PC games that made the Amiga look like Shit

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by oscar_ates

Amiga needed a significant upgrade because of the competition. Even HD upgrade would make a difference as base configuration. In my opinion it needed more like fast ram, faster processor, chunky 256 color display mode and HD floppy drive. I read in one of the eab threads that the A1200 cost commodore 200$ and they sold it for 400$. 1984 release year 68020 cpu cost was 20$. They could easily cut the profit by few tens of dollars to have a proper 68030 cpu and put some fast ram and increase the price by 50-100$. It might have saved them.

Commodore didn't sell the A1200 for $400, retailers did. The parts and factory assembly might only have cost $200, but that wasn't the only cost. To start with there's R&D and machinery setup costs to consider, then shipping and handling, promotion etc. all of which adds up. They would have to sell 10's of thousands just to break even, let alone make a profit.

To put FastRAM in it they would need a controller chip as well as RAM chips, and a larger motherboard to put them on (= more $). Then they probably wouldn't have room for a trapdoor slot, so say goodbye to expanding it. No 50MHz 030 with SCSI and 128MB RAM, no 040 or 060, Vampire or 1200 mips PiStorm32!

This A1200 that 'saved' Commodore would soon be out of date and not nearly as desirible in the future. But hey, if only they could convince customers to buy a new machine every 2 years (like PC owners did) they would make a killing!

But the management had no technology knowledge and very short sighted. They only thought about their 2-3 million$ dollar yearly salary.

In 1992 Irving Gould was 73 years old. He died in 2004. I think we can forgive him for being 'shortsighted' at that age - and yet he continued to believe in the Amiga despite having no technical knowledge. Other companies had thrown in the towel and/or gone all-in on PC clones years ago.

As for 'only thinking about their salary', what else is a business for? In 1991 Commodore achieved $1 billion in sales for a profit of $48 million. In 1992 they received $911 million in sales for a profit of $27 million. Compared to that Gould's $1 million salary doesn't seem excessive.

I liked my A500 and A1200 machines in those times. Would be good if Amiga had gone further

Yes, it would. But 30 years later what we got is still going for us, and still going futher too!

[AestheticDebris]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

The Amiga's graphics look pretty good for a chipset released in 1985. The A1200 could of course look identical the PC or even better. The ST is noticably worse. The C64 and ZX Spectrum versions are a joke, yet people still bought those games and played them!

It looked fine, it played like an absolute dog.

Every single frame of animation is important in SF2, because that's what the entire combat mechanics are built around. Drop a few frames here and there and all the clues necessary to respond are gone.

And almost nobody bought the 8-bit versions, it's why a copy of them is rare as hens teeth these days.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by AestheticDebris

And almost nobody bought the 8-bit versions, it's why a copy of them is rare as hens teeth these days.

Maybe buy this one as an investment then: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/254618740672

Either it's a steal or the C64 version isn't exactly that rare.

[grond]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

As for how it'd be "suicidal", it is a bit of hyperbole, but overall my opinion is that it'd be then too expensive and more people would either go for a PC or console. As it is, it did manage to shift some units after all, and wasn't it a stock shortage that actually prevented people from buying more?

Doesn't the shortage of A1200s support the argument that they should all have been equipped with harddisks? Even if the HDD-only had met less demand, they could have sold them all. And they would have made harddisks part of the new AA-standard.

[grond]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Not true. Firstly 2.5" drives were not twice the price.

Yes, they were more like 2.5 times the price of a 3.5" harddisk. We discussed all this before. The only support for your price argument you came up with were prices from christmas 1996, 2.5 years after Commodore went bankrupt. We are talking about 1992, though, when laptop computers weren't a mass product.

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by sokolovic

Nope I was saying the contrary. Releasing the A1200 without an HDD as a basic system ended up not quite well for Commodore. The proof is the following of the History as we all knows.

Sorry, but I will pedantically insist it's not a proof. There were many reasons why A1200 failed, most important of which is the fact that that its target market disappeared every day with more people defecting to either PCs or consoles which offered better value. And the only way you could prove it is by going back in time, changing the blueprints and seeing what happens. And I think the case to say that the outcome would be even worse is pretty strong. After all, you totally could easily buy a HDD config should you want to, and making it mandatory would only push more people to console or PC.

