Amiga vs console vs PC

[ElPolloDiabl]

Another what if scenario:

Should the Amiga have competed against the console market or the PC market?
Supposing you could only go one way, would you have had another big box Amiga or would you try and fit as much as possible into the one package?

If you went big box would you cease development on the AA chipset?
If you went for the wedge would an 030 min spec version be fast enough?

[itix]

Another what if scenario:

Should the Amiga have competed against the console market or the PC market?
Supposing you could only go one way, would you have had another big box Amiga or would you try and fit as much as possible into the one package?

If you went big box would you cease development on the AA chipset?
If you went for the wedge would an 030 min spec version be fast enough?

Amiga was designed to the console market. Amiga 500 made it big, CD32 and A1200 sold quite well.

A1000 flopped, A2000 and later big box Amigas had their strengths but sales were relatively small.

I say, it should have competed against the console market (and it did).

[amigakit]

I always thought the Amiga CD32 should have had at least 1MB of 32-bit Fast Memory.  It would have given it so many more opportunities in the marketplace: the speed would have doubled and the extra chip memory freed up would have been invaluable. The 3DO if I remember at the time came with more memory.

[slayer]

Yes

They were always worrying about a little extra cost in a time when they could have actually swung it... I never understood why they never made some quite sensible things standard since most people once they brought there standard Amiga setup brought the extras anyway, I do know since I did tutor families one on one back in the day and it was amazing how many had expansions.

[Thorham]

Home and pro market. Seeing the Amiga as just a games console is WRONG The Amiga chipset wasn't very suitable to compete with the 16 bit consoles anyway, just look at the SNES, the Amiga chipset doesn't hold a candle to it in terms of features that where relevant to the games of that time.

[spaceman88]

Home and pro market. Seeing the Amiga as just a games console is WRONG The Amiga chipset wasn't very suitable to compete with the 16 bit consoles anyway, just look at the SNES, the Amiga chipset doesn't hold a candle to it in terms of features that where relevant to the games of that time.

Some of the SNES cartridges had an extra co-processor (like StarFox) that your standard Amiga couldn't match, but some other games weren't that far ahead. I remember seeing a pre-release SNES at Nintendos Redmond, WA. headquarters playing "Battle Chess" and the Amiga version looked better (unless it was an unfinished Beta or something).

[J-Golden]

The FX chip in Starfox was cool and all, But Guardian on the CD32 was almost the same graphics-wise without the chip.

You do bring up a good point though.  I'd say the expansion port on the CD32 would have given birth to several game-specific add-ons though.  Granted, that would be more cumbersome to swap out etc. then having the chip built into the cartridge and require parental help.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

That C= didn't put at least a small amount of fast ram into all their systems was one of their more bone-headed moves. Practically a crime.  But with their laundry list of dumb decisions, I suppose we should be happy we got any expansion ports at all. :angryfire:

An '030 system with AGA and a few megs of fast could've held it's own against the consoles for at least another year, if released by '91-'92. But, it's easy to second-guess the past. *sigh*

[Duce]

Once the console wars started in earnest, C= were simply too far behind the curve to do much.  Gaming moved from the computer desk to the living room and Commodore's console efforts were too little, too late, too underpowered and too overpriced.  Not to mention all the big titles were on the mainstream consoles and devs never quite took after the CDTV and CD32, games development wise - both the CDTV and CD32 were essentially non existent - market wise, over here in North America.

I saved my pennies way back when, being the good Amiga fanatic that I was and picked up a lightly used CDTV from a local fellow and never used it again once I got a SNES that I got for Xmas around the same time.  The SNES (and Genesis) were half the price of the CD32 over here and CD32 (and CDTV before it) simply stood no chance.  When every 13 year old kid had a SNES sitting in front of the TV, it was a hard sell to get people to buy an off brand, non mainstream console no matter how promising it was.  The Commodore name meant nothing to a console buyer, while it meant a lot to us guys familiar with the brand from the computer sector.

The Amiga based consoles always had so much potential, but it never quite hit when it came time to get to bat and the home plate, sadly.

[Linde]

Home and pro market. Seeing the Amiga as just a games console is WRONG The Amiga chipset wasn't very suitable to compete with the 16 bit consoles anyway, just look at the SNES, the Amiga chipset doesn't hold a candle to it in terms of features that where relevant to the games of that time.

Agreed! It's definitely a great computer for games, but it could not compete on the terms that the video game market had already evolved. Lacking tile graphics modes and competent sprite hardware made the games that 16-bit consoles excelled in cumbersome if not impossible to implement on something like A500, not to mention the sound hardware.

[Fizza]

Amiga was the perfect bridge between the PC & Console world, it could run games straight from boot like a console (albeit from floppy) but then also have the option of installing games to hard drive and playing the games that worked better with keyboard/mouse.

If there was one thing that kicked the Amiga out of the running it would be 3D capabilities. Shoehorning a 3D graphics chip offering chunky modes that could do Doom style games fullscreen at 1x1 pixel at around 35-60fps would have made a big difference, and likely to have gone a long way to stem the mass exodus to PC, which is where I'd say most of the UK/Euro crowd went, rather than to console. The writing was on the wall by '92 in regards to 3D and Commodore should have responded accordingly.

[Fizza]

Agreed! It's definitely a great computer for games, but it could not compete on the terms that the video game market had already evolved. Lacking tile graphics modes and competent sprite hardware made the games that 16-bit consoles excelled in cumbersome if not impossible to implement on something like A500, not to mention the sound hardware.

It's sprite handling could have been improved, but from what I've read AGA wasn't a bad chipset with 030/Fast RAM so I think the Amiga's 2D capability wasn't uncompetitive in comparison. 3D was the next thing and that killed the Megadrive/SNES off pretty quick, especially when you consider how long the Master System & NES, and indeed, the C64 and Spectrum stuck around after their respective markets had peaked and the next generation came along. Doom and the Playstation made all 2D sprite games look like relics although in hindsight, I would say there is a consensus that says that the early 3D games have aged far worse than the 16bit sprite based games. But that was it, everyone wanted Doom/Quake/Duke Nukem etc.. and hardware that couldn't do it was put out to pasture pronto, this included all hardware listed above.

It would be a similar situation now with the PS2/PS3 and moreso with the PS4; because you can get a similar experience in the same way you could with Master System/Genesis, there is a lot longer transition from one generation to the next. When the next big thing comes that only the current gen can do, then you'll see a similar situation, which come to think of it, could be somewhat applied to HD gaming, which is probably what took the Wii out so early and finally laid the PS2 to rest.

[kickstart]

Amiga can be better than consoles on his age but games conversion on the amiga like Final Fight are not good because the coders did not have any help of the original team and they needed to do some reverse ingeneering with the original arcade machine, for nintengo or sega that is easy with the money for conversions.

[save2600]

Forget about a tired graphics chip, slow RAM, little to no RAM and 8-bit sound by the 90's!

Two incredibly sorry things killed the Amiga gaming wise:

#1) Single button games.

#2) %&$#?@!%&$#?@!%&$#?@!%&$#?@!ty least common denominator IBM/AtariST ports.

[Everblue]

A lot of PC Engine games are way better than Amiga ports.... and that was an 8-bit machine.