DiscreetFX announcement, any news ?

[Crumb]

@leirbag

I don't agree with you.

MegaDrive -> quite successful. I had more friends with MegaDrive than friends with SNES. It lasted a lot of years.

Spectrum -> one of the most successful computers ever built

Commodore64 -> I liked it more than speccy, but for each c64 user you had 5 spectrum users in Spain, UK and other countries.

Amiga 500 -> the most successful Amiga model ever sold, amiga software appeared due to this machine. Without A500 amiga would probably have died faster.

BTW, X-Box was a total failure in Europe IMHO. Almost no games and only a few people bought it to use it as videoplayer/MAME machine. MS lost a lot of money with it.

Acorn -> only a few machines were sold in UK and maybe France, but you know what? now its cpu (ARM) is one of the most used cpus in the world. Even Intel licensed its instruction set.

just look at our films and Hollywood! the highest quality films and ideas come from here

When I have read this I couldn't stop laughing... I'm thinking that you are an USA troll :-D

[aardvark]

Their mistake was to take the profit they made with the Amiga line and to put it in the development of their inferior and overpriced x86 PC line - instead of putting it in the development of new cutting edge Amiga products...

Also, the charman and president of Commodore used to be #1 and #2highest paid executive in the computer business, paid more than the top guys at IBM, Apple, Compaq, HP, Dell, or any other computer manufacturer.

Amiga failed because of bad Commodore management,

True enough, but it was mostly bad _American_ management.
Commodore Canada, UK, and Germany sruggled on for quite a while after Commodore US went teats up, but eventually delays by the bankruptcy trustees did them almost all in.

Someone once said that if Commodore was to market Sushi, they would advertise it as Cold, Dead, Raw Fish.  There are tales of them starting up an educational sales division and then shutting it down within weeks.  The CDTV was barely released to regular Commodore dealers and the regular electronic chains they tried to sell it throough didn't know what they had or how to sell it.  The original Media PC and that was something they didn't want to talk about. :roll:

[amigadave]

snowman040 wrote:

Amiga failed because of bad Commodore management, Sinclair (Spectrum) was very succesfull (2 million sold units) and that is more than all Amiga models...

Better check your facts, 2 million is far lower than I have read for the total number of Amiga computers that were produced.  Are you counting all models?

[TheMagicM]

bottom line.. USA is #1.

"If you aint first, you're last."

 :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)

[leirbag28]

@snowman040     
Quote:
USA is full of money, and that's all. Jens and Dennis are from Europe, Elbox people too, DCE, Amiga france....

Amiga failed because of bad Commodore management, Sinclair (Spectrum) was very succesfull (2 million sold units) and that is more than all Amiga models...
---------------------------------------------------------------

 I wasnt talking about people who make add on hardware...Im talking about people who make competetive products to compete with the best ones of the world. America and Japan are good at this.

Jens is awesome DCE is awesome and EYETech are awesome. again Im not knocking peeple..just certain companies.

as far as Spectrum being succesful...just cuz it sold 2 million units doesnt mean it was succesful...........just as if an AmigaONE sold 10 million units. I wouldnt consider that successful.  Im talking about competition beating success.  as an example, X-Box and Nintendo GameCube could be called a success here in USA as they all did well....but PS2 squashed them like a bug!  thats what I mean!


@Crumb

MegaDrive was indeed successful...........until the SNES came out..wich was definitely the superior console...........Megadrive continued successfully for a while because of the good games and exclusive ones...........but they later realised he Megadrive wont last and released the Crappy SegaCD for it.....then later the 32X to try to compete with Ninedos SFX chip on the game cartridges.

The success I would strive for is Apple Mac and PC beating Success if I were in charge of Amiga.

By the way....A500 was successfull  "in a way but not really when compared to other computers" mostly because it was so darn good, and was easy to get fre games...........every friend I had that had an Amiga including myself, got one of these because of the games we could get for it..............it was like the MP3's of today where you could just download to your hearts content. But mostly it was an Amazing computer.

This can be achieved today again!  We need Japanese Games and Psygnosis games back!  (a UK company by the way ;-))

[benJamin]

FWIW, at the peak of Amiga's hardware sales history, more units were purchased than those of any other hardware manufacturer.  Note that this does not take into account that the majority of manufacturers were making IBM PC knock-offs and their aggregate sales consumed most of the market.

It has always been clear to me that Piracy is what drove the Amiga, and then the PlayStation.  If it was overly difficult to procure software for, noone would have bought the hardware.  Examples being DreamCast and N64 when Sony screwed Nintendo to the wall (they were apparently building a CD-ROM drive for the SNES' expansion port when Sony decided "Wait a minute, why are we cooperating with Nintendo again?").

All in all, it is the freely available software that will drive Amiga hardware sales, and the only place I can see that coming from is the FOSS market.  Don't get me wrong, I still expect to support traditional for-profit Amiga software companies, but that is not where the market will come back from.

It is clear, however, that companies which use Amiga hardware and software for commercial gain are not in this boat, and that is where the market needs to corner.

And mobile PDA phones, I'd sell my right arm for one of those.

benJamin
"When you do things right, people won't know you've done anything at all." - Futurama

[amigadave]

Warning rant below:

@Pyromania,

No one would like to see the Amiga computer make some kind of a comeback than me, but I have to disagree that simply by hiring Carl S, RJ, or Dave Needle to work for DiscreetFX would make much of a difference.  Don't get me wrong, I have a great respect for those individuals and would love to hear what their ideas are for the next Amiga.

