From: lindblad@cc.helsinki.fi
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Game machines and such
Date: 11 Apr 92 15:19:50 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki

In article <dano.702932653@nasa08.cacs.usl.edu>, dano@usl.edu (Dan Stephenson) writes:
> Norman St. John Polevaulter <MBS110@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
> 
>>A given, considering that it's a computer. Still, our games ARE cheaper...
> 
> No they are NOT!  Jesus Christ, they want around *$60* each for SNES games
> at the local Toys R Us the last time I looked! Mail-order games are MUCH
> cheaper for PCs, and assumed so for Amigas.

Amiga games tend to be a bit cheaper than PC ones.

>>Exactly what "cheap Intel PC" are you going to get for $250? A used
>>IBM PC/XT if you're LUCKY! You're certainly not going to get high-res
>>color graphics, impressive stereo sound, and a fantastic multitasking
>>environment such as WB2.0 in a $250 Intel machine!
> 
> True, true.  But the cheap Intel PC has a much larger software base, and

Remember that you're talking about _cheap_ PC-clone (XT, EGA or worse, cheapest
sound card available if one at all, no multitasking). Now think how well you'll
use that huge software base?
	Also even as PC-clones have much larger software base there is _enough_
programs (and good enough on most areas) for Amiga. Also quantity != quality.

> much better name recognition. Many people have no idea what 'Amiga' is,

This is absolutely true. Unfortunately.

> and _might_ know of the Commodore 64-but that' as close to knowing about

Hey, everyone knows what C-64 is :-)

> how good a value low-end Amigas are. So raving about the Amiga's plusses
> on c.s.a.a. doesn't help.  Commodore needs to advertise (ooh! what an
> idea! I've _never_ heard *that* complaint on this nwsgroup before! :-P

Well, they've sold some 3.5 M Amigas with more and more each year and all
this with allmost zero advertising, so it (advertising) is not absolutely
necessary. (well, if they'd take the money for ads from Mehdi Ali & others,
then I'd love to see them advertising more...:-)

>>The situation's quite familiar. C='s low-end stuff tends to be
>>unbeatable wrt bang-for-the-buck; C='s high-end stuff is admittedly
>>somewhat overpriced, assuming you're the sort of person who buys
> ^^^^^^^^^
> Well, more that just 'somewhat'.  GOOD 486s can be had for well less
> than the 68030 A3000.  depends on what you want to do with your
> computer, of course.  Re: Obscurity of Amigas, above.

Bang/buck for high end on Amiga sucks if we just need CPU speed. However by
buying A3000 one gets fast DMA I/O, some custom chips, fast & light
multitasking operating system, GUI&shell, 4 sound channels, a few Zorro III
slots, video slot, CPU slot and other goodies too (I love having
autoconfiguring hardware on my A500).

> 2)Not afford an A3000, and _not_ be able to use the 'mega-Euro-demos',
> games, and lesser word processors.

A3000/16 is not so expensive (I guess, don't know how much it costs over there
nowdays). PC don't have those mega-Euro-demos you claim won't work on A3000
(btw, most of them _do_ actually work on A3000).

> Therefore, it is *surely* more fun to paly Falcon 3.0 on a 386 than
> nothing on an A300 I cannot afford-get it??

I don't like playing soccer, so I rather won't play it at all. Same goes with
Falcon 3.0 :-)

> One thing C= NEEDS to do is pump out LOTS of games as SOON as possible
> when the A600 come out.  It is to survive as a game machine, it'll need
> that to cope with the 100's of cartridges out for the Genesis, SNES,
> etc.

Hmm. There are perhaps 2000 A600 compatible games (I already subtracted the
ones that are incompatible) on the market - why on earth should Commo now
concentrate on producing more games to it as there will be lot's of new games
coming from third parties all the time. Or do you mean cardridges?
	The problem is that there is not enough stores that do sell those Amiga
games, not that there is not enough of them.

--
Jarkko Lindblad
lindblad@cc.helsinki.fi
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy