RE: Amiga users didn't upgrade

[TCD]

Just found an interesting poll in Amiga Joker 3/1996:



Over 10,000 replies to that poll and if we add up A1200 and A4000 owners we end with 75% of those who answered. Just posting this as sometimes the notion of 'Amiga users didn't upgrade their systems and that's why the Amiga didn't succeed' is posted. Funnily the user mails are often about how AT/Escom isn't marketing the Amiga and that the 'A1300' (A1200 with CD-Rom drive?) isn't showing up.

[AestheticDebris]

I think when people are saying "didn't upgrade their Amigas" they're mostly talking about CPU, RAM, other add ons etc - not necessarily going out and buying an entirely new model.

Having to persuade users to buy an entirely new computer, rather than just a smaller investment in say some RAM or a Hard Drive meant software developers were loath to target any spec higher than the base model. Meanwhile, on the PC, the expected minimum spec would just creep ever upwards as developers felt more comfortable pushing the limits (and/or scaling up the experience with hardware level)

[TCD]

Good point Here's the second page of that poll:



86% had a HD
82% had more RAM
42% had a turbo card

[khph_re]

Most Amiga users had moved on by '96.
i.e. A500 1MB crowd.

Your preaching to the Choir by this point in time.

[TCD]

I agree it's a chicken and egg problem, but it's still interesting that (most) software companies didn't aim for the 'choir' thus producing titles that could have convinced other people that the Amiga could keep up(-ish) with PCs for a lower price. On the PC it was at that time normal that lower hardware specs steadily got less software, but somehow that never caught on with the Amiga and it seems like there was a user base for titles that needed more beefy machines.

[paraj]

"Software-Einkauf... als Raubkopie 7%". Are you sure people were responding honestly in this poll?

[TCD]

For sure not about that one

[Aulapatchuc]

72% had printers too. Very important for gaming.
I think most of these guys were mostly in the productivity and programming (maybe scene demos) area, and A4000s counted for about 16% of the crowd. And this is Germany only, where most of Amiga users had higher buying capacity than the rest of Europe.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Aulapatchuc

I think most of these guys were mostly in the productivity and programming (maybe scene demos) area, and A4000s counted for about 16% of the crowd. And this is Germany only, where most of Amiga users had higher buying capacity than the rest of Europe.

But Amiga Joker is a pure gaming magazine, so those people at least also played games on their Amiga. I'm just going through Amiga Format maybe I find a similar poll there.

[Aulapatchuc]

Originally Posted by TCD

But Amiga Joker is a pure gaming magazine

Ah OK. Never had a read of it for obvious reasons.

[Photon]

Very interesting read. It seems that in the countries that read Amiga Joker, Amiga was doing fine, with a young fanbase who bought (probably vastly non-Amiga) upgrades, and quite a few games.

The vast majority had wedge Amigas, and half had purchased Amiga(s) recently.

Some surprises.

Very few had A4000, but that could be the average age vs. the price.

Many had CD-ROMs, though that might be a surprise just because I thought differently.

72% had a printer, which makes sense if you had a computer of any brand in 1996, but it seems to indicate Amiga was competitive in applications, and 'not just for gaming' (the old slag off).

Lack of graphics cards was not quite a surprise to me, since the native resolutions are good enough for many applications, and because the majority owned wedge shaped Amigas.

1% of users were programming. This was quite a shock (though if we go purely by number of new products coming out for the platform, less so). Did programmers abandon Amiga / new users didn't pick up programming (yet)? Probably a combination of both.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by TCD

Over 10,000 replies to that poll

Biased poll - in 1996.

sometimes the notion of 'Amiga users didn't upgrade their systems and that's why the Amiga didn't succeed' is posted.

Total number of Amigas sold in Germany:-
• Amiga 500: 1,160,500 (Includes Amiga 500+ sales of 79,500)
• Amiga 600: 193,000
• Amiga 2000: 124,500
• Amiga 1200: 95,500
• Amiga 1000: 30,500
• Amiga CD32: 25,000
• Amiga CDTV: 25,800
• Amiga 3000: 14,380 (Includes Amiga 3000T sales)
• Amiga 4000: 11,300 (Includes Amiga 4000 030 sales)

Over 1 million A500s sold. How many upgraded? Let's be generous and say it was 100,000 - less than 10%. Actually that number might not be too far off, since the majority of A1200 owners probably upgraded from an A500.

The real problem with this poll is that it comes far too late. The critical period was the early 90's before the A1200 was released, when PCs were getting cheaper and more powerful. The A500 was still very competent at a much lower price, but that just attracted 'poor' buyers who didn't want to spend any money on it - who then complained about it not matching the performance of much more expensive PCs!

It's not a myth that the vast majority of Amiga owners didn't upgrade beyond a trapdoor RAM expansion or external floppy drive. Which was fine if you were happy with that. But you couldn't then then complain about how the Amiga wasn't getting the latest 'hot' games for the PC.

"It's Commodore's fault for dragging the chain on upgrading the custom chips!" you say. But that wouldn't have been enough. It would also need a much faster CPU, fast RAM and hard drive. "But that would cost as much as a PC!" you moan. "Surely Commodore could wave their magic wand and do it for half the price?" No, they couldn't. PC stuff was being made in the far East in huge quantities at low margins. Hardware prices were as low as they could be. Furthermore PC owners were used to upgrading every 2 years or so to get the latest hardware, so software developers could rely on having a large userbase with the latest most powerful machines.

