When was the best time to buy an Amiga?

[jamielemon]

I'm in the UK and I would say that the people who got best value for money/experience from their Amigas would have been those who bought them around 1989, when the famous Batman pack was released.

If you'd bought it much earlier, it would have cost you quite a lot more money, and there wouldn't be that many great games around to play yet. And you'd have been stuck with a machine that would be slightly out-of-date when we got to the period, a few years later, when the Amiga's best games were being released. (I consider this period to be 1990 - 1992, when we had a classic run of games such as Shadow Of The Beast, Speedball 2, Sensible Soccer, Cannon Fodder, Monkey Island etc. Games that really showed off the Amiga's power before we got to the point where they started to get held back by the limitations of the 1mb floppy!)

If you bought one much later, you would miss that "golden age". Although all the great games would still be available and you'd get a more powerful machine like a 1200 for less money.

I got my Amiga for Christmas 1990 (Screen Gems pack) and though I feel I slightly missed out on some of the golden years, I think this was a good time to jump in. I do slightly regret not having made the leap about a year or so earlier though! On the other hand, if I'd waited just a little while longer I'd have got a Kickstart 2.04 machine rather than the 1.3. Although in the grand scheme of things I don't think that would have made much difference, at the time I felt a little sore about it.

So what do you guys think? Do you think it's possible to highlight a time that was exactly the "right moment" to jump on the Amiga train? I guess a lot of people might just say "the sooner the better" but people who bought an A1000 just before the A500 was released, or a Kickstart 1.2 500 just before they upgraded to 1.3, might think they didn't time it quite right!

[TCD]

If you think 'back for you buck' (discounting piracy ) I'd say around 1990 was the best time to get an Amiga. Lots of classic re-appear in compilations and as budget releases. Also the 512k RAM expansion and an additional drive weren't that expensive anymore.

[dreadnought]

The budget argument makes sense, but assuming that one has sufficient funds, I'd definitely like to jump in in 1987, on the A500 release. It'd be great to be at the cutting edge of computing and gaming and in this year there were already some titles showcasing Amiga's prowess. And that trend went sharply up in 1988 and 1989.

Plus there were numerous ports of really excellent "computer" games, often making them the best versions.

[Tigerskunk]

For feels, 1988 was the best time.

Felt like you had the best machine in the world at your home.

[Zak]

Definitely 1987! Yes, you'd pay more, but you would gain a longer time period for it at which your Amiga would be state of the art and the best you can get. Wouldn't you want to live that feeling as long as possible? The games available at the time were already great! Just a few examples out of my head: Defenders of the Cown, Flight Simulator II, Leaderboard Golf, Ports of Call, Silent Service, Test Drive, Vader, Winter Games, World Games. You could also make music with Sonix and paint pictures with Deluxe Paint. I think that would already make some nice evenings. And the times are the best, when the expected future is even better.

[phx]

Originally Posted by Zak

Definitely 1987! Yes, you'd pay more, but you would gain a longer time period for it at which your Amiga would be state of the art

I agree. If you had the money then it was absolutely worth it! I got my A1000 in spring '87 and I never regretted it. I don't want to miss that time!

[stx2199]

the best time was around 1990 when the c64 and the spectrum died
because the Amiga games before 1990 were all very lame with a few exceptions
before 1990 was better to have any 8 bit machine instead the Amiga even was better to have the lame computer called amstrad

The glory of the Amiga did not last long, around 3 or 4 years because after 1994 the commodore end up completely discredited, the normal ppl wanted a PC or a super nintendo or any other system
by 1995 the Amiga had been forgotten by 99% of the ppl

[Amigajay]

I don’t think there was a bad time to buy an Amiga! So it’s hard to say a best time, as someone said above, if you had the money then i guess 1985/86 for the A1000 to have the full timeline of Amiga releases.

If it’s more a vibe/scene feel, then joining the fun in 1991 at the height of the popularity was a very good time too!

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Amigajay

If it’s more a vibe/scene feel, then joining the fun in 1991 at the height of the popularity was a very good time too!

