racketboy.com

I'll have the chat up but my in-laws will be here to pick up their dog (10 days - thank goodness its over) so I may be a little quiet at first.

also - can everyone PLEASE just use their regular racketboy forum member name in the chat? I don't want to guess who you are!

Go time!

Did I miss something? Retrosportsgamer and I are hanging around in the chat, and I see a bunch of you online, but not in the channel.

I'm kind of in awe of this computer to be honest. I haven't seen or used one since the 6th grade(!!!) but I remember being infatuated with it at the time. This book looks pretty cool, think I'll pick it up.

Thanks for the fun chat last night folks! On to Chapters 4-6!

BoneSnapDeez wrote:I'm kind of in awe of this computer to be honest. I haven't seen or used one since the 6th grade(!!!) but I remember being infatuated with it at the time. This book looks pretty cool, think I'll pick it up.

I sadly can't afford to buy the book at the moment so could some one answer me why Amiga didn't sell well in the US? Is that question answered in the book?
As far as I know, Commodore 64 and the 8-bit line up sold about as well in the US as it did in Europe. Why did that change with the Commodore Amiga? Correct me if I'm wrong but I think that the same thing applied also for Atari ST and other similiar computers at the time. So why did the American market almost completely ignore these awesome computers? They were even made by American corporations (Atari/Commodore)!

They generally were a lot more affordable than PCs but still better at gaming (before the 3D/Doom era that is) and in the whole multimedia thing (making music, animation, demos, pictures, art and games in your own bedroom). I dont see any reason why consumers/gamers would avoid a product like that. The Commodore 64 was a massive success for the same reasons, why not the Amiga?

Menegrothx wrote:I sadly can't afford to buy the book at the moment so could some one answer me why Amiga didn't sell well in the US? Is that question answered in the book?
As far as I know, Commodore 64 and the 8-bit line up sold about as well in the US as it did in Europe. Why did that change with the Commodore Amiga? Correct me if I'm wrong but I think that the same thing applied also for Atari ST and other similiar computers at the time. So why did the American market almost completely ignore these awesome computers? They were even made by American corporations (Atari/Commodore)!

They generally were a lot more affordable than PCs but still better at gaming (before the 3D/Doom era that is) and in the whole multimedia thing (making music, animation, demos, pictures, art and games in your own bedroom). I dont see any reason why consumers/gamers would avoid a product like that. The Commodore 64 was a massive success for the same reasons, why not the Amiga?

Maybe it is for cultural reasons, I don't know.

I think the reasoning in the U.S. was basically that you keep a dedicated computer for work and console for the games. The strength of Nintendo and consoles in general in the U.S. is very likely a big reason for that difference - I don't think there is much doubt that the games component was a key factor in the European success of the Amiga, and maybe in terms of U.S. mentality of the time that may even have been a drawback in the U.S. market? I think there are some mentions of Commodore having issues positioning itself in the market for professional machines and being associated with toys - and once that is established as a mindset, it is for the kids and consoles were cheaper I guess.

I think home computers were always relatively more popular in the European market. Even if you go back to the 8-bit period, other than the C64, there was stuff like the Spectrum.
In Japan there were also some successful home computers.

Ivo.

Here's a cool infomercial type of Amiga 500 commercial. Some of the images and animation in the first two segments still look amazing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY27PC9FWT0

Ivo wrote:Maybe it is for cultural reasons, I don't know.

I think the reasoning in the U.S. was basically that you keep a dedicated computer for work and console for the games. The strength of Nintendo and consoles in general in the U.S. is very likely a big reason for that difference - I don't think there is much doubt that the games component was a key factor in the European success of the Amiga, and maybe in terms of U.S. mentality of the time that may even have been a drawback in the U.S. market?

I thought it was the Japanese who had that mentality. Sure there were Japanese computers like the MSX and FM towns, but I thought that PC was gaming (games that aren't visual novels, that is) was always a very small part of the gaming market in Japan when compared to how big PC gaming is in USA/Europe.
There's a vast amount of American computer games from 1980s and 1990s. RPGs, adventure games, strategy games, FPS games and so on. Sierra adventure games for example, total classics which you cant find from any console. It's very different compared to Japanese retro games. There's very little, if any famous Japanese PC games. Sure there are some Japanese PC exclusives (Snatcher and Metal Gear were ported to Sega CD and NES in the West), but it seems like absolutely no one plays them, while Japanese PC engine, Mega Drive, Famicom, Super Famicom and Saturn importing is very common.

Some Japanese console games were developed on Amiga though, like the 3DO/Saturn/Ps1 game D
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D_%28video ... Production
"D began production in 1994 for the 3DO console. With use of only three Amiga computers, WARP was able to harness impressive 3D visuals."