Without the vision and genius of Jay Miner to focus the efforts and provide the direction of the company, what does DiscreetFX have to offer that Escom, Gateway, Amiga Inc. has not had or tried?  Just claiming to be "Real Amiga" users or developers does not impress me. There are good and bad developers, those with talent and those whose talent is just hot air in the Amiga community just like there are in any other part of the population.

Nothing you have stated gives me any hope that your company will be any different than the rest that have disappointed us Amiga users over the past 10 years.  I hope your company truly has some great ideas, but the few you have stated in this thread are hardly inspiring or original.

It seems to me that DiscreetFX has only made this PUBLIC offer of interest to buy Amiga Inc. as a way to advertize your company and insult the remaining Amiga users and companies, specially Amiga Inc.

(end rant)

Pyromania wrote:
@shillard


While we are not interested in discussing our business plan, I will tell you this. Apple almost died a few years back and what saved them was bringing back their founder. You might love or hate Steve Jobs but he saved Apple from certain death. Now they are enjoying great success, even going after some of the Amiga's once exclusive markets like low end video production. Part of the DiscreetFX plan is to seek out and hire some of the original Amiga team if they are interested. No one was more passionate or Amiga gun hoe than Carl, RJ, David Needle Etc. If we are able to hire one or more of the first Amiga greats they will help form the new Amiga plan. Also, it is of great interest to DiscreetFX to help get to market retro Amiga 500's in a joystick or maybe even a sub $100 AGA+ mini Amiga that uses flash drives to build the brand once again. Another idea is to have Amiga OS 4.0 running on cell phones, that market becomes more computer like every day and it is much larger than the PC market even when Apple, Linux and everyone else is thrown in. An Amiga Tivo type device is also something DiscreetFX would love to do

[Dandy]

TheMagicM wrote:
bottom line.. USA is #1.

"If you aint first, you're last."

 :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)

Reminds me of an old joke:
"We are the fastest.
While all the others are still stumblig, we're already lying on the ground..."

[Dandy]

leirbag28 wrote:
@snowman040     
...
We need Japanese Games and Psygnosis games back!  (a UK company by the way ;-))

I think what you're really trying to say is *NOT* that we need *Japanese* games, but that we need *GOOD* games.

Needless to say that I'm not a gaming kid at all - I bought my first Amiga because of its graphical and multitasking capabilities and because it was far superior compared to the x86 PCs back in those days - not because of some childish games...

Although I have to admit that I loved to "play" with my Amiga: doing constructions using 3d-CAD soft, doing mathematical calculations, doing raytracing and the like.

[shillard]

snowman040 wrote:
USA is full of money, and that's all. Jens and Dennis are from Europe, Elbox people too, DCE, Amiga france....

Amiga failed because of bad Commodore management, Sinclair (Spectrum) was very succesfull (2 million sold units) and that is more than all Amiga models...

Bzzzzt, wrong.

Over 3 million Amigas had been sold by 1994.

[clemenza]

@leirbag28:

US does NOT make the best movies. Simply your movies are supported and advertised by studios and companies with lots of money. The content of the average US movie is quite hollow compared to the average european movie.

US does NOT lead the computer and/or console market. Nor does Japan. The original XBOX was quite succesful in the US, but almost no one bought it in Europe or Japan. The N64 & Gamecube sold well in Japan, maybe in the US, but were big commercial failures in Europe. On the contrary, the Amiga sold far better in Europe than in the US, especially in the German, UK & Netherlands markets!

If -ever- some company comes with a new, Amiga branded product that is competitive in it's market, then it'll succeed. Simple as that.

[snowman040]

shillard wrote:

Bzzzzt, wrong.

Over 3 million Amigas had been sold by 1994.

My bad I admit. Still - Spectrum 48K vs Amiga models, impressive numbers, and hardly a failure.

p.s. PM reply on eab, please :-)

[McVenco]

clemenza wrote:

US does NOT make the best movies. Simply your movies are supported and advertised by studios and companies with lots of money. The content of the average US movie is quite hollow compared to the average european movie.

And what about The Lord of the Rings then? That's quite an impressive movie hardly to be called hollow. Or maybe that's because it's recorded in New Zealand based on a book by a British author :lol:

You're indeed right clemenza. In my top 10 list of all-time favourite movies I guess there are 2 made in the USA.

But I'll stop being off-topic now. :-)

[shillard]

McVenco wrote:

And what about The Lord of the Rings then? That's quite an impressive movie hardly to be called hollow. Or maybe that's because it's recorded in New Zealand based on a book by a British author :lol:

Bankrolled and distributed by an American studio?

It could well be that American movies are only successful because of mega marketing budgets - or it could be that they just happen to make the kind of movies that most people enjoy.

I dunno about you, but if I reduce some of the most successful "foreign" films to their base concepts, I get this:

"Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" = Poofs on a bus.

"Jindabyne" = Pretentious crap.

"Life is beautiful" = Death Camp Slapstick.

"Swan in Love" = Jeremy Irons roots yet another underage girl.

"Waterland" = Jeremy Irons....well, you get the picture.