Atari ST isn't to blame, multiplatform development is.

[donnie]

Playing a lot of c64 games lately and reading an interview with one of the developers of rick dangerous(which i cannot find) got me thinking about the st port blame meme that has been floating around since 80s. The blame st got has been extremely unfair.

A lot of these games did not even lead on st. They where developed 100% as multiplatform games. Made to work on just about every micro computer out there. That includes spectrum with a tape deck.

Atari st was just as much of an afterthought as amiga.

[Foebane]

The ST was to blame because it used the same CPU as the Amiga, so it was the easiest to develop on and then port unaltered games over to Amiga without using its custom features. The C64 and the 8-bit platforms have no such excuse.

[donnie]

If you are designing a game to work as single load on a tape deck, that is a much bigger design choice than the difference between atari st or amiga.

jerky scrolling, 16 colours be damned.

[gimbal]

Of course money was to blame. But that's just too boring to keep moaning about.

[frank_b]

Devil's advocate time. How many excellent games wouldn't have been released on the Amiga at *ALL* if they weren't ported from the ST due to the size of the Amiga market at the time? What would have been preferable? No Stunt Car Racer? No SWIV? No Thalion games? No Bitmap games? No Saint Dragon? No E.F.T.P.O.T.R.M? No Klax? No Deflector? No Vroom? No IK plus? No Jimmy White's Snooker? No Archer McLean's pool? No New Zealand Story? No Silkworm? No Batman the Movie? No Robocop? No Barbarian? No Dungeon Master? No Chaos Strikes Back? No Buggy Boy? No Battle Chess? No Populous? No Star Wars? No Bubble Bobble? No Carrier Command? No Cybernoid? No Cybernoid 2? No Exolon? No Rick Dangerous 1 and 2? No MidWinter? No Damocles? No Interphase?

Speedball II, Vroom and Stunt Car Racer are amongst the best games on the Amiga. They're basically ST ports... Perhaps early ports kept the Amiga games market viable till breakthrough games appeared? There are loads of games on best of Amiga lists which are practically identical to the ST version. I'd not be excluding most of that list if I was a gamer

[Amigajay]

Good point frank_b even though we suffered alot of poor ST ports, we also had a lot of decent games released on the ST first and/or developed for the ST and had quick Amiga ports because it was easier otherwise they may not have ported at all.

[Amiga1992]

It is the Amiga fan's most valued tradition, to blame anything but Amiga and its creators regarding the things that went wrong with it

Atari ST! PeeCees! All those damn 8-bit machines! Curse them all!

[Predseda]

Originally Posted by Akira

Atari ST! PeeCees! All those damn 8-bit machines! Curse them all!

[idrougge]

Multiplatform in itself isn't the big problem. The C64 and the Spectrum shared a lot of titles without sharing a single piece of code or graphics.

But look at the poor CPC, how it was dragged down by Speccy ports. Same goes for the MSX.

Originally Posted by frank_b

Devil's advocate time. How many excellent games wouldn't have been released on the Amiga at *ALL* if they weren't ported from the ST due to the size of the Amiga market at the time?

How much of the Amiga market wasn't eaten by the ST?

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by idrougge

Multiplatform in itself isn't the big problem. The C64 and the Spectrum shared a lot of titles without sharing a single piece of code or graphics.

But look at the poor CPC, how it was dragged down by Speccy ports. Same goes for the MSX.



How much of the Amiga market wasn't eaten by the ST?

But the same thing could be said for the CPC, had it not had the huge selection of Spectrum ports then the machine itself may not have taken off on the back of the Amsoft selection alone!

The MSX never took off over here, bar Spain and Holland i think it was, it was lucky to have Speccy ports!

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by Amigajay

The MSX never took off over here, bar Spain and Holland i think it was, it was lucky to have Speccy ports!

It was huge in Japan and a LOT of great games came out for it over there.
There were ports too, but usually from arcade or other hardware. I don't think there was any other popular, Z80-based home computer in Japan, so in that case, it gained.

The problem as mentioned before is not exactly multiplatform-ness, but when you have two platforms that share a main CPU. A lot of code tends to be moved across, many times unoptimized for better results.
When you work on a completely different architecture, seems like people put more thought into how to fit a certain game in a different platform, and also to implement things from scratch, leading to better results.

Amiga also got a bunch of shitty Megadrive ports, don't forget that. In that case though, the Amiga was the inferior hardware, but there are enough good ports from MD to make you realize many ports were lazy.

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by Akira

Amiga also got a bunch of shitty Megadrive ports, don't forget that. In that case though, the Amiga was the inferior hardware, but there are enough good ports from MD to make you realize many ports were lazy.

Amiga AGA vs (crappy) MegaDrive? Are you serious, Akira?

[Overlord]

Commodore's piss-pathetic management have to shoulder some of the blame for the issues that failed to be addressed.

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by Overlord

Commodore's piss-pathetic management have to shoulder some of the blame for the issues that failed to be addressed.

Unfortunately, it seems that after Tramiel's departure, Commodore became rudderless and directionless just when they got hold of remarkable technology.

[frank_b]

I wonder if CD32 users ever complained about OCS ports?

[frank_b]

Originally Posted by Foebane

Amiga AGA vs (crappy) MegaDrive? Are you serious, Akira?

AGA is outclassed by the Megadrive for scrolling games. Far more sprites and twice as many 16 colour scrolling layers. The dictionary definition of too little, too late.

[Stejjie]

Originally Posted by Foebane

Amiga AGA vs (crappy) MegaDrive? Are you serious, Akira?

But for a lot of the time there was any commercial crossover between the two, it wasn’t AGA vs Mega Drive, it was OCS/ECS vs Mega Drive. And however “crappy” the latter may have been (and personally, I don’t think it was), there was only one machine out of them that was wowing the crowds, and it wasn’t Commodore’s.

And I’d suggest that was a situation that continued even after AGA machines came out.

Put it this way: why were so many Amiga developers trying, and largely failing, to do Sonic clones?

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by frank_b

AGA is outclassed by the Megadrive for scrolling games. Far more sprites and twice as many 16 colour scrolling layers. The dictionary definition of too little, too late.

I just console myself (no pun intended) that the Megadrive came out a lot later than the original Amiga, so it's bound to be better.

[frank_b]

Originally Posted by Foebane

I just console myself (no pun intended) that the Megadrive came out a lot later than the original Amiga, so it's bound to be better.

What's the excuse for AGA then? The Amiga died because it didn't evolve quick enough.

[nobody]

Amiga was created in 1984. Look at what games were coming out in 1984 on 8bits and arcades. Amiga was clearly ahead. But in 1989 there was Megadrive and much more powerful arcades like the CPS 1. Even the ST was superb in 1985. Even the 464 was great in my opinion in 1986.
Then about the ST ports I think they were lazy jobs even for an ST, made by amateurs when the consoles had professionals coming from the arcades and much bigger teams.