Atari ST isn't to blame, multiplatform development is.

[Overlord]

The Wintel PC's open hardware architecture probably had something to do with it as well. With ISA and then PCI slots becoming an industry standard and PC's coming down drastically in price there were a lot of third party hardware developers attracted to the PC making shit-hot cards and peripherals.

If Commodore had moved the Amiga 1200 into a box in the mid 1990's, had an open hardware architecture and didn't make the end user buy a hard disk as an extra, then things might have been different. The Amiga 1200 I had was a botched together shit-show with a 3.5 inch hard disk that didn't fit properly into the case making it bulge at one side and an 030 accelerator board that there wasn't really room for that ended up burning out.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by Overlord

didn't make the end user buy a hard disk as an extra

Err, basically, on a PC, anything you added was an "extra", hard drive too.
You COULD boot DOS from floppy, and use it like that, if you wanted to.

[albino]

Originally Posted by nobody

Amiga was created in 1984. Look at what games were coming out in 1984 on 8bits and arcades. Amiga was clearly ahead. But in 1989 there was Megadrive and much more powerful arcades like the CPS 1. Even the ST was superb in 1985. Even the 464 was great in my opinion in 1986.
Then about the ST ports I think they were lazy jobs even for an ST, made by amateurs when the consoles had professionals coming from the arcades and much bigger teams.

Totally agree with what you said....
If the same devellopment team get involved in amiga game devellopment we'd have amazing games from japan..

[Overlord]

Originally Posted by Akira

Err, basically, on a PC, anything you added was an "extra", hard drive too.
You COULD boot DOS from floppy, and use it like that, if you wanted to.

When I bought my first PC in the mid 1990's I don't recall having to get a soldering iron out and cobble together a DIY 2.5 inch to 3.5 inch cable to plug a hard disk in and then having to squeeze a case that it didn't fit in around it. That's what happened with my Amiga 1200. It was almost reminiscent of the end of the 1970's when you bought a kit and had to assemble it yourself. The other option was to have the hard disk sitting outside the computer, which was also sub optimal since I liked to take it round to my mate's place to do linkup games.

The PC, on the other hand, came with a hard disk already installed in a case that was large enough to contain it. That's quite a selling point to the 99% of computer users that know nothing about assembling computers.

And just for the record, I hate WIntel PC's. They're ugly, designed by people with no taste, and grossly inefficient. Unfortunately though, by the time the Pentium was invented it was light years ahead of anything Commodore were doing.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by nobody

From what I remember the biggest market for ST-Amiga was in the UK and ST was bigger than the Amiga until 1991 or so. It was then that the Amiga sales overtaken the ST and the Amiga was a priority. The ST market was dying due to a massive drop of Amiga price too if I remember well. When the A600 came at a low price around 1992 it was the end for the ST.

80% of Amiga software was made by UK based companies too.

To make an factuable answer : The ST was litterally plagued with software piracy. The companies quickly understood that they would not survive with the ST.

You want to know the difference between the ST and Amiga market wise ?

Both had piracy, but the Amiga had users buying more softwares than on the ST.

The numbers : February 91 in UK : Amiga was 19% of UK market, the ST a small 12%.

The Amiga software sales skyrocketed from second semester 1988, while it decreased on the ST at almost the same period of time.

The Amiga became a priority because companies were not doing a single buck with the ST.

Just to illustrate : the famous and illustrious Wings Of Death sold on Amiga and ST only 5.000 copies.

Just when top softwares on the amiga even in 1993 like Cannon Fodder sold 100.000 copies alone !

Those are just examples, But the ST sunk because it never really was profitable.

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by Overlord

When I bought my first PC in the mid 1990's I don't recall having to get a soldering iron out and cobble together a DIY 2.5 inch to 3.5 inch cable to plug a hard disk in and then having to squeeze a case that it didn't fit in around it. That's what happened with my Amiga 1200. It was almost reminiscent of the end of the 1970's when you bought a kit and had to assemble it yourself. The other option was to have the hard disk sitting outside the computer, which was also sub optimal since I liked to take it round to my mate's place to do linkup games.

