@matthey

Quote:

matthey wrote: A healthy CBM would have created an ASIC for maybe a few hundred thousand CD1200 units to make the 68030 slot fit?

A "healthy CBM" would have realized that such a product would have been a small niche better left to 3rd party when priced with a realistic margin.

A "healthy CBM" would have realized that such a product would have to be $200-300 to be attractive to existing A1200 users (of which there were far to few for such a product).

A "healthy CBM" would have realized that a A1200+A1200CD combo in 1994 would have needed to undercut 1992's A1200 pricing to attract any new users, something that just wasn't plausible.

A "healthy CBM" would have realized that doing a real update in a brand new A1200 successor would have made more sense.

You got to remember that Akiko just like Amber (A3000FF) was cumbersome attempt to hide the symptoms of underperforming chipset.

In the end it was just another pointless doomed from start but kinda cool C= engineering project (think C65, CDTV, A2630 based multi CPU Z2 card etc).

_________________
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Kronos Quote:

A "healthy CBM" would have realized that such a product would have been a small niche better left to 3rd party when priced with a realistic margin.

Perhaps but Amiga hardware was expensive because of lack of economies of scale and CBM had an opportunity to change this. I doubt many other Amiga businesses could have obtained $15 USD double speed CD-ROM drives which have the potential to make the CD1200 relatively cheap. A counter argument is a lack of quality with the audio CD-ROM drive even though it is made by Sony.

Kronos Quote:

A "healthy CBM" would have realized that such a product would have to be $200-300 to be attractive to existing A1200 users (of which there were far to few for such a product).

I believe the $200-$300 USD is possible although I expect CBM would have launched it at $300-$400 USD. The CD32 launch at $399 USD was too high too. Nose bleed pricing could potentially backfire turning off customers as they perceive the business as greedy. CBM should have wanted to be perceived as delivering good value but their lack of incremental upgrades made aggressive pricing the only way to deliver value and this reduced margins. CBM likely planned to keep producing Amiga 1200s which would have continued to enlarge the CD1200 potential market.

Kronos Quote:

A "healthy CBM" would have realized that a A1200+A1200CD combo in 1994 would have needed to undercut 1992's A1200 pricing to attract any new users, something that just wasn't plausible. A "healthy CBM" would have realized that doing a real update in a brand new A1200 successor would have made more sense.

A better planned Amiga 1200 design could have made a product like the CD1200 possible. The modularity is nice allowing a cheaper entry with just the base unit of either an Amiga 1200 or CD32 that can then be expanded into a game machine or computer. With better planning and integration, they could have delivered both out of the box with minimally higher price. The problem was that the base systems already needed an upgrade when new.

Kronos Quote:

You got to remember that Akiko just like Amber (A3000FF) was cumbersome attempt to hide the symptoms of underperforming chipset. In the end it was just another pointless doomed from start but kinda cool C= engineering project (think C65, CDTV, A2630 based multi CPU Z2 card etc).

Sadly, Akiko was an after Amiga 4000 and 1200 thought too. It's a kludge chunky solution but still needed to be standard for all AGA systems. Integrating the CIAs into one chip was the right idea anyway. CBM should have had a 1-2 chip properly upgraded chipset by this time like was planned for AA+. Akiko is evidence of gross incompetence in chipset development.

@matthey

Quote:

rumors of interested buyers as late as Feb 1994

Rumours of interested CD1200 buyers? lolz

_________________
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@Kronos

Quote:

And you still wonder why I consider all your numbers suspect?

Quote:

From Commodore The Final Years by Brian Bagnall Geoff Stilley, the new President of Commodore US, decided to host a product launch at the Winter CES in Las Vegas, held January 6 to 9, 1994. Stilley was able to brag about the CD32 outpacing sales of other CD-ROM consoles, such as 3DO, by 3 to 1. This was likely accurate, considering the CD32 sold over 166,000 units in 1993,

President of Commodore US, Geoff Stilley states 166,000 CD32 units were sold during 1993.


