Accurate statements of objective historical facts are not hot takes.
The Amiga had…probably the second best computer sound system ever made after the PC Soundblaster, and rather unique graphics performance for the time. It had potential that seldom got realized. Paraphrasing Ashens, most of the time Amiga games were ports from the Atari ST with added music.
Oh and don’t forget how big the 16 bit era of game consoles were. I’m a veteran of the SNES vs Genesis war, chiptune version of Fortunate Son starts to play YOU DON’T KNOW, YOU WEREN’T THERE!
My understanding is, the Amiga failed to find a niche. DOS/Windows PCs were heading toward monopoly, the Atari ST with its built-in MIDI support had a following in the music world, Apple at the time was big in education and desktop publishing and proto-content creation, and Dick Van Dyke had an Amiga.
I think the main issue with the Amiga is it was never picked up by businesses much like the PC was, and from what I remember it was more costly to add a hard drive in comparison to other platforms?
The final nail was that Commodore was essentially killed from the inside by the new CEO that gutted the company to enrich himself and the shareholders. Without the R&D to keep up with x86 processors gaining huge leaps in power, the Amiga, at least in the US, quickly lost appeal to gamers. And it likely didn’t appeal to most families who also wanted to use productivity software, where PC was superior for the most part.
In the UK though, the Amiga was quite the success, but, and I think this is partly why I consider it a hot take somewhat, I think almost all UK game developers at the time just weren’t very good designers, save for a few (X-com as an example, which is to this day a masterpiece).
On the US market, the Amiga was basically irrelevant. I wouldn’t be surprised if you told me Commodore did better in the UK than domestically. And Commodore made cool computers.
Accurate statements of objective historical facts are not hot takes.
The Amiga had…probably the second best computer sound system ever made after the PC Soundblaster, and rather unique graphics performance for the time. It had potential that seldom got realized. Paraphrasing Ashens, most of the time Amiga games were ports from the Atari ST with added music.
Oh and don’t forget how big the 16 bit era of game consoles were. I’m a veteran of the SNES vs Genesis war, chiptune version of Fortunate Son starts to play YOU DON’T KNOW, YOU WEREN’T THERE!
My understanding is, the Amiga failed to find a niche. DOS/Windows PCs were heading toward monopoly, the Atari ST with its built-in MIDI support had a following in the music world, Apple at the time was big in education and desktop publishing and proto-content creation, and Dick Van Dyke had an Amiga.
I think the main issue with the Amiga is it was never picked up by businesses much like the PC was, and from what I remember it was more costly to add a hard drive in comparison to other platforms?
The final nail was that Commodore was essentially killed from the inside by the new CEO that gutted the company to enrich himself and the shareholders. Without the R&D to keep up with x86 processors gaining huge leaps in power, the Amiga, at least in the US, quickly lost appeal to gamers. And it likely didn’t appeal to most families who also wanted to use productivity software, where PC was superior for the most part.
In the UK though, the Amiga was quite the success, but, and I think this is partly why I consider it a hot take somewhat, I think almost all UK game developers at the time just weren’t very good designers, save for a few (X-com as an example, which is to this day a masterpiece).
On the US market, the Amiga was basically irrelevant. I wouldn’t be surprised if you told me Commodore did better in the UK than domestically. And Commodore made cool computers.