Retropeneurs

[sprocket]

I pay attention to the collector circles of some old toys I had as a kid.

A few folks have gone into business now and then to buy rights and reproduce some of these with quality reproductions.  The alternative is the few attempts by some larger toy companies to do the same with lower quality than the original repros.

I saw a YouTube video of one of the recent guys who's company had bought a trademark/logo and was doing this...and he mentioned they viewed themselves as "retropeneurs".

In the Amiga community, we've had efforts to maintain the platform with Amithlon, Amiga Forever/UAE, AROS and on the hardware side we've had a few work on remaking hardware.

Because of the money involved in licensing in computer world it's hard doing this and making any money unless you clone and avoid simply reproducing.

The odd thing is that in the toy world, everyone thinks having nice, new, high quality repros is a good thing as long as the product pays appropriate respect to the original.

In Amigadom, there always seems to be suspicion and trouble over money and contracts.  ..and, unlike the vintage toy world, there are so few of us still out there to buy the stuff.  Makes you wonder why.

[persia]

Well unfortunately for some reason KMOS is holding onto the lease on the Amiga name, maybe 'cause KMOS is sort of a stupid name.

I'd love to see an Amiga in a joystick like the did with the C64 or a pocket Amiga with a built in screen the size of an iPod.  Trouble is the market is so d@mn small that it really isn't possible to make money and probably isn't even enough to recoup expenses.  We're talking about a few hundred machines at best.  In the end it takes someone who doesn't care abut money to actually produce something.  Minimig & NatAmiare prime examples of things that won't make their creators a farthing but they do it out of love anyway.

[EvilGuy]

sprocket wrote:

Makes you wonder why.

Big fish in a small pond. There are so few of us left now and some egos tend to get in the way of anything productive.

[KThunder]

i think there is a lot more people interested in amigas than you seem to assume. in my area of the ny i know of at least a half dozen active amiga people. some of whom are here on amiga.org. amigas posted in papers are snatched up same day. and ive seen ebay ads from my area.
the c64dtvs sold thousands of units not all of which were to c64 enthusiasts. an amigadtv would probably do at least as well.

[sprocket]

There may be dozens, even hundreds in the U.S....maybe more in UK, AUS, Japan, etc.

...just not enough worldwide willing to spend $300 plus on a fab of a contemporary version of a board that mimics classic hardware AND pay for what it would cost to license the intellectual property to make it work.

...not to mention it's not really in KMOS's/Amiga Inc.'s stated plans.

Only companies who seem to be able to make something work in the interesting peripherals line are Individual Computers and maybe E3B....and it doesn't look like they may be making much of a living from it these days.

[Fester]

persia wrote:
I'd love to see an Amiga in a joystick like the did with the C64 or a pocket Amiga with a built in screen the size of an iPod.  Trouble is the market is so d@mn small that it really isn't possible to make money and probably isn't even enough to recoup expenses.  We're talking about a few hundred machines at best.  In the end it takes someone who doesn't care abut money to actually produce something.  Minimig & NatAmiare prime examples of things that won't make their creators a farthing but they do it out of love anyway.

Last Christmas, stores were full of these small tv consoles with retro-games on them. For several years now, such things like games in joysticks pop up at Wal-Mart and JC Penny etc...There must be a market for them.

[persia]

Again it's a matter of price, you produce an Amiga clone for under a hundred quid you may have something.  You produce it for fifty quid it will sell a fair number, in the thousands perhaps.  But that's not likely to happen, nobody but a collector is going to spend two or three hundred quid on a recreation of 15 year old technology when they can get a modern computer for the same amount.

Basically the price determine the amount of sales.  The number of units produced determines the price.  There's no point on those curves that works out for both producer and consumer.  Am Amiga clone can't compete in the same market as a Wii/PS3/X Box, it needs to be far cheaper than those to sell in a semi-significant number...

KMOS/Amiga Inc has the right idea but the wrong games.  Give people a way to mindlessly load Amiga games on modern equipment and you have something.

[sprocket]

KMOS/Amiga Inc has the right idea but the wrong games. Give people a way to mindlessly load Amiga games on modern equipment and you have something.

...you mean like giving the games away on a website that's ad driven, collecting their Google AdSense checks to fund development?

I read a story on "Fast Company" about a 17 year old girl who's making millions writing layouts for "myspace" pages aimed at teenage girls...they're free on her myspace page and the ads are what are making her the money.

..who'da thought?