If AGA sales numbers are treated as worldwide
44,000 (A1200, the UK has 30,000 during its launch),
100,000 (A1200, AF50, Sep 1993),
170,000 (A1200, AF56, Feb 1994),
166,000 (CD32, Commodore US president, Jan 1994),
7,500 (Germany's A4000/030),
3,800 (Germany's A4000/040),
Total: 491,300 AGA units.

There are additional big box AGA units from the USA, Canada, Australia, France, Italy, and Scandinavia region.

Last edited by Hammer on 23-Jul-2024 at 08:51 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 23-Jul-2024 at 08:46 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 23-Jul-2024 at 08:43 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 23-Jul-2024 at 08:40 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 23-Jul-2024 at 08:35 AM.

_________________
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@Hammer

Yeah still adding up running numbers and some guy bragging about numbers while he already knew C= was defunct.....

Keeps dreaming....

_________________
- We don't need good ideas, we haven't run out on bad ones yet
- blame Canada

@matthey

C= had a lowend product that they couldn't make at low enough prices and nothing in the mid and high range.

With the C64 they made every chip in house, with the OCS/ECS Amigas they had to buy the CPU and with AA they had to outsource Lisa.

A better "A1200" with a proper competitive chipset would have been more of they same.

On the other hand they needed cash just to keep the lights on and would have needed much more for real R&D.

C64/A500 had good enough margins when they were launched and C= still had something "Pro" (PETs, A2000, PCs) to sell at even better margins. As such it was no issue to reduce the margins every year as R&D was already paid for.

A1200 did not only cost more to make it was also low end from day one as it was at least 2 years late.


"Fixing C=" in a plausible way would mean going back to before the bought Amiga.
Every plausible fix at that point would have resulted in them not needing to buy Amiga, so unless you wanted and gray ST1200 the version we got was the best possible history.

_________________
- We don't need good ideas, we haven't run out on bad ones yet
- blame Canada

Kronos Quote:

C= had a lowend product that they couldn't make at low enough prices and nothing in the mid and high range.

The Amiga in 1985 was mid to high end hardware with mid pricing. The only improvement from there was a lower cost Amiga 500 and more expandable Amiga 2000, not that the Amiga 2000 standard hardware was any higher end. A 68EC020+AGA@14MHz may have raised the hardware standard if it was 1-2 years earlier but it just delayed the Amiga chipset from becoming antiquated for a couple of years.

1985-1986 mid-high end hardware, mid pricing
1987-1988 mid hardware, low-mid pricing
1989-1990 low-mid hardware, low-mid pricing
1991-1992 low end hardware, low-mid pricing
1993-1994 antiquated hardware, low-mid pricing

I still think they should have created high end chipsets for the high end systems and then upgrade the low end systems when the cost dropped enough.

Kronos Quote:

With the C64 they made every chip in house, with the OCS/ECS Amigas they had to buy the CPU and with AA they had to outsource Lisa. A better "A1200" with a proper competitive chipset would have been more of they same. On the other hand they needed cash just to keep the lights on and would have needed much more for real R&D.

It became more difficult to fab all chips in house and not just for CBM. The number of processes and process sizes increased and it is/was capital intensive to upgrade fabs. The CBM fab business needed better management and more capital or it should have been sold or spun off before it became a liability. The gain from selling their fab business was early reduced debt that was snowballing with interest. The loss was slower chip turnaround times as a fabless semiconductor business. Fabs require huge economies of scale and are very competitive while fabless design does not and is where most of the margin is. Look at Chuck Peddle's coworker Bill Mensch who started the fabless Western Design Center which is still alive today and licensing 6502 family CPUs. The business had few workers and was started with minimal capital yet has done massive business and has served society well while MOS turned into an environmental disaster.

https://www.westerndesigncenter.com/ Quote:

