Hacker News Reader

I'm an Amiga diehard from the start but the industry caught up in a lot less than 10 years. Also, the amazing X68000 was a thing in Japan as of 1987.

View on HN

The X68000 was amazing, but it was also around double the price. Amiga A1000 was around $1300 in 1985, Sharp X68000 was around $2500 in 1987. The Amiga A500 was released in 1987 and was even cheaper than the A1000 for an equivalent spec.

If I'm paying double the price, of course I'd expect better performance, but Amigas gave great value for money between the mid 80s and early 90s.

Yes but the point of the article was simply that the tech was 10 years ahead of it's time, but it provably wasn't.

10 years ahead of it's time for affordable home computers. You have to take the target market into account. To use an analogy, most people accept that Gran Turismo on the PS1 has great graphics for it's time, despite releasing months after Scud Race on Sega Model 3 hardware, because it's accepted that what's impressive for a 70s/80s/90s console is not what's impressive for arcade hardware.

The X68000 was basically arcade-class hardware in a PC form factor, with a price to match. There are reasons why Capcom used X68000s as their dev machines for CPS1 games.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com