Amiga launch cost

[Daishi]

I found the launch cost for most Amiga systems. However I don't seem To be able to find the cost of the A2500 020 and A2500 030. Does anyone know what they cost and maybe a link to an advert with price? I'm doing a comparison of systems with the actual costs at the time, not just some lazy half remembered thing. It seems the memories of some ppl are way off so I would like to get it down.

Thank you.

[roondar]

I don’t have the launch price of the A2500 for you, but might be able to help. I have found archive.org to be an invaluable aid for finding old ads and prices. It has many magazines in full colour scan, such as all of Amiga Format. It might help you find what you’re looking for. Google books has most of Infoworld on it, which can help with PC stuff.

One thing that may muddle the water a bit is the differences in prices between countries, especially for PC hardware. It tended to be cheaper in the US and UK than several other countries.

Hope this helps!

[d4rk3lf]

Yeah, I also agreed that the magazines are the way to go.

And also, show us your results.

[AmigaHope]

I seem to remember UK prices being pretty similar for A500 stuff compared to the US (with some peripherals actually being cheaper in the UK), but A2000 systems and cards were horribly inflated vs. US prices.

[Minuous]

@AmigaHope:

I did some quick research: the A500 launched here for $AUD999 and the A2000 for $AUD2999, juding from the earliest official Commodore ad I could find. Of course $2000 was an obscene amount to pay for half a meg of RAM and some expansion slots, even at the time. Should have had a hard disk and faster CPU for that price. And then I suppose Commodore wondered why no one wanted to buy big box Amigas...

As for the A2500, it doesn't seem to have been sold here at all.

[AmigaHope]

Commodore charged so much for their big box Amigas (even in the U.S.) because they were chasing the professional market that was used to paying inflated prices for computing gear -- with the expectation that the extra cost will get them better service and legal indemnity in exchange. Eventually the clone market whittled down prices to commodity levels, and big companies now purchase corporate support contracts instead as the prestige option.

Companies still pay inflated hardware costs today when they choose to get everyone Macs for prestige reasons, or when they buy expensive "enterprise" networking gear and server hardware.

The reasoning behind this is that the person making the purchasing decisions is spending the company's money, not his own, and then when there are problems he can point to the supplier as the responsible party instead of himself, thus reducing his workload and culpability at the same time. This encourages manufactures to work extra hard to create problem-free products because if they don't have to do much support they can sell a $5000 piece of equipment that cost them $500 to make, and pocket the difference for advertising budget or CEO bonuses.

[Minuous]

Yes, but A2000s didn't come with legal indemnity, better service, etc. And of course Macs have never been problem free, then or now.

[XPD]

All I remember down here in NZ, was when the A500+ was released, I paid about $1800NZD - that was the A500+ Starter pack (same box/software as the A500 version except had a sticker on it saying new Kickstart 2.0) and a nice shiny 1084S

Didnt dare look at what the 2000's were selling for

[aeberbach]

I think I paid $3999 for an A2500/020 in around 1991?

[Gardhul]

In Italy an a1200 (no HD) costed about 800k Italian "Lire" in 1992