The legendary 6502/65816 microprocessors with both 8-bit and 8/16-bit ISA's keep cranking out the unit volumes in ASIC and standard microcontroller forms supplied by WDC and WDC's licensees. Annual volumes in the hundreds (100's) of millions of units keep adding in a significant way to the estimated shipped volumes of five (5) to ten (10) billion units. With 200MHz+ 8-bit W65C02S and 100MHz+ 8/16-bit W65C816S processors coming on line in ASIC and FPGA forms, we see these annual volumes continuing for a long, long time. The 6502 is likely the only processor family that has remained loyal to its ISA over the last 45 years. In addition it has served the widest spectrum of electronic markets through those years. For example, it has served and in some cases created markets for the PC, video game, toy, communication, industrial control, automotive, life support embedded in the human body medical devices, outside the body medical systems, engineering education systems, hobby systems, and you name it electronic market segments. I might add the 6502 has served in a highly reliable and successful way! As added food for thought, the 6502/65816 microprocessors protect millions of lives annually within embedded heart defibrillation and pacing systems. We are quite proud of what our customers and partners have created and continue to create with the 6502 Embedded Intelligence Technology for the benefit of mankind!

ARM is another example of a fabless business started with a few employees on a shoestring budget that has proliferated and changed the world. There are few vertically integrated design+fab business today with Apple and Intel being among the few remaining while Intel's fab business has been struggling. AMD spun off their fab division in 2008 which became GlobalFoundries and they bought IBM's fab business in 2014. The trend for even large businesses is fabless.

CBM needed better planning and management for their chipset designs but that was a necessity for survival whether fabless or not. I believe they had the engineering talent but the upper management was clueless and micromanaging a disaster which peaked with the PC clone pivot, no new chips mandate, ECS Amiga 600 and 2200 (1000jr) mistakes and AGA delays. Many businesses fell behind with the pace of Moore's Law increasing and CBM was no exception. CBM needed a scalpel with a good eye and steady hand but they got blind mad men with chainsaws instead. Too bad Lew Eggebrecht did not get a chance before Bill Sydnes turned the business from bad to much worse.

Kronos Quote:

C64/A500 had good enough margins when they were launched and C= still had something "Pro" (PETs, A2000, PCs) to sell at even better margins. As such it was no issue to reduce the margins every year as R&D was already paid for.

Pro was mostly embedded use for the Amiga which was also low margin. Pro desktop video use for the Mac was a high margin Mac networked to a low margin Amiga with a Video Toaster. It wasn't just the Amiga 2000 that was used for embedded use. The Amiga 4000 and CD32 were used also as CBM made strides into the low margin embedded market with AGA hardware as the Amiga was disappearing from the high margin desktop. The Amiga wedge computers were not as good of value for the embedded market. Ideally, a single SBC with a SoC would have been used for both an Amiga wedge and console but this requires integration and is easier today. A big part of the margin problem was not the Amiga at all but the pivot to PC clones right before the bottom fell out of the PC market in the early 1990s. Dave Haynie joked that CBM sold their PC compatibles for less than they could make them for which is likely true at some point. The commodity PC clone business is another very competitive low margin business that should have been sold when it still had some value.

Kronos Quote:

A1200 did not only cost more to make it was also low end from day one as it was at least 2 years late.

Being late is a problem. Pricing is often front loaded to recover development and startup costs but a late introduction can mean lower unit sales at a less than competitive price and/or lower profit margins at a more competitive price. The Motorola 68040 shared the same fate by being over a year late but AGA was at least as late. Just a year earlier launch for the Amiga 1200 and CD32 may have saved CBM. Avoid Bill Sydnes and the Amiga 600 and 1000jr wasted development and dead inventory and CBM finances may look salvageable to investors. The fat exec salaries should have been the first thing cut too.

Kronos Quote:

"Fixing C=" in a plausible way would mean going back to before the bought Amiga. Every plausible fix at that point would have resulted in them not needing to buy Amiga, so unless you wanted and gray ST1200 the version we got was the best possible history.