Indeed. In 1991 every month there would be several games and demos that would make sure you felt like you where at the top of the food chain

[grond]

I'm certainly a minority but to me the good Amiga times begin with Kickstart and Workbench 2.0 The A3000 was the most exciting piece of hardware (despite it having a lot of flaws in hindsight) AND you could get all the great Amiga games that were there already. But then I admit that even just reading everything about games that I now consider rather bad (e.g. the early point'n'click adventures like Déja Vu) and desired to play was very, very exciting when I only had a C=16 while my neighbour actually had one of those 1987 A500s...

[lmimmfn]

I also got the Screen Gems pack in Christmas 1990 although i would sneak out the Amiga from October to Christmas lol

I consider it was probably the best time to get an Amiga, ST ports were few and far between compared to the early days, memory expansions/additional disk drives were cheaper.

If i had the money of course i would have loved to jump to the Amiga from my Amstrad CPC back in 87, but it was not to be and thankfully i missed a lot of the direct ST ports.

[CCCP alert]

Price of A500 in the UK was dropped £100 to £399.99 summer 88 when ST had to go up £100 in summer 88 due to DRAM shortage price hikes. Batman is also an ST port job.

I can only think of 4 or 5 games from 89-94 that made full use of OCS so if all you wanted was gaming you should have imported a PCE/MD by 89. 1987 A1000 used for £300 was the best time to get one.

[Megalomaniac]

Worth starting by saying I was born in 1981, so I had no hope of fully appreciating an Amiga before maybe 1990, and perhaps I don't fully appreciate the full historical context. Still, for most people who mainly wanted games, if you were happy with your 8-bit system I feel like you were just as well off keeping it until maybe 1989 or so. The Batman Pack, released just as the Amiga had really cemented its advantage over the ST (which the STe tried but largely failed to overcome), feels like the moment to me. Even £400 in 1988 was something like £1000 in today's money (I assume it was much the same cost or more elsewhere), and most people will have had bigger priorities with the money. 8-bit games were half the price and often just as good up until then - some never released for the Amiga, some better to play on 8-bits, some probably better on Amiga but not worth double the price. As mentioned, even in 1989 there were a lot of ST ports, and upgrades would become a lot cheaper than they were then. And, dare I suggest it, the ST was probably as good as or better than a like-for-like Amiga for most serious tasks (outside graphics or video) at least until Workbench 2, and usually cheaper.

Still, if money was no object and you were old enough to fully appreciate what the Amiga could do, then it was worth having one from very early on - though I think I'd've baulked at the idea of buying an A1000 for £1300 or whatever (even £300, with no backup if it went wrong, I'd've been wary). There were games from quite early on that opened up new game styles, or did things better than any 8-bit system (or, in most cases, better than the ST) at that time. For 1988 or earlier, I'm thinking Defender of the Crown, Faery Tale Adventure, Marble Madness, Ports of Call, Emerald Mine, Menace, Maniac Mansion, Pac-Mania, Carrier Command, F/A-18 Interceptor.....

Still, was it really the end of the world not to play them when they were new? If we're honest, most were superseded by later Amiga titles, and there's a few which don't play amazingly. If you got an Amiga later, you had more idea which ones were really worth owning now (and, many were on budget or compilations by then). I'd argue that 1989 is the first year where £25 spent on Amiga games will probably get you more fun than £25 on C64/Spectrum/Amstrad games. Before then, you were missing out if you didn't have one of those three systems, even if you had an Amiga or ST too.

[Locutus]

Strangely there was a second good time in the early 00's, I remember buying my CSPPC back then for 200 euros, a CyberVision for 50 and some other things for little money.

I upgraded my 3000 back then to the maximum possible configuration and used it together with a headless DEC Alpha Linux machine throughout University.

For the stuff i did back then, C/C++ Programming and writing papers in LaTeX it was surprisingly practical.

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by CCCP alert

Price of A500 in the UK was dropped £100 to £399.99 summer 88 when ST had to go up £100 in summer 88 due to DRAM shortage price hikes. Batman is also an ST port job.

I can only think of 4 or 5 games from 89-94 that made full use of OCS so if all you wanted was gaming you should have imported a PCE/MD by 89. 1987 A1000 used for £300 was the best time to get one.

I guess it's something ImmortalA1000 would say

But even by this standard, the logic here is still rather bizzaro. There is only a handful of games which "make full use" of PS5 (on PC even less, maybe 1) and yet people still buy quite a lot of them.

