Commodore Amiga Computer Systems & Video Games
Released in 1985, the Commodore Amiga person computer was promoted by Commodore International as the intended successor of the Commodore 64.
Way ahead of its time, the first model of the Commodore Amiga, the Amiga 1000, was a beast of a machine, with the ability to display up to 4096 colours and output 8-bit stereo audio. It also came with a beast of a price-tag, retailing at $1295, and was not a huge financial success as a result, with people choosing to stick with the more affordable and well grounded Commodore 64.
It wasn't until the release of the low end and more affordable Commodore Amiga 500, that the Amiga's place as a personal computer gained footing amongst consumers. To many people's surprise (least of all Commodore), the Amiga also became a hugely popular gaming machine, with many renowned classics being exclusive to the machine at the time, such as Lemmings, Worms and Theme Park.
Unfortunately for the many gamers who poured their heart into the Amiga format, poor business decisions by Commodore saw the company and its personal computers die a quick mainstream death in the early 90's. The final nail in the coffin came in 1993, when Commodore released the Amiga CD32, the world's first 32-bit games machine. Despite outselling the Sega Mega-CD and the Philips CDi at retail, it wasn't enough to save Commodore from eventual bankruptcy in 1994, killing the format dead in its tracks barely seven months after launch.
With Commodore's bankruptcy, one of the most passionately supported gaming formats the industry has ever seen went with it, but its enthusiastic hobbyists kept the Amiga scene on life support well into the early 2000s.
