Amiga and retail chains

[coldfish]

Yeah, AGA took the world by storm...

[bloodline]

coldfish wrote:
Yeah, AGA took the world by storm...

I assume that was directed to me...

I am suggesting that in 1987, when the A2K and the A500 were released. If Commodore had also put out a Multimedia ISA board, that would have been a great way to start a PC standard multimedia platform... in 87, most peolle would still have wanted an A500 for games... but if the PC world had access to identical spec gfx/audio as the Amiga... game developers would have had an easy time porting games over from the Amiga and the ST... so they would support it... thus if the market that the A500 and the ST were aimed at ever went titz up... Commodore would still have had a revenue stream...

[Psy]

ral-clan wrote:
Well, I guess all these stories disprove the original posters first point, then!  The Amiga was carried in major retail chains in North America.

It was just poorly advertised & promoted.

It doesn't show that the Amiga had the same retail support as the Sega Master System (that was a failed console in North America), just look at amigadave's post

[Psy]

bloodline wrote:

coldfish wrote:
Yeah, AGA took the world by storm...

I assume that was directed to me...

I am suggesting that in 1987, when the A2K and the A500 were released. If Commodore had also put out a Multimedia ISA board, that would have been a great way to start a PC standard multimedia platform... in 87, most peolle would still have wanted an A500 for games... but if the PC world had access to identical spec gfx/audio as the Amiga... game developers would have had an easy time porting games over from the Amiga and the ST... so they would support it... thus if the market that the A500 and the ST were aimed at ever went titz up... Commodore would still have had a revenue stream...

It would have been better if Commodore pushed the Amiga 500 and later Amiga 1200 as hard as Sega pushed the Sega Genesis.  Get the Amiga 500 and later Amiga 1200 in as many store shelves and get better system box designs so they catch the eye on store shelfs.

If it worked then developers would have supported the Amiga simply because of the user base.

[bloodline]

Psy wrote:

bloodline wrote:

coldfish wrote:
Yeah, AGA took the world by storm...

I assume that was directed to me...

I am suggesting that in 1987, when the A2K and the A500 were released. If Commodore had also put out a Multimedia ISA board, that would have been a great way to start a PC standard multimedia platform... in 87, most peolle would still have wanted an A500 for games... but if the PC world had access to identical spec gfx/audio as the Amiga... game developers would have had an easy time porting games over from the Amiga and the ST... so they would support it... thus if the market that the A500 and the ST were aimed at ever went titz up... Commodore would still have had a revenue stream...

It would have been better if Commodore pushed the Amiga 500 and later Amiga 1200 as hard as Sega pushed the Sega Genesis.  Get the Amiga 500 and later Amiga 1200 in as many store shelves and get better system box designs so they catch the eye on store shelfs.

If it worked then developers would have supported the Amiga simply because of the user base.

Advertising alone would have been difficult I think... Marketing the Amiga was always a problem...I wasn't a game console, but it fitted into that market... it wasn't a Business computer, but it fitted into that market... it was basically a home computer, much like the AppleII or the C64 or the Sinclair Spectrum... but it was better than those machines, but incompatible with their software bases... and was more expensive...

From Geek perspective the Amiga is a dream come true... but to the average joe... in the late 80s computer were specialist items... purchased for a specific purpose... The Amiga didn't really make sense to the public at large... The computer revolution really took off in 1995... The Amiga could have sparked that off much earlier, but Commodore didn't have the marketing knowhow/vision.

But what it did have was some great technology, and it could have licensed that to third party... Didn't Sun try and license the tech, but were refused? I rest my case...

[Psy]

Advertising alone would have been difficult I think... Marketing the Amiga was always a problem...I wasn't a game console, but it fitted into that market... it wasn't a Business computer, but it fitted into that market... it was basically a home computer, much like the AppleII or the C64 or the Sinclair Spectrum... but it was better than those machines, but incompatible with their software bases... and was more expensive...

From Geek perspective the Amiga is a dream come true... but to the average joe... in the late 80s computer were specialist items... purchased for a specific purpose... The Amiga didn't really make sense to the public at large... The computer revolution really took off in 1995... The Amiga could have sparked that off much earlier, but Commodore didn't have the marketing knowhow/vision.

But what it did have was some great technology, and it could have licensed that to third party... Didn't Sun try and license the tech, but were refused? I rest my case...