There wasn't much hope for CBM even though they technically had everything needed to bring the Amiga to market. Jack Tramiel was part of the problem before Irving Gould took control. His reputation with suppliers was so bad that it carried over long after he left, to his old CBM and new Atari business. His Nepotism was as bad as Irving's personal jet use of the CBM jet. Jack was better at some things but every bit as flawed as Irving. I can't imagine him being any more successful.

Last edited by matthey on 23-Jul-2024 at 11:35 PM.

@Kronos

Quote:

Kronos wrote: @Hammer Yeah still adding up running numbers and some guy bragging about numbers while he already knew C= was defunct.....

Being near defunct is irrelevant to quoting sales numbers.

The last $9 million dollar loan is enough to build 100,000 complete CD32 which is $90 BOM.

Commodore is in excess of $116.5 million in debt. Under Mehdi Ali’s leadership, the company lost $374 million within 18 months.

Commodore UK was able to attract $25 million dollars from new investors and another $25 million from New Star Electronics.

Escam lied to New Star Electronics.

Last edited by Hammer on 24-Jul-2024 at 02:56 AM.

_________________
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@matthey

Quote:

ARM is another example of a fabless business started with a few employees on a shoestring budget that has proliferated and changed the world. There are few vertically integrated design+fab business today with Apple and Intel being among the few remaining while Intel's fab business has been struggling. AMD spun off their fab division in 2008 which became GlobalFoundries and they bought IBM's fab business in 2014. The trend for even large businesses is fabless.[

ARM has VLSI Technology Inc's support.

Apple is fab-less.

CSG (Commodore Semiconductor Group) evolved into GMT Microelectronics which survived until 2001. By 1999 GMT Microelectronics had $21 million in revenues and 183 employees working on the site.

1974 era EPA problem is a major issue for GMT. Should have relocated away from Pennsylvania.

Last edited by Hammer on 24-Jul-2024 at 06:08 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 24-Jul-2024 at 03:06 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 24-Jul-2024 at 02:59 AM.

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@Hammer

Quote:

Hammer wrote: The last $9 million dollar loan is enough to build 100,000 complete CD32 which is $90 BOM.

Or more likely barely enough to pay some bills delaying the inevitable (just like any other "big" bankruptcy).

And even if they could have used that money to build CD32, still doesn't mean they gonna sell fast, or with high enough margins to the boat afloat.

Quote:

Commodore UK was able to attract $25 million dollars from new investors and another $25 million from New Star Electronics. Escam lied to New Star Electronics.

"Attract" in this case means they kept listening to DP promising them the sky and when reality kicked in he ran home to mommy whining about how Petro is such a mean bully...
He was in way over his head and the fact that 30 years later he still isn't able to admit HIS OWN failure says more than anything else.

But again, what if.... so a DP controlled Neo-C= in 1995 50.000.000 in red without any product or even the contacts needed to get those products made from obsolete parts held hostage by overseas companies that got burned by C=.
No funds for any meaningful R&D and really no plan to do anything beyond what ESCOM did.

If you really think more AA systems was the right thing to do in 95 (some unsold stock making it into the 21st century says otherwise) than ESCOM was the best possible past even with them going down a year later.

_________________
- We don't need good ideas, we haven't run out on bad ones yet
- blame Canada

@Kronos

Quote:

But again, what if.... so a DP controlled Neo-C= in 1995 50.000.000 in red without any product or even the contacts needed to get those products made from obsolete parts held hostage by overseas companies that got burned by C=.

Why do you think they'd have $50million in debt? That's not how bankruptcies work.
The company was bust, the creditors would only get the money from the sale of the assets.

He certainly knew how to sell stuff so if they'd got things back in manufacturing and development restarted it could have gone well.
As a stop gap they could have added a new CPU or Akiko, maybe even a DSP to the A1200 while they were waiting for a new chip set to be ready.

_________________
Whyzzat?

@minator

DP had no money of his own but relied on external funding.

2x25.000.000 was the claim Hammer made, most of it would have gone for a successful bid.

-> 50.000.000 in red.

