Amiga community Size

[bhoggett]

locutus wrote:
How many Amiga users are there nowadays anyway (depends on how you define 'Amiga user' anyway).

Probably a couple of thousand active users, using a broad definition but not counting those who only use emulators to play retro games.

It seem to be enough for some company's to sustain themselves on.

Name one.

[bhoggett]

AccyD wrote:

Probably a couple of thousand active users, using a broad definition but not counting those who only use emulators to play retro games.

Unfortunately I'm one of these users who only uses an emulator at the moment. Having used an, A600 and A1200 in the past (sold the last one in Dec '98).

Actually I was counting people like you. The ones that don't count are the retro gaming brigade, because they don't represent any form of "market".

However, the new systems will give an initial boost to sales...


...and then nothing.  That's the trouble with this market.  It's impossible to envisage it ever becoming a steady market for anyone, because there's nothing to take it closer to the mainstream, so once you've satisfied the die-hards, you have no one else to sell your stuff to.

[bhoggett]

They do Amiga hardware, tough i have to admit i dont know how much of their cash income is from Amiga stuff.

Yet that is exactly my point. For the argument that the platform provides enough of a market to sustain businesses to be true then they must get their income from the Amiga market only. Furthermore, you have to ask yourself if all the people involved rely on the Amiga business for their living, or whether it's just a part-time business-cum-hobby.

In most cases the Amiga market does NOT provide a sustainable level alone, but the businesses involved are either doing it on a part-time basis or else subsidising their Amiga involvement from somewhere else.

Take E3B for instance. You work it out how many of their cards they'd need to sell to break even and cover Michael's living expenses for a year, not to mention the R&D and production costs. Now work it out if you think he's actually sold that many cards...

See?

[bhoggett]

ROTFL!!!

500,000 in 1999? More like 50,000 and I'd regard that as optimistic.

I doubt there are still 20,000 active Amiga users left. Even 10,000 is highly optimistic and unlikely to represent the actual market, which IMHo is no more than 2,000-3,000 at best.

Like I said earlier though, those 2-3k systems will be sold very quickly, and then what?