It could have been marketed as a home computer, it was cheaper then a IBM clone yet could do everything a home user wanted to do.  Commodore could have kicked off the computer revolution through marketing the Amiga just like how Nintendo rebuilt the game console market by marketing the NES.

[LoadWB]

weirdami wrote:
I know for sure that Commodore 64's and Amiga 500's were sold in AAFES stores on US Air Force bases.

Yup.  And a lot in corner business computer stores.  In the South Forks Shopping Plaza (IIRC) in Grand Forks, there was a little store across from the Radio Shack which displayed an Amiga 500, and I believe a 2000 later on.  That was the only place I ever saw them, while the K-Mart in the same plaza had a Commodore 64 running its trademark demo disk, and a TI-99/4A with Peripheral Expansion Box and a slew of game cartridges on braided metal wires.

Hey, did you grab any of the spec sheets the BX/PX had on the Amiga?  VERY professional looking advertisements.  I think they also had ones for the C128, 64C and C-series peripherals.  I had a bunch, and think they've been in storage so long that they'll be in horrid condition once I find them.

Reminds be, one of the guys that worked in the computer section had an Atari Portfolio.  I think they sold STs also.

[sdyates]

In Ontario, there were several stores to purchase Amiga such as Comspec, Canadian Tire and various mall stores. However, Commodore did goof up in their overall strategy!

[TjLaZer]

I remember at the Eglin AFB, FL AAFES they had a large computer store with lots of Amiga 500's and 2000's, along with PC's of course.  It was awesome.  I even got a friend of mine to buy a A500 during that time.  (1991)

[Rob]

@Crom00

The Amiga didn't fit into this universe. Sad really when they had the world by the b*lls. I mean they had their own chip fab plants, they made the 6502 for everyone else.

Pretty crazy..

Even more crazy was that they had their own LCD plant, an LCD portable machine and a big enough order to kickstart a new market for themselves.

The boss of Radio Shack convinced Marshall Smith that there was no market for such a system, so he threw all that away.

[Merc]

And Canadian Tire too, if I remember correctly!

[persia]

When did Canadians start spelling "tire" like the Yanks?

[Psy]

Well how many Amigas did Commodore sell?  Amiga Format in 1993 stated shy of 5 million Amigas were sold, if true it means the Amiga sales were at par with the sales of the MSX, so Commodore really really had a huge issue of not moving units no where enough units for the Amiga to ever hope to be a viable platform.

Hell Sega was able to sell 6.5 million SegaCDs while shooting themselves in the foot with marketing and SegaCD was a far tougher sell ($300 mostly just to get Genesis ports with better music and only a few good games) then the Amiga.  

[theformula]

I remeber in the uk Game http://www.game.co.uk/ used to stock amiga systems and games. Also Electronics Boutique http://www.ebgames.com/ and Special Reserve how are now no trading.

[HopperJF]

bloodline wrote:

coldfish wrote:
Yeah, AGA took the world by storm...

I assume that was directed to me...

I am suggesting that in 1987, when the A2K and the A500 were released. If Commodore had also put out a Multimedia ISA board, that would have been a great way to start a PC standard multimedia platform... in 87, most peolle would still have wanted an A500 for games... but if the PC world had access to identical spec gfx/audio as the Amiga... game developers would have had an easy time porting games over from the Amiga and the ST... so they would support it... thus if the market that the A500 and the ST were aimed at ever went titz up... Commodore would still have had a revenue stream...

If they did that them sure, Commodore would still be here.
But the Amiga platform would have died a lot earlier and sped up the process of PC migration.

[JC]

It was never easy to find amiga stuff and if my cousin hadn't shown me his A1000 I probably would never have known about the Amiga. I used it once and I was hooked so I was willing to drive ridiculous distances to feed my passion. I honestly did have to go to extremes at times to upgrade or purchase something. But there was just something so special about not just the machine but also the programs and programmers writting for it. Whenever I did find a store that had Amigas they rarely had anyone working there who knew how to boot them up and show a demo or game or anything. The stores that did have them running usually had people waiting in line to try out Lemmings or were standing there with jaw dropped watching a NewTek Demo. I remember when Walden Software was selling A600's so cheap that I was actually buying them up and re-selling them for a slight profit. Sure miss those days.