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

Even if you add a hard drive and fast RAM, an A1200 was still a lot cheaper than a 386 PC of equivalent spec

This gets bandied a lot in these kinda threads, but is simply not true. 100-150 pound difference - maybe less if you factor in used PCs and/or building one yourself - is not that much, plus you would get a SVGA monitor and much better specs wit 386DX (SX was even cheaper but not by that much).

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by grond

Doesn't the shortage of A1200s support the argument that they should all have been equipped with harddisks? Even if the HDD-only had met less demand, they could have sold them all. And they would have made harddisks part of the new AA-standard.

I already commented about it again above, sorry, this thread moves too fast, even after 50 pages of flogging this dead horse

And regarding your angle, how does it follow? How is shortage of A1200 connected to mandatory HDDs? Again, it seems like a giant leap of logic to claim that somehow they would all sell, since it seems equally probable that people would simply walk away if the price was significantly higher. It seems bizarre to me that y'all wilfuly ignore the fact that anybody could easily buy an A1200 HDD should they wish to do so.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

This gets bandied a lot in these kinda threads, but is simply not true. 100-150 pound difference - maybe less if you factor in used PCs and/or building one yourself - is not that much, plus you would get a SVGA monitor and much better specs wit 386DX (SX was even cheaper but not by that much).

Here's a Tandy offer from 1992:


800 pound for a 2 MB 386 SX and 900 pound for a 2 MB 386 DX. It's more like 200-300 pound difference if you consider a 500-600 pound base price for the Amiga 1200.

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

But hey, if only they could convince customers to buy a new machine every 2 years (like PC owners did) they would make a killing!

This is false, and will remain false no matter how many times you repeat it

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

But 30 years later what we got is still going for us, and still going futher too!

This, on the other hand, is true, but what does it really have to do with the OP?

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by TCD

Here's a Tandy offer from 1992:


800 pound for a 2 MB 386 SX and 900 pound for a 2 MB 386 DX. It's more like 200-300 pound difference if you consider a 500-600 pound base price for the Amiga 1200.

Yes, 1992, and a machine from a well known brand (a bit as if I took an Alienware PC and compared it to PS5 or some such). The whole point of PCs was that you could build a clone yourself much cheaper than what you see in mag ads from big brands.



And there was no A1200 readily available in 1992 (October, btw). Thats why the prices I quote are from April-June 1993. That's why the difference shrunk so much, because PC prices were falling fast all the time.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

And there was no A1200 readily available in 1992 (October, btw). Thats why the prices I quote are from April-June 1993. That's why the difference shrunk so much, because PC prices were falling fast all the time.

I kind of agree that by 1993 when the A1200 was finally available it was kind of pointless to compete with the PC anyway. The question is if a 500 pound price would have made a big difference in sales and if that would have encouraged game publishers to release more games for the machine. It would be interesting to know how well (or badly) a game like Star Trek: 25th Anniversary sold that required a HD.

[lmimmfn]

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

The other thing is, SNES Street Fighter II cost £65 (and, like it or not, it WAS worth it, as long as you had someone to play against)

£65 was a crazy amound of cash back then though, our local video shop had a SF2 cab and was 20p to play, for £65 you would have 325 plays on the arcade. I would have been sick of the game after 100.

It was a strange time, when i first saw SF2 and Final Fight in the arcades i was stunned by how good they looked, i loved both games but i knew there was no way in hell that my Amiga 500 with 1 button.
When i saw the SNES version of Final Fight in CVG March 91(page 16/17) i knew my beloved Amiga was way behind in its 2D capabilities - https://archive.org/details/Computer...e/n15/mode/2up

By that stage the Amiga was behind in 2D and PC was way ahead in 3D and that was the height of the Amiga, Turrican 2 and Speedball 2 were reviewed in the same mag. Admittedly the SNES had not released in Europe yet so the Final Fight review was based on Grey import but the game was up at that stage.

