@RPi thread
It doesn't matter, Raspberry Pi was not attempting to enter the games console market. They were entering a DIY market which already had much of the tool chain and community in place.
Like others have pointed out, and others like OUYA, and Commodore have learnt: Consoles are appliances and they should Just Work and there should be content for it. An item without use is a useless item.
An Amiga console concept is not a slam dunk. Sure, you could put a RPi style board into a nice looking case, include a wireless controller, brand it Amiga and then what? What games is this relatively inexpensive device going to play?
On the other hand if you covet the existing library of classic games then you will quickly find that you need more than a $30 DIY board as your base. And even if you somehow manage to get it all working with a relatively low hardware cost, how will you market it? As a retro console? Retro consoles have almost no staying power. Nostalgic users buy them, play a few minutes or hours of their favourite titles and then they gather dust.
Ask Team 17 how much money they've made selling Superfrog and Alien Breed on the PS Vita? I was one of the people that bought both. I played Superfrog in one sitting up to the witch and I haven't picked it up again. And I haven't even played Alien Breed yet.
As good a concept as the Amiga in a joystick is, it limits you to only the simple joystick games. What about games that bring up a map when you press M on the keyboard? Or mouse based games like Lemmings?
About the only thing possible would be to work with Cloanto to build an Amiga Player dedicated box based on something like the Intel NUC barebones system. The final product would cost around US$600-$800. Call it the Amiga Playbench. How many of us would buy something like that?
