the story of the amiga | part 12 - the amiga's journey to the 90's

in the previous part, amiga receives a wave of games but now in this part, I will talk about amiga's journey to the home computer market.

1989 was a time where the amiga 500 was beginning to take off at a rapid rate, and where the powerful technology was being seen as the powerhouse that it was. Given its superiority to almost everything else on the market, especially in the terms of graphical power, it's easy to forget that the technology was now 4 years old, and this slow start meant that the amiga still had an uphill struggle on its hands. gaming was where the money lay, and the amiga 500 batman pack, launched by commodore UK, had positioned the 500 as a must-have computer for that purpose. most 500 packs before this point required the consumer to purchase the additional RF modulator, but given the vast majority of households would hook machines directly into their TVs, just like their spectrums and C64s, this inclusion was pivotal.

the graphics and sound were flying high above the existing 8-bit competition and the amiga was leading the way among reviewers, the press, and the exhibitions. as 1990's ticked over, the amiga 500 was shifting some 300.000 units every year throughout europe. over in united states, things weren't quite so rosy, with sales of the 500 a fraction of their UK counterpart. Commodore of america hadn't positioned the 500 as a gaming machine quite well, in part due to lackluster advertising, in part due to uncompelling bundles, and in part due to the popularity of NES for gaming and IBM PC compatibles for other computing tasks. in europe the amiga was a natural progression in the world filled with ZX spectrums, Commodore 64s, and a submissive array of 8-bit consoles. IBM compatibles here were seen almost exclusively as professional machines with a prohibited cost, whilst at £499, the 500 was now affordable for a significant portion of the middle and working class.

the amiga 2000 on the other hand was fairing reasonably well in the states, working its way into professionals graphics use for business, production houses, education, and scientific establishment alike.

that's it for part 12, part 13 can be found here