Of course, and you've completely missed the main point: while a small cadre of geeky computer techies debated over system specs that no one else cared about, the vast majority of gamers were embracing the simple, fun, classic games of the NES/Famicom. And I think we all know how that turned out.

MikeB said: All the major TV networks used Amigas, video editing, titling, overlays, channel guides, etc, etc. Ironically even Atari used Amigas in the development of their Atari Lynx handheld.

 Atari didnt develop the Lynx.

Development for that was done by Epyx but they lacked the funds to bring it to market so they sold the rights to Atari.

Why?

In Europe the Amiga was very popular, capturing a majority of the computer market. In some markets such as Sweden up to 90% market share, even Commodore bankrupted due to their PC branch and legal issues in the states, Amiga had a majority market share of the CD format software markets in Europe, more sales than PC CDROM, CD-i and Sega CD all combined.

It was just in the US where the NES was very popular. But look at those games on the Amiga, even if I lived in the US I wouldn't want to trade an Amiga for a NES just because a majority of gamers owned one. The same if I owned a Ferrari, I wouldn't have wanted to trade it for a deux chevaux just because more people owned one.

The Amiga 500 has far more games than the NES ever did (I can't think of one game which had a better version on the NES, IMO apart from Mario games the quality was ranging pretty much from so so, to amazingly awful really), the Public Domain/Shareware/Freeware games market started developing here, as well as the glory years of the demoscene was on the Amiga.

what's this Amiga exactly ???

@ darklich12

http://youtube.com/watch?v=9mg6wrYCT9Q (watch this for fun, a tribute)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=yckH20ngY4Y (early cheesy Amiga 1000 commercial)

The Amiga was more like a 'computer' than a 'console'. It was competing with the IBM PC... and lost. No computer since the PC has quite as successful - we still use MS-DOS/Windows derived systems, x86 CPUs and for some reason PS/2 ports.

 i can't see it now cuz iam at work .. when i return back to may house i will see it .. thnx anyway. 

Where's the MSX love? You'd think it'd be on people's minds with MGS4 having just come out.

For games and multi-media uses the Amiga beat the PC on the market, but mainly in Europe also because TVs were better specced there (not per se requiring a monitor to be useful enough), because you couldn't really do any of that on a PC.

It wasn't until the release of Doom in December 1993, the PC became relevant and PC users en masse upgraded their PCs with the latest and greatest technology available for the PC at the time. The MS DOS and hardware were too limited. Commodore went out of business in 1994 due to US patent laws prevented them to introduce their Amiga CD32 game console for the US (already made launch stock remained at warehouses) and huge PC division losses the years before this. After this games like Grand Theft Auto moved over to the PC, but still some great games originated on the Amiga such as Team 17's bestseller Worms.

Some things which kept MS DOS PCs going on the consumer market:

- Although better equivalent software was available for other platforms, Lotus 1-2-3 and Word Perfect became standards on the work floor. People wanting to take their work back home would often buy a PC.

- IBM started out with very limited machines intended to mindless tasks in factories and easy tasks in the office, etc. Once the IBM clones arrived there were many different companies advertising their version of the PC. This kept the PC always in visibility for the consumer and allowed marketing from many different (often misinformative) angles.

- With the release of Doom, heavy upgrading by PC users followed and more consumers started to buy PCs for in the home, although the Amiga could be just as easily expanded with PC-like graphics and audio cards the base specs of the Amiga was high enough so that most Amiga users wouldn't upgrade their harddware just to play the latest and greatest FPS, people already had 1000s of games and software to pick from which all ran well on minimal hardware.