write out an arbitrary track of data where the ST's controller reserves certain byte values which will generate Sync pulses and overall makes it less flexible.

 

But the longevity of support probably comes down to sheer numbers - in the end there were more Amigas in use than STs and many Amigas were bought with gaming in mind to begin with so the market was larger and allowed vendors to still make a profit (for a time) despite piracy numbers.

[108 Stars]

Indeed, I did not mean to imply piracy on the Amiga was worse than on ST or C64; it was rampant everywhere. The ST was less porfitable earlier simply because the gamers switched to Amiga overall, so the small percentage of games actually paid for meant even less profit on ST. And of course also not every pirated copy equals a copy that would have been sold otherwise.

 

It's just that copying was a general problem with computers, and even average sellers on consoles made a lot more money than well-received computer games, at least in part due to the piracy problem being almost non-existant on consoles back then. So with consoles getting more powerful, and becoming more popular again I can totally see why devs would try to switch to them.