Hate to say this the OS, the hardware, the software were not what made the Amiga so popular initially. Having games on floppy disk as opposed to cartridge is what sold more A500's than anything else and made the Amiga the games platform of choice. Cartridge-based consoles were very difficult to pirate at the time, and that meant lots of school boys ended up getting an Amiga 500 where they could get lots of games for free, and swap with their mates at school.
It`s a fact that piracy drove Amiga sales. Some people have trouble admitting it though.
Everyone I knew that had an Amiga, also bought their games through an infamous man in Belfast who sold every Amiga game known to man for £2 plus 50p per extra disk. I used to spend 10 quid a month on Amiga games from him when I was a kid.
Plus everyone used to copy games for each other.
It may have been bad for software publishers, but it was good for hardware sales.
Without piracy, there definitely would not have been as many Amiga users.
