Posted Sun May 29, 2016 3:04 pm
I disagree with some of the history in his post. People discussing that video game crash crap always make me roll my eyes. Way too much is made of that from people who weren't even born yet, they really have little clue as to what was going on with all that. I've asked quite a few nerds of that era just what the story was about the video game crash and all of them said it's not what is said online. Yes, Atari destroyed their own systems by letting far too much crap come out, but that's the consoles. Those were some prime years for American C64 games, for example. Europeans, with more love for the computers than American's (but nowhere near what he suggests) often brush away the video game crash stuff, because they remember otherwise... I bet a lot of those C64 titles they like so much from that era came from America though.
Computers were always a niche market for America. Once the internet came around everyone got a computer, but gaming still remained a niche market for computers to this very day. They were smaller, but they meant a whole hell of a lot because they were the nerdiest of the nerds. But back then people made money off the nerds, they could still do it if they did it right. My point is, the "video game crash" had little effect on America when it concerned computers.
In fact it was a part of the reason why the Amiga became a computer instead of a console. He speaks of the great love for computers in Europe but makes no mention that well, must have been a little love here otherwise that machine would have been a console in the first place!
There was a market for computers, the Amiga did sell enough in America to warrant quite a lot of great games, and again, I just hate when anyone tells people to pretty much throw away an NTSC Amiga. If all you're looking for when you play games is side scrolling European budget titles, people, get an SNES or Genesis. The side scrollers on consoles were a thousand times better overall than almost anything the Amiga ever put out. There are a couple great ones, no doubt, but I never understood why anyone would buy an Amiga to play the majority of those console rip off games. If you take those games out of the picture, if you take out all the crap, I personally find NTSC Amiga games kick the crap out of PAL games. But that's just me, still, even the biggest console fan should be able to understand quite a lot of crap came out on computers due to how easy it was to make and the demographics/economics of those buying the games there. Just because the Amiga or whatever computer might have a thousand games... Does anyone seriously think even 80% of those are quality? Good luck finding quality out of the 600 NES titles out there, ya know? And it was much harder and more expensive to put out an NES game. He says you'll miss out on 90% of the good titles by getting an NTSC Amiga... BULLLLLLSHHHHH..... Of the games he says are worth playing, there's a few of them I wouldn't personally bother with. Of the games he mentions I do like, they were released in America, soooo...
His sales figures are way off, there's not even one single console put out in Europe that sold less than the Amiga. 8.56 million sold of just the NES in Europe, the least popular of the consoles. That's more than the Amiga sold in the entire world combined. It's amazing how things get distorted because of nostalgia. In America, the people that bought the Amiga were older, they're not talking about it online. In Europe, perfect age to go on about how everyone they knew had an Amiga or whatever. They see our love for the NES and yes, but their standards nobody loved the NES, it's like here, where yeah, it seemed everyone had one... But the reality was they were more likely to see an NES at a friends house than an Amiga. Now, with other computers over there, the story was a little different. They probably bought more C64s than NES' for example, as well as there own computers like the ZX... But once the consoles went 16 bit say goodbye to all computer competition.
The computer market was "bigger" in Europe compared to America, it was not bigger than consoles however. In Europe computers and consoles were also competing for the exact same demographics, children to very young adults. In America children/teens had the NES, adults of all ages had computers.
It's just weird for me being so into a nerdy retro computer and seeing all these console fans jump in on it all these years later... It's strange to me they never "grew up" in their tastes for games. But that's just me.
Other things he goes needlessly complicated on, those power converters and things, not needed... You just need an American power supply, that's it. True, if you're buying from overseas you might not have a choice, but he thinks it's required when it's not. It would probably be cheaper to buy just an American power supply on Ebay than to get all that crap he got.
I respect the amount of time he put into the article as well as the overall writing...But as a guide for buying Amigas... Well... Asterisk, I think. Good guide "if" you like that particular type of game that was so very popular with consoles and European computer games. But even then, all that power converter crap needs to be edited.