Quote:

He certainly knew how to sell stuff so if they'd got things back in manufacturing and development restarted it could have gone well. As a stop gap they could have added a new CPU or Akiko, maybe even a DSP to the A1200 while they were waiting for a new chip set to be ready.

- He had nothing to sell
- He (or anybody else at C= UK) had 0 experience in production
- He (or anybody else at C= UK) had 0 experience in development

Any redesign beyond the minor tweaks would have costed million neither ESCOM nor C= UK had.
A different CPU (really only viable by adding a CPU card in such short notice) or a obsolete chip as Akiko would have increased the BOM on a product with already razor thin margins.
Doing a new chipset was also a nogo, AAA had exactly 1 failed power-on test with C= so that would have been millions and at least 1 year to come up with HW that would have been "meh" in 94.

Even worse for a proper new chipset.

-> sticking with super custom HW was a deadend unless Amiga had been bought by someone with ultra deep pockets and already in that space.

_________________
- We don't need good ideas, we haven't run out on bad ones yet
- blame Canada

Kronos Quote:

DP had no money of his own but relied on external funding. 2x25.000.000 was the claim Hammer made, most of it would have gone for a successful bid. -> 50.000.000 in red.

You are way too pessimistic to make money. Yes, business requires risk but being too conservative is detrimental too. You are like someone who keeps their retirement in "safe" fixed income instruments being eaten away by inflation rather than investing in "risky" stocks.

Escom paid US$14 million for the assets of Commodore International in 1995. Had CBM UK bid against them, the price would have gone up but probably not to $50 million. As I recall, David raised enough money to not only buy the CBM assets but also fund operations until they could hopefully become profitable again. This was likely based on how profitable CBM UK was before CBM declared bankruptcy which is a rough estimate only. From my limited perspective, it sounds like David was being cautious. It would have been tempting to place a bid for $15-20 million even after losing the $25 million in funding but it would not have been conservative. Maybe with enough potential funding prospects it would have been worth a shot but there was not much time to raise money. Credit to David and CBM UK for being able to raise that kind of money which was a lot back then and no doubt base on CBM UK performance.

Kronos Quote:

He certainly knew how to sell stuff so if they'd got things back in manufacturing and development restarted it could have gone well. As a stop gap they could have added a new CPU or Akiko, maybe even a DSP to the A1200 while they were waiting for a new chip set to be ready.

The easiest way to upgrade the Amiga was with 68k CPUs and fast memory. CBM UK wanted to put accelerators in Amiga 1200s before CBM International died but was denied. The 68k CPUs were available because of embedded use for at least another decade and they were getting cheaper, especially for the more powerful 68040 and 68060. Memory prices were dropping all the time too. AGA at least was cheap and not a major bottleneck as there is some impressive 68060+AGA software today.

Kronos Quote:

- He had nothing to sell - He (or anybody else at C= UK) had 0 experience in production - He (or anybody else at C= UK) had 0 experience in development

I have more faith in CBM UK hiring people to do the technical side than CBM International hiring people to do the marketing. CBM International proved to be incompetent at the technical side too so CBM UK could do no worse. I have more faith in David to deliver products to the customer that they want instead of dead inventory like CBM half the time. David summed up the CBM disaster well with the following statement.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/cd32/951940-amiga-cd32/faqs/80552/a-short-history-of-the-cd32 Quote:

In the 12 years I worked for them they NEVER had a plan they simply stumbled from one crisis to the next and we found ourselves constantly putting out fires instead of directing all our energy into building a business.

No doubt David had plenty to learn but he was learning fast what not to do by CBM example.

Kronos Quote:

Any redesign beyond the minor tweaks would have costed million neither ESCOM nor C= UK had. A different CPU (really only viable by adding a CPU card in such short notice) or a obsolete chip as Akiko would have increased the BOM on a product with already razor thin margins. Doing a new chipset was also a nogo, AAA had exactly 1 failed power-on test with C= so that would have been millions and at least 1 year to come up with HW that would have been "meh" in 94. Even worse for a proper new chipset. -> sticking with super custom HW was a deadend unless Amiga had been bought by someone with ultra deep pockets and already in that space.

