User avatar
rpiguy9907

Posted Tue Jul 09, 2019 2:17 pm

Zippy Zapp wrote:
rpiguy9907 wrote: Well if you accept the numbers in that article, then the figure of 22m is likely the sales figures for the Commodore 64, Commodore 128, and all Commodore Amigas (C128 and Amiga sold about 5M each).

The figure of 30M may have referred to all computers produced by Commodore (22m above plus the VIC-20, PET, Plus/4, and PC-Series)
I think it is closer to 17 - 20 million for the C64 alone. The Amiga 500 *alone* sold near 6 Million. C128 was close to 6 million too. Those that worked at Commodore, including Jack Tramiel have stated that it was close to 22 million units sold for the C64. I think I would believe that versus some of the theories that are floating around about serial numbers, etc.
Where does that 6M Amiga 500s figure come from? I’ve never heard it and the only first hand source for Commodore Amiga sales that I know of came from Commodore UK which reported 5M for all Amigas total world wide, which I am inclined to believe given their rarity.

I trust the attempts at empirical numbers derived from multiple sources, serial numbers, stock reports, print articles, etc. more than I trust the memories of Commodorians. How would Tramiel have even known total C64 sales he left the company in 1984 - did Commodore send him courtesy reports on sales numbers for the next 8 years? Bil Herd was an engineer, not involved in c64 production or sales, and was in full animal mode those days, etc.

User avatar
JazzyTech

Posted Fri Feb 21, 2020 12:33 am

Reading this thread about the actual sales numbers has been very interesting. Although I'm an American, I was living in Germany from the late 80s until the early 2000s. The A500 was available in quite a few stores, along with NES, AtariST, and, of course PC and variants. It was rare to see the A2000 though. Of ten or so people I would meet it seemed that at least 4 of them owned an Amiga.
Since my work required a lot of video/3D I needed a fast machine. When the A3000 became available it took some time for me to actually find someone who could acquire it for me. It was very much a niche market for such a machine in Germany at the time.
I knew a lot of people that had Commodores throughout the 90s, and most were A500s or A1200s. Oddly towards the late 90s the A4000 (at least among my friends) became a popular choice; but I suppose that's due to the fact that most of them needed some speed for rendering. I took the 060/PPC route with my A3000.

My experience isn't necessarily typical in terms of numbers and sales or saturation; just what I experienced during my time there.

User avatar
max_webster

Posted Fri Jan 01, 2021 4:37 pm

Anecdote time from me. I worked at a Commodore dealer in Canada, selling C-64s and Amigas. There was a local base of A1000 owners (including me). From my point of view, the progression through A2000, A1200, A500, etc. messed up the sales potential. There were so many instances of "oh this peripheral doesn't work because Commodore changed the port size or pins". Or the A2000 being underwhelming in terms of PC compatibility. Nobody in the core group of Amiga owners was ever incented to upgrade, or buy a second machine. Any local organization (like a video production shop at the university) that had tried to standardize on Amiga and bought multiple A1000s later switched hardware platforms altogether. My big regret is not convincing the university computer lab to put in a big Amiga order. I wound up doing university work as a research assistant using Ataris. (Buying Amiga would have been a much more future-proof decision! :-)

I think back to how the C-64 was a money-spinner with easy to grasp price points. "Just want to play games? That'll be $800. Have a kid who needs to do homework? That's $1000." The Amiga sales process had points where you almost had to apologize for how expensive the monitor was, or you had to walk someone through all the different kinds of 3rd-party printers and how you might hook them up. Thinking back, I'm curious if selling Commodore-branded monitors, printers, etc. helped or hurt the C-64 and Amiga profit margins. I know there were Christmases when we lost sales because there were X computers in stock but fewer than X monitors. In that respect, Amigas were harder to hook up to any non-premium video display. While the PCs were running their dull spreadsheets etc. on little amber or green screens.

User avatar
DiscreetFX

Posted Tue Dec 21, 2021 9:22 pm

Shot97 wrote:
Tue Apr 12, 2016 7:26 pm
There was still more "love" being put into the OCS games converting them than there was for AGA stuff. People wanted that killer app... It never came.
AGA had a killer App, it’s called the Video Toaster 4000.





Return to “The Lounge”