Doomed from the start

[desiv]

Originally Posted by switchblade

I'm assuming you're talking about the American market? Because the American market is way different from the European market.

That brings up an interesting "alternate universe" theory also..
What if Commodore USA went bankrupt, but Commodore(s?) Europe survived.

Could Commodore EU have kept the Amiga line going in some way or another?
We know CD32 sales weren't that bad in Europe (at least not compared to here).

Possibly even survived the battle and brought a new Amiga back to the US?

I don't know enough about Commodore Europe to know how much smarter they were then our Commodore.
(Note: I assume they were smarter, just not sure to what degree.. ;-)

desiv

[TCD]

Originally Posted by desiv

That brings up an interesting "alternate universe" theory also..

The one where dolphins have taken over and we're their underwater gardeners?

[desiv]

Originally Posted by TheCyberDruid

The one where dolphins have taken over and we're their underwater gardeners?

Of course, who else would be the UK investors needed to keep it going?
Dolphins. UK Doplhins to be precise..

:-)

desiv

[TCD]

Ah, that makes sense

[switchblade]

Originally Posted by khph_re

To my knowledge, Apple did not have a dominant position in animation, 3D or otherwise. TV studios all over the world used Amiga's, and many 2D and 3D houses also. From babylon5, seaquest to jurassic park, there were Amigas involved. NeXT and XGi were the real heavyweights. Also, Amiga was very dominant over here for games production. I don't know of many euro megadrive/snes games that did not have the art work drawn on an Amiga.

Again, from a euro perspective, Nintendo sega and PC did not become dominant until 1993 or so. You can see their creeping influence in mags of the era. commodores woes, and the undernourished A1200 were responsible for that, it was not inevitable (although I expect we would still have seen a slower decline). The late '80's was all about the ST and Amiga. The early nineties belonged to the Amiga in euroland.

I should have been more specific about Apple's position. Believe it or not, Apple computers did have a small role in TV and movie production, but they were mainly used in desktop publishing efforts such as journal articles, magazines, newspapers, etc. (Apple was more or less responsible for that whole desktop publishing revolution). Again, in America.

Also, the Amiga was definitely used in stuff like Jurassic Park, Seaquest, and Babylon 5, but they weren't used frequently as Macs and SGI Workstations were completely used to render the special effects in those shows and movies. I did hear that the Special FX for the first season of Babylon 5 was all done with an Amiga, but the rest of the seasons weren't. I don't know if it was that show or SeaQuest DSV.

Here is that info (best I could find):

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107290/trivia (Jurassic Park)

http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/making/effects.html (Babylon 5)

I'm not so sure the Amiga was dominant for games production in America, but some MS-DOS games used Amiga's for early development before eventually finishing them up to be used in MS-DOS. Alien Carnage and Tyrian for DOS used Amiga's for early graphics and/or audio design.

The Apple IIGS was used to design early Super Nintendo games, and Doom was mostly developed on a NeXT computer.

Again, best I could remember. IN AMERICA.

[athiga]

borg clone or die

kickstart replace pc bios start by take over the hardware plenty cheap x86 hardware then aros it my brothers

yarballs and yarblocks to nun grey oknows we are oddy nocky amigans who spend polly wolly we arnt bugatti sopisto

(just watched clockwork orange and used a bit of nadsat slang}

[KevG]

One of the answers to the demise of the Amiga is actually in the title of this very thread.

DOOM!

I knew lots of people in my area who had Amiga's but when Doom was released, most of them sold their Amiga's and bought a 486PC just to play Doom. Hardware and software sales started to decline from that point onwards and the only reason it kept going was due to us die-hard Amiga fans.

Kev G.

[Christian]

Yep Doom did it for me, well .. was the final nail in the coffin of my getting a 1200 anyway.

[cosmicfrog]

yep we all should know that computer hardware is games lead by now
am another 1 that knows it was the inability of the amgia to do gfx as seen in doom was the last straw for many amiga owners.
also cbm did`t help

[Unknown_K]

DOOM was very popular, but DOOM 2 started the whole head to head networking at home craze that would have killed the Amiga brand even if they could make a crappy DOOM clone. Networking on an Amiga would have been very expensive for the hardware, plus you would have needed to have friends with networking gear to come to your house and setup for a LAN game party.

I had plenty of friends who went out and got 486 systems along with ethernet cards just for lan gaming parties. Those friends were console only users before then. And then Quake happened.

[desiv]

Originally Posted by Unknown_K

DOOM was very popular, but DOOM 2 started the whole head to head networking at home craze

It was DOOM that started the networking craze for me. I didn't wait for DOOM 2. ;-)

IPX all the way!!!

Which of course I only used to stress test my Token Ring Novell networks..

er..

yeah...

;-)

desiv

[NovaCoder]

Yep 16 player network DOOM used to really pass the time during friday lunchtimes in the office.....is it just me or has the world become rather boring these days?

[Unknown_K]

Our office did Warcraft 2 on the network during lunch a few times.

[cosmicfrog]

there you go 3 or 4 posts that prove my point

it`s all as simple as if the hardware cant do the job then it will fail, sad but true

[desiv]

Originally Posted by cosmicfrog

it`s all as simple as if the hardware cant do the job then it will fail, sad but true

Oh, that's not always true...

If the hardware can't do the job, but your agency is only allowed to buy from that vendor due to contract reasons, you still buy the hardware and whatever else you need in order to make it work; well mostly work...

And it's a win-win for everyone in purchasing and at the hardware company.

desiv

[cosmicfrog]

but thats not what the discussion is about right ?
personally I love software that makes hardware go above and beyond what it was sposed to do

[desiv]

Originally Posted by cosmicfrog

but thats not what the discussion is about right ?

True...
Sorry, I tend to have a issue sometimes trying to stay on topic...

It's just that..

Ohh.. something shiny...

desiv

[switchblade]

Originally Posted by cosmicfrog

there you go 3 or 4 posts that prove my point

it`s all as simple as if the hardware cant do the job then it will fail, sad but true

I think it's more or less: if the hardware can't keep up with the changing times, then it will fail. Amiga ruled all the way from 1985 to 1992. But by 1992, it needed a massive overhaul, which it never got. The AGA we got was nowhere near an overhaul.

[khph_re]

So...Commodore
DOOM!
SNES
MegaDrive
PC getting cheaper.

[Paul_s]

Originally Posted by NovaCoder

Yep 16 player network DOOM used to really pass the time during friday lunchtimes in the office.....is it just me or has the world become rather boring these days?

You're not the only one who thinks that

I miss the days of going home with some friends and playing on the 500 for a solid 4 hours and going to the shop for the latest Amiga Power magazine... sigh!

I saw a girl walking with her eyephone today, almost walked into a lamppost she was that glued to it. Society has changed, no one speaks to one another now!