After the bankruptcy delays, AAA and Hombre were both dead end. It was ok because fat 2D chipsets and fixed point 3D were dead ends. Fabless chip design is reasonable where chunky is added and upgraded audio support is borrowed from AAA/Hombre. Now license a fp based 3D core like 3dfx Voodoo and you are somewhat competitive again (better quality 3D than PS1 and lower power 3D system than x86+3D). Then you license the old 68060@50MHz from Motorola/Freescale for a song, turn it into a SoC and clock it up. The in-order 68060 with semi-modern upgrades would still be viable today in the same way the in-order Coretex-A53 is more popular than more expensive and advanced cores (8-stage in-order superscalar pipeline was and still is very practical). It should be cheaper to do today. License the 68060 and upgrade to 3-4DMIPS/MHz, license a better 3D GPU than RPi like competition and create a 68k SoC. Introduce RPi like 68k based SBCs, microconsoles and wedge computers with nostalgic/retro design elements. It wouldn't take much to beat the crap emulation we have now. It's too bad the 68060 was kept from achieving the clock speeds it was designed for in the 1990s or we wouldn't have to deal with the emulation now. These Amiga IP squatters are much further behind the tech curve than CBM when they went bankrupt but they just won't give up. Business is pay to play and computers are the wrong business to avoid mass production. There is no risk in using emulation or 20+ year old silicon as failure is practically guaranteed. Sadly, failure is acceptable for PPC Amiga1 with deteriorating hardware competitiveness for over two decades and for so few customer that it makes the 68k Amiga fan base look huge, especially after THEA500 Mini success. Is the Amiga cursed with perpetually oblivious leadership/management?

Last edited by matthey on 25-Jul-2024 at 12:00 AM.

@matthey

Quote:

matthey wrote: I have more faith in CBM UK hiring people to do the technical side than CBM International hiring people to do the marketing. CBM International proved to be incompetent at the technical side too so CBM UK could do no worse. I have more faith in David to deliver products to the customer that they want instead of dead inventory like CBM half the time.

This is the essence of the missed opportunity.

DP understood sales, marketing, channels, inventory management, etc. He would've likely followed the 3 simple steps of purchasing a distressed business:

1. Get existing things (value chain) moving again.
2. Optimise the value chain.
3. Use new optimised business as security for new investment for new products/services*, or sell optimised business for 3x+ the purchasing price.

* If step 3 is new rounds of investment, then the business plan would no doubt include new engineering talent.

ESCOM were pretty much doing the same with AT. It's just that AT weren't much better at marketing than CBM, and it turned out ESCOM were slow to adapt to changing trends in supply chain management. And so the notion of the Amiga Curse was born.

While in late 1994 and through 1995, it didn't make much sense to us Amiga users to see the resurrection of A1200 and A4000T sales, there was still a market for those products. While DP may not have necessarily done those specific SKUs, C= UK would've had to release OS 3.x machines the reestablish the original value chain (step 1).

I think what ultimately limited AT GmbH, is that they were beholden to the parent ESCOM AG. Parent companies can impose certain "shackles" on subsidiaries, where private investors tend to be more open.

I wonder what C= UK's "Walker" moment would've looked like? And maybe in this upcoming book DP will get to tell us.

_________________
All the way, with 68k

@Kronos

Quote:

Or more likely barely enough to pay some bills delaying the inevitable (just like any other "big" bankruptcy). And even if they could have used that money to build CD32, still doesn't mean they gonna sell fast, or with high enough margins to the boat afloat.

David Pleasance has warned Mehdi Ali about CD32's lower profit margin when compared to A1200's "healthy profit margin".

CD32 has vacuumed A1200's production capacity and funds.