Also, the PCE/MD buying suggestion betrays this quite stuck-up mindset which equates all games with "videogames". Even by 1989 there were numerous amazing "computer" games on Amiga worth playing, from It Came From The deser via Leisure Suit Larry to Star Fleet.

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

Also, the PCE/MD buying suggestion betrays this quite stuck-up mindset which equates all games with "videogames". Even by 1989 there were numerous amazing "computer" games on Amiga worth playing, from It Came From The deser via Leisure Suit Larry to Star Fleet.

Not to mention that the MD games usually had inferior sound/music and vastly more constrained controls.

[Megalomaniac]

Much as I denied it at the time, I would have loved to have a SNES alongside my Amiga - for pure action games, it certainly peaks higher than the Amiga - the Amiga had no direct rival for Donkey Kong Country, or F-Zero, or Street Fighter 2, or Mario Kart. Still, if I was only going to have one system, it'd have to be an Amiga, even if only for games. Adventures / sims / strategy are part of the reason, but the Amiga was also the first (and often best) way to play Sensi / Lemmings / Cannon Fodder / Syndicate / Chaos Engine (to name but a few) and the only place to play Pinball Dreams / Turrican 1&2 / the Lotuses / Speedball 2 etc. Plus Amiga games were cheaper, even before you consider budgets and PD, and you had coverdisk demos too.

If I could afford a SNES plus very expensive PC you can afford to upgrade every 2 years, I might've considered skipping the Amiga - if I'd been able to last that long without one in the first place (by the time the SNES launched, early 1992 here, the C64 was on its last legs, the Amstrad and Spectrum had little to come, and even the ST's release schedule was thinning by then).

The same's true to a lesser extent of the Megadrive, the Amiga had no match for the first two Sonics, or Gunstar Heroes, or EA Hockey. I'd've got use out of a Megadrive, but I think I'm glad I just spent what it would've cost on Amiga games instead. Having only a Megadrive would be a much lesser experience, even if you had a PC too.

Incidentally, another reason why 1989 might have been the moment to get an Amiga is that it was finally getting some dedicated magazines, from Amiga Format to Amiga Action (and Amiga Joker in Germany). AUI and Amiga Computing were arguably no match, especially for games content.

[amifan]

I feel 1987 was the best time to get an Amiga, we got our A500 that year after we moved to the States. It felt so futuristic, especially when my schoolmates came over who had their C64s or NES. Everything felt so new and cutting edge, I am glad I had a chance to experience the Amiga in the 80s, the 90s were a good time but they will never touch the pure excitement and futuristic feeling of using an Amiga in the 80s.

[gimbal]

I got mine somewhere in 1990 and pretty much right from the get-go was overwhelmed with the possible games to choose from. Good and bad of course but back then I didn't have a way to see a difference yet so was gladly playing Turbo Outrun If I had to do it all over again, I think I'd stick with that year. God I still remember booting up Ninja Remix for the first time and getting blasted with the music, the piercing eyes of the Ninja looking at you. The entire room went silent for a moment. That is such a powerful memory.

Playing the game not so much though, we never figured out how to pickup items and thought the game was broken It was only years later I figured out that you needed to touch the items with your hand rather than stand in front of it. Not that it mattered... I usually couldn't even get past jumping the stones.

[BigD]

@jamielemon

If you wanted to upgrade and push what the Amiga could do way beyond what the Atari ST could and towards a PC type home computer without the awful non-multitasking and M$ Works (does it?) Windoze experience then I'd say 1993-1998. C= A1200s were hard to get in 1994/95 however but plenty of CD32/SX-1s that no one seemed to want but they were good value! Yes, that was after the so called 'Golden Age' of running A500 1 disk games from floppy using a 1-button Quickshot II but quite simply it wasn't enough of a great experience above and beyond the Atari ST (and I know that was the ST's fault for lowering the target system specs for ST/Amiga developers).

Blizzards, hard drives, Scala, Deluxe Paint IV and 5, AmigaWriter 2, Pagestream 2.2 free on coverdisks or Version 3 or even 4 if you wanted to upgrade. Xtreme Racing and Slam Tilt! Fred Fish collections on 1 CD-Rom! Those were the real value for money days!