Maybe...Its OUR Fault!

[spirantho]

@MiAmigo

For many of us, what you describe is what AmigaOS 4 is to us.
Whatever comes out is never going to have custom chips (it's just not necessary nor financially viable). Nor is it going to flood any markets (the market is sewn up almost entirely by Windows/Apple/Linux).
What we have for AmigaOS 4 is a current AmigaOS on specific hardware (custom built, even, for the X1000 - hence the high price).

For others, the solution is MorphOS. For others, AROS. But I don't see what's wrong with that. The point is that none of them are a bad or "the wrong" solution, and all have their own niche... and that's a good thing, not just a bad one.
The only time the current situation looks bad is when you look at it from a point of view of taking on the "big boys" - but we're never going to do that, so surely better to enjoy what we have, support the platforms - whatever flavour they are - that we like, and encourage our own little niche and thereby survive.

We're never going to be huge like the rest of the market - let's use that as an advantage, because it's a strength as much as a weakness.

[spirantho]

@Digiman

I don't agree with some of what you say, but on other parts you're bang on the money.
3,4,5 are these days just as impossible as 1. Why? Because there's cheap commodity hardware out there for everything we could do that would be useful.
The X1000 was always caught between a rock and a hard place - either be commodity hardware (and affordable) or custom hardware (and very expensive). There's no "correct" option available to it. The X1000 team were miniscule compared to the Xbox 360 team, and they were working to a far tighter budget because they knew from the start that demand was going to be very small.

The Amiga will never be the powerhouse it once was, simply because the market has changed entirely. It's impossible to stand out and be affordable, because generic technology is just so cheap these days. To be honest, though, I don't use an Amiga because it's got "Amiga" written on it. I use it because I enjoy it. OS4 is good for me, but not everyone: horses for courses.

The days of custom hardware for the masses are gone - it's custom hardware for the geeks now.... but I don't see what's so bad about that. Just don't expect it to somehow rise up and annihilate Windows any time soon.