Mehdi Ali has force-launched CD32 in 1993.
Quote:

"Attract" in this case means they kept listening to DP promising them the sky and when reality kicked in he ran home to mommy whining about how Petro is such a mean bully... He was in way over his head and the fact that 30 years later he still isn't able to admit HIS OWN failure says more than anything else.

Sega's $5 million lifeline is enough to rescue NVIDIA's 1996 cashflow crunch.

Read https://www.yahoo.com/tech/nvidia-nearly-went-business-1996-151504041.html

NVIDIA has proven employee skills from Sun 3D GX workstation designs for RIVA 128's 1997 release. For the given money, personnel's skills are the important factor.

Escom went bust in July 1996.

Last edited by Hammer on 25-Jul-2024 at 09:15 AM.

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agami Quote:

This is the essence of the missed opportunity. DP understood sales, marketing, channels, inventory management, etc. He would've likely followed the 3 simple steps of purchasing a distressed business: 1. Get existing things (value chain) moving again. 2. Optimise the value chain. 3. Use new optimised business as security for new investment for new products/services*, or sell optimised business for 3x+ the purchasing price. * If step 3 is new rounds of investment, then the business plan would no doubt include new engineering talent.

That's was likely the idea. The only problem was that the hardware was years behind the tech curve before CBM went bankrupt and maybe another year because of the bankruptcy. They could make CPU and memory upgrades but they were more expensive than chipset upgrades. CBM UK was creative about increasing value with software packs though. The same trick worked for RGL and THEA500 Mini, at least for the UK market.

agami Quote:

ESCOM were pretty much doing the same with AT. It's just that AT weren't much better at marketing than CBM, and it turned out ESCOM were slow to adapt to changing trends in supply chain management. And so the notion of the Amiga Curse was born. While in late 1994 and through 1995, it didn't make much sense to us Amiga users to see the resurrection of A1200 and A4000T sales, there was still a market for those products. While DP may not have necessarily done those specific SKUs, C= UK would've had to release OS 3.x machines the reestablish the original value chain (step 1). I think what ultimately limited AT GmbH, is that they were beholden to the parent ESCOM AG. Parent companies can impose certain "shackles" on subsidiaries, where private investors tend to be more open. I wonder what C= UK's "Walker" moment would've looked like? And maybe in this upcoming book DP will get to tell us.

Escom/AT did a good job of choosing two valuable Amiga models and getting them back in production. They lacked the marketing prowess of Amiga UK though. Making the Amiga look like a Mac with Walker was unlikely to work. Amiga fans tended to care less about aesthetics and more about functionality. They tended to be poorer than most Mac users but they understood tech and value better than most computer users. The low end value market served by CBM and for a short time AT mostly went away until the RPi was introduced. The RPi is more of an Amiga successor than the high end but ultra low value Amiga1. Ironically, the RPi and its competition are displacing the Amiga1 with the PiStorm, RPi emulation boxes and A600GS (THEA500 Mini is similar but custom hardware). The RPi Foundation was created by 6 investors, one investor being RPi Limited CEO Eben Upton's wife, and has sold over 50 million units. Amiga is anything but produce semi-modern low end high value hardware though. Mass production is expensive but less risky because there is a chance of survival at least.

Hammer Quote:

David Pleasance has warned Mehdi Ali about CD32's lower profit margin when compared to A1200's "healthy profit margin". CD32 has vacuumed A1200's production capacity and funds. Mehdi Ali has force-launched CD32 in 1993.