However i just accepted that as my Amiga was used for much more than gaming as i probably spend 70% of my Amiga time with DPaint, Brilliance, Imagine, digitizing video/audio.

On the debate regarding the A1200 and including a HD as standard, it would have been much better if Commodore released all A1200's with 20Meg Harddrives.
I dont think it would have been a good idea for them to release various versions e.g. 20, 40, 60, 100Meg drives as they would have stock sitting in warehouses for HD sizes that the consumer wasnt that interested in( same issue Sony resolved recently with the new PS5 digital only/with blue ray drive, could have lots of digital versions sitting in a warehouse).

20 Meg was very small but it would have been sufficient for WB, DPaint/WordProcessor/whatever and 2-3 games, similar to situation today with the huge size of games that 256Gig SSD would only allow OS plus 1 or 2 games.

Having a HD as standard would have allowed more games to be HD installable which i found annoying when i did get a harddrive that i was still disk swapping as most games wouldnt install to it.

[Megalomaniac]

£900 including VAT for a 386DX (presumably 16 or 20Mhz) with an 80Mb hard drive and (VGA or SVGA?) monitor isn't bad, though I note that the 286 below mentions coming with DOS whereas this doesn't, so that could be an extra cost. I notice that the DX has no space to add an internal CD-ROM drive either. Plus, of course, you'd need a SNES (or to keep your A500) as well if you wanted action games, as (256 colours aside) even an A500 was at least a match for 386s for action games. Also worth mentioning that Strike Commander (released in mid-1993) needed more memory that either of these came with (obviosuly you could upgrade the memory, but invalidating the warranty or paying for fitting - the same issue as anyone buying a hard-drive-less A1200 would face within the first year, as mentioned by someone elsewhere), and probably a faster processor too. £900 didn't get you a future proof PC, whereas £400 got you an A1200 that proved adequate for almost all 1994 Amiga games, and most 1995 ones too.

I know you could build your own PC, but was that practical for a noob with no experience of PCs? All too easy to get a ruinously slow video card and destroy performance.

[rare_j]

2.5 inch (laptop) hard drives were horrendously expensive even for many years after the A1200 was obsolete. Whereas 3.5 inch hard drives were easy to find, especially second hand. With a small adjustment to the shape of the case a 3.5 inch drive could easily have fitted. Have you looked inside an A1200 lately Bruce?

[sokolovic]

I remember having a 3.5 inch HDD inside my A1200 by 1996. Still have it somewhere. This wasn't a very difficult mod. Surely it could have been made as standard even within the A1200 case .

[TheLurker]

Interesting reading. From a US perspective I can't imagine buying a computer without a hard drive in 1992. Here the "home computer" was just dead by the end of the 80s. Killed off by the NES and later consoles. Here you had a PC and got a console for the action games. I assume the price of stuff here was just cheaper as well, though I have no real proof of that.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by rare_j

2.5 inch (laptop) hard drives were horrendously expensive

Adverts in Amiga World Nov 1993:-

Creative Computers:
Amiga 600/1200 accessories
Seagate 80MB 2.5" IDE $229.95

Computability:
Quantum ELS 85MB 3.5" IDE $169
Conner CP30084 84MB 3.5" IDE $159

Manta:
Seagate 85MB 2.5" IDE $229

AmigaMan:
2.5" 80MB IDE complete package* $225

*including cable, software and instructions.

TriState:
80MB 2.5" IDE for A1200 $219.95

Software Hut:
Amiga 1200
A1200 $399
A1200HD/40 $545 (+$146)

Conner 2.5" 40MB IDE $139.95
Conner 2.5" 84MB IDE $229.95

DeVine:

A1200 $399
A1200HD/40 $539 (+140)
A1200HD/65 $564 (+165)
A1200HD/85 $624 (+$225)

A600/1200 2.5" hard drives
Conner 40MB $139
Seagate 65MB $165
Seagate/Conner 85MB $215

Quantum 52LP 3.5" IDE $125


Tenex:
Quantum 42MB 3.5" IDE $129.99 ("Retail $359")
Quantum 85MB 3.5" IDE $199.99 ("Retail $479")

For Amiga 1200/600 notebook size!
Seagate 85MB 2.5" IDE $199.99
Cable for A600/1200 $8.99

40MB 2.5" drive for A600/1200 was US$139/140
40MB 3.5" IDE drive was $130

Almost the same price!

