Quote:
Originally Posted by Tigerskunk
The A1200 was simply too late when it arrived.
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I agree with this. In my opinion (strengthened by reading interviews, reading the Brian Bagnal books and hearing old Commodore people talking over the years and programming for it recently), the AGA chipset was basically a product born of 'panic'.
Here's my view (note: part fact, part opinion): sales of the Amiga line and the A500 in particular had been going from strength to strength up until around 1992, even without any serious upgrades to the GFX/Sound. Then sales quite suddenly dropped like a brick. Commodore responded by rushing out AGA as AAA was nowhere near completion. AGA was a step in the right direction and actually did a few things better than VGA and even some of the cheaper SVGA cards, but for most people it didn't look to be more than about 'on-par' with them for 2D and way slower for 3D. Plus, being a rushed product, it lacked several key features and had some design issues that made real world performance lacking compared to what it could've been with a little bit more polish.
Commodore priced the A1200 very aggressively compared to the A500 with several price drops quite quickly, but even so, it didn't sell nearly as well as the A500 & A600 did. PC's and consoles had essentially caught up with it's GFX/Sound hardware before it was even out and the system was poorly suited for the next 'hot' game type - the 3D shooter. So they gambled it all and made the CD32, which according to Dave Haynie would've only kept the company afloat about a year
if it had sold by the bucket load. We all know how that ended.
For the record, I say this as someone who has - and still will - defend the A1200 as being quite a bit better than a lot of people think it is. Used it for several years and loved the thing. But even so, the A1200 and A4000 were just not as good as they should've been.