You forget the obvious option: Just use a bloody 2,5 inch hard drive like you're supposed to.

[Overlord]

Originally Posted by idrougge

You forget the obvious option: Just use a bloody 2,5 inch hard drive like you're supposed to.

Yeah, great idea. Just keep using a 2.5 inch hard disk that has to be bought separately from the computer and ignore the fact that PC hardware architecture had overtaken the Amiga in the fast lane.

That's what fucked the Amiga, not the ST or the Megadrive. The mentality that people should just use sub optimal hardware like they're supposed to rather than upgrading the Amiga to keep up with the competition.

[albino]

instead of releasing cdtv, commodore should have provide an a570 with enhance capacity to boost the 500 capability...

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by idrougge

you forget the obvious option: Just use a bloody 2,5 inch hard drive like you're supposed to.

crazy idea! Witchcraft! Seize him!

[nobody]

Just a thought, this is a game from 1988, ST port. When done nice it's a good game. Much better than what you would get on 8bit in 1988.

http://amr.abime.net/review_42592

Meanwhile if you had an 8bit in 1988 you would get this

[ajk]

Originally Posted by Overlord

Yeah, great idea. Just keep using a 2.5 inch hard disk that has to be bought separately from the computer and ignore the fact that PC hardware architecture had overtaken the Amiga in the fast lane

Why not instead buy a factory A1200HD model with the hard drive already installed ..? The hard drives themselves are exactly the same for both Amigas and PCs of the time.

Obviously the A1200 is not expandable in the same manner as a desktop PC, since the form factor is entirely different. For a more accurate comparison you need to look at an A2000/A3000/A4000 system, or maybe compare the A1200 to a laptop which would also have used the 2.5" drives due to size limitations. At least with the A1200 you could bodge in a 3.5" drive if you desired.

I do agree though with the general statement that Amiga users were too content to play floppy based games on basic systems, which surely did not move the platform forward commercially. But it's not because there weren't upgrades available.

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by ajk

I do agree though with the general statement that Amiga users were too content to play floppy based games on basic systems, which surely did not move the platform forward commercially.

Because the budget Amigas were mainly for playing games out of the box, they didnt want to keep spending money on hardware every year like PC users, you cant blame Amiga owners for not moving the platform forward, its like blaming Megadrive owners for all not buying a MegaCD addon so everyone can have cd audio and cheaper games on disc.

Most Amiga owners didnt care for buying an expensive hdd back then, the developers backed this up with the majority of games not being hdd installable.

Budget Amigas were meant to owned like a console, owned and played for 5-6 years and then traded in for the next model, not upgraded like a PC.

[ajk]

I don't think that is the case. The CD32 was a console but the A1200 and the A500 before it were personal computers like any other. The form factor was a hold-over from the C64 and other 8-bit systems which also were not games consoles.

Amiga related magazines from the very beginning had lots of productivity stuff, programming, graphics, animation, music making etc. and it is evident from all the public domain software, demos, mods and other things that exist that the systems were indeed widely used for those purposes - not just for playing games. Entirely different from the NES or MegaDrive where you could not do any such things.

Games not being HD installable was indeed a poor move, one that I can only assume was intended to retain some measure of copy protection (which was generally defeated within days anyway ).

But this is getting a little off topic now.

[Overlord]

Originally Posted by ajk

Why not instead buy a factory A1200HD model with the hard drive already installed ..? The hard drives themselves are exactly the same for both Amigas and PCs of the time.

Obviously the A1200 is not expandable in the same manner as a desktop PC, since the form factor is entirely different. For a more accurate comparison you need to look at an A2000/A3000/A4000 system, or maybe compare the A1200 to a laptop which would also have used the 2.5" drives due to size limitations. At least with the A1200 you could bodge in a 3.5" drive if you desired.

I do agree though with the general statement that Amiga users were too content to play floppy based games on basic systems, which surely did not move the platform forward commercially. But it's not because there weren't upgrades available.

