I think it was mainly due to the uncommonness of the Amiga in many areas, and then another subset (geek) of people on top of THAT. You could go to the Sears or local box store and buy a console that was simple and just worked. I had the luck of being a friend of a kid whose uncle ran an amiga store, so we spent a lot of time on his A500 playing the crap out of whatever games we could get our hands on. I also had a nintendo, and played the crap out of it too.