My only beef with the price, is because I, a Classic, AROS, and MorphOS user, want to be able to have a taste of the pie my self! I dream of a future where all incarnations of Amiga exist, and live long and happy lives, co-existing and as compatible with one another as much as they can be, each living up the the Amiga spirit in it's own way.
I've never been a fan of mass collectivism, One World Order concepts, Consolidation, conglomerations, etc. I prefer creativity, diversity, freedom, and exploration led by the light of wisdom and one's conscious.
The Amiga, to me, reflect this. Sure it was about profit, but it was designed by a team with so many things in their heads, they were vibrant, alive, and doing their own thing for the passion of it. It wasn't it cubical job, it wasn't slaving in the sweat shop, it was fun, and it allowed them to expand themselves through it.
And look at Jay Miner, he spoke often about how technology will be the end of us, and eventually we would be wearing the proverbial number of the beast upon our heads.
Their is so much SOUL in the Amiga legacy, it is not funny, and the community, be they at odds at one another, or chill, is the tightest, most amazing community their is. It's almost like religion, in fact much better than organized religion in my book. I can't recall ever having been screwed over by any of the various Amiga users I used to take road trips to meet, or have done business with, etc. Nor have I met an odder gathering of people than at one of the old Amiga shows. It's a fun crowd.
So it is this, that Amiga in it's various incarnations represents, and it is this that I want to have a great future.
Naturally I love what the guys behind the X1000 are doing, yes the price is over what I deem worthy of such an investment at this point as I don't see what I could possibly do with it, that I can't do with Amiga in one of it's other, much cheaper, incarnations. It needs a distinct purpose, a signature quality that makes it stand out, and appealing to people.
That's why I'm concerned about it's future, that's a BIG investment to be making merely for the love of something. Unless they've got an ace in their sleeve that we don't know about, there are only going to be a few, most likely under 100, units sold. At least that is my estimation, maybe my concept of how many financially happy Amiga users are actually out there in the world.
As for niche markets, they got to have software to compete in such a market. I.E. if you want to sell Amigas to factories to maintain and operate the robots, then you better have some well researched, stable, and versatile software available, on an OS that is not going to crash at that.
If this is going to crash and bomb being merely a product made of passion, but with no battle strategy for the market, then I would be hugely saddened by the whole ordeal, and I think it would be yet another battle wound added to Amiga's already scarred history.
So, unless they've got an Ace in their sleeve, like maybe something in relation to that extra processor that will be included, and some software that actually makes it's purpose stand out...
...I'd say they'd have been ahead by maybe going back to the day, and entering the Amiga into the game console wars...
...in a way. I hate to say it, this totally goes against my Jedi Ethic, but if you want to survive in the modern market (cringe), then you got to have an ace up your sleeve, or you got to get into entertainment. Even during recession and depression, the only stores that remain in the quickly dying cities (like now in America) are the stores that cater to mindless over indulgence of various forms of entertainment.
In such a world, the only hope would be to create imaginative and thought provoking media, or media that allows one to create.
That's where the Amiga could have a safe place in such a market. With retro being the in thing, I think it would be wise to advertise the Amiga and it's insanely large back catalog of games. Integrated backwards compatibility seems to be making strides with all variants of Amiga OS, so their could easily be created a simple interface which gives access to a catalog of installed, free to download games from Amiga's history.
Coders could freely write new code for the machine without permission, and would be free to release or sell the software they designed.
Upon booting, the OS could be given (through selecting users) the option to boot into OS mode, or boot into a simple game console type interface which provides easy access to all installed games and or applications.
Of course you could browse the web, do IRC, and all that jazz, which only adds to the couch potato appeal.
I dunno, I'm kind of tired of typing, but I'm thinking the next best step, unless they got an ace up their sleeve, would be an inexpensive and massive market, and I know the gaming market/couch pc market, is only growing, and the home brew seen for consoles is growing as well. These coders LOVE to see how far they can push those machines and their limited resources, one such coder is the well known Bero of the Amiga community as an example.
Anyhow, just a thought, I wish them well, and I hope they do have an ace up their sleeve that will provoke me to starve my dog, let the plants die, and the fridge go barren, etc. So that I may too be an Amiga X1000 user.