The CD32 analysis is not as simple as comparing the profit margin to that of the Amiga 1200. The Amiga 1200 was introduced first and some of the one time startup costs were already payed for. The CD32 was newer and simpler. Costs may have been higher but I would expect the costs to drop quicker which would increase the profit margin if the price were held steady. CBM also created cash flow with reasonable $3/CD royalties. It's true that the lower profit margin CD32 may take some higher margin Amiga 1200 sales but they are enough different markets that I wouldn't be too worried about it without better data. The CD32 is a risk worth taking in my opinion. It substantially increases the installed AGA base, developers were getting on board even though most games were shovel ware, and the CD32 success was growing in the UK after a price drop and with game bundles. It was introduced at too high of price in my opinion but CBM had limited money to produce a limited number of CD32 units. The reduced cost CD32 was also becoming an embedded target that was easier to use than the Amiga 1200.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/cd32/951940-amiga-cd32/faqs/80552/a-short-history-of-the-cd32 Quote:

Despite failing to become popular as a games console, the music and video abilities of the CD32 tuned out to be very useful. This meant that the CD32 was reborn in many different forms around the world. 109 machines were used to interact exhibits at the London Transport Museum. An Italian company used the CD32 as a basis for an arcade machine called the CUBO CD32 in 1995. The slot machine manufacture StarGames used the CD32 motherboard to run some of its gambling machines. In the late 90s the Wall Street Institute used the CD32 as an educational device in their learning centers. Some driving centers in Canada even used the CD32 to run video reaction tests for drivers license applications.

With all that said in favor of the CD32, it needed to quickly be upgraded to 68EC030+AA+@28MHz and then an integrated 3D GPU added to stay competitive. It's easy to say it stood no chance against the PS1 but the PS1 had no compatibility with any existing hardware and few games at launch so it was slow to get started in 1995 outside of Japan. The Saturn initially sold better than the PS1 but it was not compatible with the Genesis that hit the hardware. By having a slim AmigaOS and minimalist 2D hardware, the Amiga had the opportunity to retain Amiga compatibility while adding 3D. Could CBM leverage this advantage? Probably not considering AA+ was still a paper spec when they went bankrupt. It was probably too late to bring back the CD32 after the bankruptcy delay too. The CD32 was popular in the UK and almost worked though which is pretty good considering how little CBM spent on the launch and marketing compared to Japanese rivals. It would have taken deeper pockets than CBM had at the time to fully exploit the opening and become a major console player. The CD32 may have survived for some time as a budget console/microconsole and for embedded use due to the low CD disc royalties and the hardware being less locked down. This is where consoles today miss the boat and reduce their value even as they move up in price closer to desktop specs.

@matthey

Quote:

The CD32 analysis is not as simple as comparing the profit margin to that of the Amiga 1200. The Amiga 1200 was introduced first and some of the one time startup costs were already payed for. The CD32 was newer and simpler. Costs may have been higher but I would expect the costs to drop quicker which would increase the profit margin if the price were held steady. CBM also created cash flow with reasonable $3/CD royalties.

From Commodore the Inside Story - The Untold Tale of a Computer Giant by David John Pleasance, ex-Commodore UK MD.

Quote:

Meanwhile our UK-based Consumer Products business was in a very healthy position – we had taken massive orders for the Amiga 1200, scheduled for specific volume deliveries from September through to Christmas from all the major retailers. It was a profitable product with a healthy margin for Commodore at both corporate head office and in the UK. Imagine my dismay at being instructed by Mehdi Ali that the UK – and worldwide – release of the CD32 was being brought forward to September, in the misguided belief that Commodore would reap the rewards of sales of both products, bringing in much needed cash flow and additional revenues over the Christmas period. Believe me, I argued and argued with him that this was entirely the wrong strategy for two main reasons. Firstly, once the launch of the CD32 was announced, consumers would opt for this new product and cancel their plans to buy the Amiga 1200, which was of course a healthy, profit-making product. (skip section)

Use CD32's chip components as a desktop wedge Amiga CD-ROM computer would have preserve A1200's higher asking price.

I prefer an integrated CD-ROM drive with a modified A1200 wedge case i.e. A1200CD. The idea is to recycle the integrated 3.5 inch floppy drive idea for CD-ROM drive generation.

Game console business requires strict cost controls, alternative revenues generating business model (e.g. game release tax) and strong exclusive games library.

Last edited by Hammer on 26-Jul-2024 at 02:56 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 26-Jul-2024 at 02:46 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 26-Jul-2024 at 02:44 AM.

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