Where the PC developers were smart was that they constantly upgraded the hardware and you were forced to buy the upgrades whenever you replaced anything.

The Amiga, much as I loved it, was an absolute pig to upgrade by comparison. I honestly don't think I'm saying anything controversial here. Macs had closed hardware architecture as well and never made any serious dent in the PC market.

I didn't buy the 040 HD because it didn't exist at the time I got my 1200, so I'll stand corrected on that point.

[ajk]

@Overlord

Well, I suppose it depends on what upgrades we are talking about. I'd say adding a hard drive (the intended 2.5" type) and RAM/CPU upgrade to an A1200 is easy enough - no harder than slotting a drive or card in a PC.

But certainly once you start considering sound cards, CD drives etc. for which there is no slot or space in the A1200, things start to get cumbersome if not outright hacky, there's no denying that. At that point one would have been much better off with a big box Amiga but of course price was always an issue with those.

[Overlord]

@ajk. Agreed 100%.

[sokolovic]

I really think the only difference between Amiga and console market was the size and the budget of the devs teams. I'm pretty sure that every game ever published on these console could have been made on the Amiga, since the only thing you need is more ram and better processor (because...Well it is a computer add a Vampire on an Amiga 600 and it can run Metal Slug. Add a PPC on an A1200 and it runs WipeOut or Quake).

Plus, there was a support of Sega to the developpers. On the Amiga, every devs had to make his own development tools.

A french guy had made an AGA demo of Mortal Kombat and it is vastly superior to the MD version (it have the arcade graphics slightly downgraded with all the animated monks in the background and the parallaxes scrolls), and he's saying that this game could have been easily done, just like SF2, in a nearly pixel perfect arcade conversion on the Amiga
For those that can understand french (and want to download his code) : http://obligement.free.fr/articles/a...kombat_aga.php

Consider Mr Nutz for example. This is a perfect example of a game coded for the Amiga first. And many games that were made on the Amiga first and then ported to console were vastly superior on the Amiga, because the architecture on a computer isn't comparable to the closed architecture of a console. Look at Worms, the Amiga version with the multi parallaxed animated water layers blows away SNES and MD ones, even if when it was published, these console architecture was well known and mastered by the developpers.

[Amigajay]

Ports both ways could be better, it always came down to money and resources used, in general Amiga ports were compromised more because it was less risk, who cared about parallax in Addams Family, Turrican 3 or James Pond 3 when the game itself was done, why spend more developer money trying to sort it? It wouldnt have brought into extra revenue.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by Overlord

Yeah, great idea. Just keep using a 2.5 inch hard disk that has to be bought separately from the computer and ignore the fact that PC hardware architecture had overtaken the Amiga in the fast lane

My A600 came with a 2.5" HD already in it. So did a few A1200,s most A4000/3000 combos, etc.
I don't really get your point here. I mean, there's plenty of shit that killed the Amiga, but I don't think the PC was any better in this particular scenario. Both machines were upgradeable, and both came with or without certain things from factory.

I never bought a BRAND PC so I always built mine, meaning, EVERYTHING I put in it was optional/up to me.

[sokolovic]

I'm pretty sure that 99% of Amiga 500 users did have bought the 512ko extension.

I don't know why they stopped upgrading their machine after that. I'm not even sure the price was a reason... (I did have an A600 with 20MB HD at that time... Fulled with Beneath a steel sky )

Star Trek 25th anniversary had a bad review on Amiga Power because it was Hard drive only..... HD-only games should have been the norm on the Amiga 1200 at the time this game was released but still, that was considered as a bad point by some Amiga press.

(Do you imagine Wing Commander 2 having bad reviews because it don't work on EGA 286 with 5''1/4 soft floppies ? Same thing for DOTT)

They wanted to have TFX, Inferno, Magic Carpet, Day of the Tentacle or Frontier First encounters to works smoothly on unexpanded A1200 with only floppies. This is maybe the reason those games never had been released....