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None of the other 6502 machines could compete with Commodore in a price war because Commodore owned MOS technologies. The C64 was all custom chips, which is why
by zerohp 8y ago
None of the other 6502 machines could compete with Commodore in a price war because Commodore owned MOS technologies. The C64 was all custom chips, which is why it was much cheaper than other machines with similar capability. Apple may have been able to drop the price but they were never going to get down to VIC 20 and C64 prices.
Commodore failed to invest in R&D so by the time the AGA Amiga's came out they had to outsource the fabrication and it ballooned their costs.
- protomyth 8y agoCommodore had all sorts of problems particularly after Tramiel left / ousted. Atari actually kept within range of the 8-bit pricing of Commodore and had a much better set of custom chips. Apple might have never been able to get to C64 prices but they sure could have dropped enough to get well clear of IBM. Regardless, its was Commodore's market share to lose not Apple's.
- rpiguy 8y agoThe Atari had: An inferior sound chip Bigger pallets but with fewer colors per cell Tiny sprites If anything the custom chips of the C64 and the Atari 8-bit line are about equal, each taking different trade offs.