PC vs amiga pricing in the 80s and 90's. Were PC owners getting screwed?

[Khephren]

business software £ were so over the top...
A1400CD would not have made a difference, AGA was a lame duck, and everyone knew it by '94. The specs you've mentioned should have been the A1200
As for £800 PC in '94, I dunno about that. I bought my first PC in '97, a no brand no hope piece of crap. Bloody thing cost me £900. And wasn't the sx25 the past for PC users by '94?

[Khephren]

@Runequester

I guess what i'm saying is: we were the top dogs chipset wise and price wise with the A500. With AGA we still had the price advantage (for a while) but a decent PC could be decked out to do things faster than we could. It does not matter what you wrap around an Amiga, the chipset is the most important.

"Yeah, 256 colour workbench was pokey. For applications, it seemed to work well enough"
True, but as a graphician, you quickly ran out of chip. And it was very slow, and you could not upgrade it.

"but they are usually comparing to Doom running on a 486 or pentium."
Also true. But an A500 could run software comparable (often better) to PC's of it's own era. An A1200 could not. That's why users and devs left in droves. In the A1200 era you could pay more for a decent PC. In the A500 era, you'd pay god knows how much more, and it would still be deficent in many area's.

[Khephren]

..still love my A1200 though! (before the knives come out!)

[Khephren]

I don't know about other markets, but by the time AGA Amigas came out, the market had already made huge strides both in terms of performance and value for money here in the UK to the degree that the Amiga really wasn't relevant any more.
.

Well I was here in the UK, and that did not seem to be the case. Everyone I knew who owned Amigas were waiting for AGA, expecting to leap frog the PC again. It was a massive market that only dwindled after AGA, not before. Magazine circulation reflects this as well. I'm pretty sure CU and AF had their biggest circulated figures in the AGA period. I'd like to hear what others in Europe think about the decline. (I know in the US Amiga was never dominant to begin with).

[Khephren]

@Sperrett
Course it was, that's why we are all still here

@Ismart

definitely, software is strength, as well as hardware. Business, DTP and MIDI were dominated by other platforms. As a gamer, 3D/2D artist, and someone who liked listening to music on his computer I  felt well catered for on Amiga-and dare I say, in a dominant position for quite a while. no "boing ball glasses" just facts.
   Of course price has lot to do with it too. It took a lot of saving and selling old bits of kit to buy my A500. A Mac or PC were well out of my price range.

[Khephren]

i think PC stuff was always cheaper for you guys fishy_fiz. perhaps thats why amigas were never as big in the states as in europe. I remember looking through multi format magazines and shops, and the prices of pc's made my eyes bleed  I'll find some prices in my old ace magazines tommorow (from '88 till '93 i think), you guys stateside can tell me how they compare.

[Khephren]

I could not find as much info as I would have liked, but here's a sample of PC owners getting screwed (UK)...initially.But you see prices fall massively, while time almost stands still for ST and Amiga users. Then the consoles begin to creep in as well. Nothing from the AGA period i'm afraid. I'm pretty sure some el cheapo amstrad machines could better the PC prices quoted here.

MAY '89-APRIL '90

520 STFM, mouse, game                      £300
520 STFM  mouse, game, col mon          £600
520 STFM  mouse, 21 games, organiser                            $400
A500, mouse                                                               £340
A500 mouse, DPAint2, Word proc, F18, Batman, N.Z story   £370
A2000 40MB HDD    £1300
A3000  030/16 +FPU, 40MB HDD   £2300
A3000 030/25 +FPU, 40MB HDD    £3200
Archimedes  3000  8mhz, 32 bit, 1MB    £650
PC40 286at,SD, 40MB HDD, VGA, col mon   £1500
PC50 386sx, SD, 40MB HDD, VGA,col mon   £2000
PC60 386dx, sd, 80MB HDD, VGA, col mon   £3700

Amstrad 6128 £330
megadrive +pad +1 game £190
PC engine £165
Atari Lynx £160


DEC '91-feb '92

512STE mouse,final fight, sim city, 9 lives, robot monsters, 10 games, productivity pack  £300
1040STE  mouse, 10 games, productivity pack  £400
A500+ 1MB  lemmings, simpsons, capt planet, DPAint3  £370
286sx 16mhz, 2MB ram, 40MB HDD, 1MB VGA,  soundblaster £1233
386sx 25mhz,  2mb ram, 40MB HDD, 1MB VGA  soundblaster £1360
486  33mhz, 8MB RAM, 40MB HDD, 1MB VGA, soundblaster  £2115

megadrive +pad £130
PCengine £140
Atari lynx II £85

First mention of the SNES launch to come.

[Khephren]

Yeah, ace magazine recomends you'll pay an extra £10 for PC versions of software. But then again, Amiga software was always £24.99 compared to the ST £19.99. They said it was because the Amiga was rare...but they kept it up even when the Amiga was more popular. Greedy bastards!

[Khephren]

Interesting, I new Amstrad had a hand in cheap PC stuff somewhere. I think they even built a megadrive into one.

What graphics and sound did the Advance-86 have? was it CGA?
Same with the 1512, did have a soundcard? and a colour monitor?. quite the bargain if it did. Same rez and colours as a base ST if i'm not mistaken? Expect it was EGA.