Paladin of the Pegasos
Posts: 1424 from 2003/4/13
Quote:
asrael22 wrote:
The problem was IMO not the 128 as such.
But the wrong decisions of the managers in charge at Commodore.
The number of projects were just too many and many were not dropped in favour of Amiga (i.e. the 8 bitters) which resulted in Amiga advanced and developed much too slow against the PC and Apple competition.
Commodore mismanaged themselves terribly. What they did with the Amiga was ridiculous in hindsight. They essentially developed 2 different Amiga computers over its lifetime, and spent the rest of the time repackaging each one in new clothes, trying to pass it off as something new. The number of go-nowhere project too is true.
Not dropping the 8bit line? That I certainly don't agree. The 8bit line was NOT cannibalizing sales from the 16/32 bit Amiga. They targeted different markets. 64/128 were the inexpensive budget computers, Amiga was for the professional or power user. Even the A500 (which was a success) was vastly more expensive. Then if you try anything more than simple single disk games, you find how lacking it really is and how jaw-dropping expensive expansions were. The A600 was a joke by the time it came out, the PC Clone market was obviously taking over every segment.
The 128 only sold from 85-89, but the C64 kept selling right up until C='s bankruptcy. To cut that off would have hastened C='s demise. Look at Apple. Despite having the Mac, it continued to sell the Apple II up until 1993. The Tandy Coco sold until 1991, despite being a PC clone seller. ATari 8bit home computers sold through 92, despite Atari having the ST. Etc Etc Etc. Right up until the writing was on the wall about PC clones taking over the world around 93, companies all continued to offer both an 8bit line and a 16/32bit line.
-Edit-
The C128 was only available for 4 years, yet in those 4 years it outsold all Apple II models combined. The Apple II was available for 16 years (77-93).
[ Edited by redrumloa 25.03.2019 - 11:59 ]
