When was the best time to buy an Amiga?

[Megalomaniac]

Nobody who had the option of spending £25 on an A501 memory upgrade bought an A500+ for £400 instead, and nobody expected the A500+ to immediately improve existing games. Ridiculous. Longer term, the Plus was a better system, despite the teething problems (which were at least partly the fault of programmers ignoring Commodore guidelines, which were available in late 1990). 1.3 caused compatibility problems initially in late 1988 too, but who even noticed by 1990?

[TCD]

Longer term? You mean the half year it was sold. Now that's what I'd call ridiculous

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

Nobody who had the option of spending £25 on an A501 memory upgrade bought an A500+ for £400 instead,

Of course not, but people paid £400 for a Cartoon Classics pack expecting an A500 that could play almost every game out of the box and not have compatibility issues!

[Megalomaniac]

Sorry this is all a bit off-topic, 1991 was still a very good time to buy an Amiga if you hadn't had the chance previously, whichever version you got, but:

These compatibility issues always happened with upgraded models though, from 128K Spectrum to STe to Intellivision II. All of those were better systems longer term too - and the Plus cost the same, and came with the same software, as the earlier models - longer term it was a free upgrade, even if games took time to see the benefits.

I know Commodore could have launched it better (the original plan was to wait until early 1992, but they basically ran out of standard A500s), but things improved quickly. Developers had to take their share of the blame as well, especially with newer games (most of which did work, in fairness). The quick cancellation of the A500+ in favour of the A600 (which internally was much the same as the A500+ until you tried to upgrade it) doesn't make it a bad model either. My personal view with hindsight is that the A600 was probably a mistake, or at least should have been held over for release alongside the A1200 as part of a wider range review.

[dreadnought]

If as the AI says A500+ really launched in 1991 with 400 quid price tag then buying it seems pointless to me, because you could probably get a standard A500 for 100 less, which is a big difference.

And A500+ advantages didn't mean much to somebody who just wanted to play classic games. These maybe look interesting now in 2024, but back then I wouldn't think twice about it.

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

Sorry this is all a bit off-topic, 1991 was still a very good time to buy an Amiga if you hadn't had the chance previously, whichever version you got, but:

These compatibility issues always happened with upgraded models though, from 128K Spectrum to STe to Intellivision II. All of those were better systems longer term too - and the Plus cost the same, and came with the same software, as the earlier models - longer term it was a free upgrade, even if games took time to see the benefits.

I know Commodore could have launched it better (the original plan was to wait until early 1992, but they basically ran out of standard A500s), but things improved quickly. Developers had to take their share of the blame as well, especially with newer games (most of which did work, in fairness). The quick cancellation of the A500+ in favour of the A600 (which internally was much the same as the A500+ until you tried to upgrade it) doesn't make it a bad model either. My personal view with hindsight is that the A600 was probably a mistake, or at least should have been held over for release alongside the A1200 as part of a wider range review.

Not really off-topic as the time when the A500+ launched in Q4 1991 for me was not the best time (which is the word to remember) to buy one as you ended up with the plus model.

Of course developers had some blame, but i wasn’t talking about specific issues, i was just stating Commodore didn’t tell anyone a different model was in the box they were buying that had compatibility issues, a big deal at the time.

[TCD]

Does anyone have the price that the Screen Gems pack was sold for?

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by tcd

does anyone have the price that the screen gems pack was sold for?

£399

[Karlos]

I bought a second hand A1200 ( Rev 2B ) for peanuts in around 1996 from someone that had just left it gathering dust. That was a pretty good time to buy.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Amigajay

£399

Thanks.