80/85MB 2.5" drive for A600/1200 was ~$220
84/85MB 3.5" IDE drive was $159/169/200

$220/$169 = 30% more for the 2.5" drive

Amiga drive 'packages' came with cable & installation disk.
3.5" drives were 'bare' (no cable etc.). So factor in another $10 or so for necessary 3.5" drive accessories.

[lmimmfn]

It was madness that Commodore went with 2.5" drives. Most of the Amiga audience were teenagers with little cash, that 30% difference was huge in the day.
I only got a 100Meg or 80Meg HD for my A1200 in around 94 and it was still crazy expensive.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

And there was no A1200 readily available in 1992 (October, btw). Thats why the prices I quote are from April-June 1993. That's why the difference shrunk so much, because PC prices were falling fast all the time.

Here's a non-brand offer from PC Magazine 8/1993:


Building your own PC in 1993 was hard work it seems. There were only RAM 'upgrades' advertised. You pretty much had to buy a pre-built PC if you went retail.

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

£900 including VAT for a 386DX (presumably 16 or 20Mhz) with an 80Mb hard drive and (VGA or SVGA?) monitor isn't bad, though I note that the 286 below mentions coming with DOS whereas this doesn't, so that could be an extra cost. I notice that the DX has no space to add an internal CD-ROM drive either. Plus, of course, you'd need a SNES (or to keep your A500) as well if you wanted action games, as (256 colours aside) even an A500 was at least a match for 386s for action games. Also worth mentioning that Strike Commander (released in mid-1993) needed more memory that either of these came with (obviosuly you could upgrade the memory, but invalidating the warranty or paying for fitting - the same issue as anyone buying a hard-drive-less A1200 would face within the first year, as mentioned by someone elsewhere), and probably a faster processor too. £900 didn't get you a future proof PC, whereas £400 got you an A1200 that proved adequate for almost all 1994 Amiga games, and most 1995 ones too.

I know you could build your own PC, but was that practical for a noob with no experience of PCs? All too easy to get a ruinously slow video card and destroy performance.

-it's not 900 because a price for a no-name PC from a street shop would be much less. This is also why your "noob with no experience" could go and request a config to be put together, the fee and overall profit margins have alwayse been pretty small in this side of biz.

I worked in a such place in the late 90s. It was a shop under a banner of a big brand (Adax in Poland) and we were supposed to mainly promote and sell their machines, but in reality the ratio of branded to put-together PCs we sold was ~25-75%.

- even if we ignore the fact that the likes of Wolfenstein 3D are of course action games, by 1993 there were also many traditional 2D action games on PC too, so you could easily scratch that itch should you need to

-mentioning an outlier such as Strike Commander, which was basically Crysis of its time, means you're really scraping the barrel (that bit about warranty too). The fact that such games exist and you have to eventually upgrade your machine is absolutely normal in the PC world, same today as it was back then. "Future proofing" is a myth. But of course it's not the hyperbolic "you need to buy a new machine every time" from BA's parallel universe either.

-"£400 got you an A1200 that proved adequate for almost all 1994 Amiga games, and most 1995 ones too." - so what? This thread is about superior PC games, and by 1995 the number of these was crushing. Of course, you could still have a good time with Amiga, because there were still some quality titles being released (as somebody who was stuck with actual A500 I can attest to that) but in context of this thread it's not that relevant.

@all regarding the HDD debacle it really seems bizarre that so many people are convinced that a mandatory HDD with a hefty price premium would be a good idea. A1200 managed to sell some units at all because of a) brand loyalty b) people who really couldn't afford even a slight premium to get a PC but still wanted some sort of computer

It seems logical to me that if you raised the price to what similar PC model went for (always with a monitor, a huge boon) the b) group would shrink substantially.