I don't decry those who didn't upgrade. If Commodore had managed to continually produce more powerful machines cheaply it wouldn't have made much difference. The Amiga's greatest asset was the installed base of stock machines. Amiga 500 games were getting better even after the A1200 came out, while AGA didn't provide the punch many were expecting. You just have to look at PCs to see that once you get on the upgrade bandwagon there's no getting off.

Now, 30 years later, the A500 is finally getting the development attention it deserves - with impressive new games coming out that show it didn't need upgrading after all. I thought about putting a high powered accelerator card in my A500, but I decided to keep it stock for compatibility - and because I would just end up doing things that are more suited to a modern PC.

[Paulee_Alex_Bow]

On a related note, I find that today there are STILL Amiga users who really don’t want to upgrade

They sometimes post in the Amiga FB group saying essentially this:

“Why would anyone want to upgrade the RAM in their Amiga? Especially to the degree people do these days?”

Then the community gives a load of *very good* reasons to this question, including:

- Playing WHDLOAD games and later Amiga games
- Productivity, large graphical files/samples/3D Rendering
- The fact that many folks had expanded RAM back in the day anyway ¯\_(?)_/¯

And then the OP replies essentially saying:

“None of this is relevant! I want to use my Amiga exactly like I did back in 1991!”

And then they go off into the sunset, leaving some of us frustrated lol.

I guess Amiga is a Spectrum, with “1MB A500 Gotek club” on one end and the “people who like to upgrade hardware and push limits” on the other…and these two groups don’t have the same goals or ideals, and may struggle to see eye to eye occasionally.

[AestheticDebris]

Originally Posted by Paulee_Alex_Bow

I guess Amiga is a Spectrum, with “1MB A500 Gotek club” on one end and the “people who like to upgrade hardware and push limits” on the other…and these two groups don’t have the same goals or ideals, and may struggle to see eye to eye occasionally.

I think that's true of all old computers. There are some folk adding enormous RAM expansions, WiFi, hard drives etc to 8-bit machines and get enjoyment from trying to push the limits of the system. Then there are folk who just enjoy the nostalgia of the machines as they were and don't really see any advantage in changing that beyond minor quality of life devices for flashloading etc.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Furthermore PC owners were used to upgrading every 2 years or so to get the latest hardware, so software developers could rely on having a large userbase with the latest most powerful machines.

Maybe you could name a reason why that was the case?

[AestheticDebris]

Originally Posted by TCD

Maybe you could name a reason why that was the case?

Two spring to mind:

1. Because it was more modular, so you could more easily upgrade specific parts. Need more RAM, just buy some. Want better sound, just replace the sound card. Being able to upgrade it small steps and in targeted fashion made it more palatable than "buy a whole new machine".
2. Because it was produced by multiple manufacturers. Each of which was competing based on specs, so the "baseline" model on sale in stores was a constantly shifting target, with the hardware you could buy for the same price constantly getting better. Ans thus the machines that developers were targeting were also increasingly more powerful, in turn encouraging people to buy better machines...

[TCD]

Originally Posted by AestheticDebris

Ans thus the machines that developers were targeting were also increasingly more powerful, in turn encouraging people to buy better machines...

For me that is the interesting bit. You buy a new machine because the software you want to use doesn't work on your old machine. By going for the low price segment like Commodore did you discourage delevopers to aim for higher specs so they only target the lowest spec. The only problem is that technology moves on and eventually you are left with your cheap, but outdated machine. Commodore had more expensive machines, but they were never the focus.

[daver]

I had a A500 and when it was time to upgrade I bought a "commodore" pentium 75 mhz (as i thought) the company was in trouble and only produced PC to get back on there feet. My next computer would be an Amiga when they started producing them again ( I thought).

[Dunny]

It depends on how you experienced the Amiga and its community. If you were older, you had spare cash (usually!) to upgrade to say, 1MB RAM and maybe a second FDD - or more, like a Sidecar expansion, and your social friend group would likely be in a similar position to yourself - working with some disposable income.

Myself, I was a kid back in the mid-80s and didn't get my first job until about '93. My social group was similar aged and none of us upgraded our Amigas; we simply could not afford it on paper-round wages. We pirated all our games, again because we could not afford to buy them.

I didn't see a 1MB A500 until I was 18, visiting an uncle in London. And that was old tech by that point.

When I did get my first job, it was another year or so before I could afford a base A1200. Then another year for an HDD, and then a Blizzard accelerator. But my previous A1000 didn't get any upgrades at all.

The main point being that your experience may have been expanded 1MB A500s and suchlike, but that wasn't the experience of everyone else. And let's face it, the magazine poll is skewed towards people that could afford magazines and were arsed to respond to polls.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Dunny

When I did get my first job, it was another year or so before I could afford a base A1200. Then another year for an HDD, and then a Blizzard accelerator. But my previous A1000 didn't get any upgrades at all.

So by 1996 you had an A1200 with a HDD and an accelerator. Which is pretty much what that 'skewed' poll says